The first RTW cycle

[nsew]

He packed his handlebar bag with socks, a spare shirt, a raincoat that doubled as tent and bedroll, and a pocket revolver (described as a "bull-dog revolver", perhaps a British Bull Dog revolver) and left San Francisco at 8 o'clock on 22 April 1884.

In Constantinople he rested among people who had heard of America, refitted with spare spokes, tires and other parts and a better pistol (a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson), waited for reports of banditry to subside, and then pedalled off through Anatolia, Armenia, Kurdistan, Iraq and Iran.

[Mike Sales]

Here are a couple of accounts of early world loops.

https://www.biblio.com/round-the-world-on-a-wheel-by-fraser-john-foster/work/746172

https://www.bicycle-and-bikes.com/history-of-bicycles/tomas-stevens-penny-farthing/

Thomas Stevens seems to have been the first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Stevens_(cyclist)

[nsew]

Fosters book preface
“We took this trip round the world on bicycles because we are more or less conceited, like to be talked about, and see our names in the newspapers. We were stoned by the Mohammedans because they alleged we were Christians, and we were pelted with mud in China because the Celestials were certain we were devils.

We slept in wet clothes, subsisted on eggs, went hungry, and were enforced teetotalers. We had small-pox, fever, and other ailments. There were less than a dozen fights with Chinese mobs. We never shaved for five months, and only occasionally washed. Our adventures therefore were of a humdrum sort. If only one of us had been killed, or if we had ridden back into London each minus a limb, some excitement would have been caused. As it was we came home quietly.”

Dicks.

[Mike Sales]

I have a memory of an illustration of a cyclist crossing one of those western USA trestle railway bridges. A train is using it and he has had to climb below the tracks on a trestle, dangling his bike, an ordinary, below him in one hand! Presumably Stevens.

[nsew]

Stevens. Adventure Cyclist described him as "a man of medium height, wearing an oversized blue flannel shirt over blue overalls, which were tucked into a pair of leggings at the knee [and] tanned ' as a nut.'A mustache protruded from his face."[4] It said: "A two-year stint in a Wyoming railroad mill ended when he was run out of town after it became known that he was importing British labourers in exchange for part of their salaries. He later found work in a Colorado mine where he came up with the idea of riding a bicycle across the country."[4]

[nsew]

I have a memory of an illustration of a cyclist crossing one of those western USA trestle railway bridges. A train is using it and he has had to climb below the tracks on a trestle, dangling his bike, an ordinary, below him in one hand! Presumably Stevens.

Oddly imaginable.

[Mike Sales]

I have a memory of an illustration of a cyclist crossing one of those western USA trestle railway bridges. A train is using it and he has had to climb below the tracks on a trestle, dangling his bike, an ordinary, below him in one hand! Presumably Stevens.

Oddly imaginable.

Indeed, but I don't think I imagined it.

[nsew]

I have a memory of an illustration of a cyclist crossing one of those western USA trestle railway bridges. A train is using it and he has had to climb below the tracks on a trestle, dangling his bike, an ordinary, below him in one hand! Presumably Stevens.

Oddly imaginable.

Indeed, but I don't think I imagined it.

No, i meant from a touring cyclists perspective.

[nsew]

Harper's reported: "More than one-third of the route followed by Mr. Stevens had to be walked. Eighty-three and a half days of actual travel and twenty days' stoppage for wet weather, etc., made one hundred and three and a half days occupied in reaching Boston, the distance by wagon-road being about 3,700 miles. He followed the old California trail most of the way across the plains and mountains, astonishing the Indians, and meeting with many strange adventures."[1]

[Sid Aluminium]

Thomas Stevens' own account of his around-the-world ride (1884-1886), 'Around the World on a Bicycle', is still in print and an engaging 500 page read, you know, if you're sitting around with nothing to do for a couple of weeks.

The young man experiences personal growth during his two-year journey, and the reader can feel that in Stevens' observations and attitudes.

As was common for both Victorian gentlemen & young men of American's West, he traveled armed. At the start of his journey, he entertained himself with firing at wildlife until the day he actually hit and killed a small animal. He felt so miserable about this he abandoned the practice. As his journey proceeds into Asia where the bicycle is unknown and he is the first Westerner ever seen, he is received with far from universal hospitality and he displays an uncanny knack for knowing when to hide his pistol, when to brandish it and when to fire a warning shot in the air.

Fun fact: Stevens wore a helmet and credits it with saving him from injury.

Stevens' Columbia bicycle was put on display by the Columbia company until it was turned in on a scrap metal drive during WWII.

The Shah of Iran asks Stevens if he is British or American. Stevens does not relate his answer. His nationality is conveniently fluid to aid his travels, but while his attitudes and writing style strikes me as American, after some ten years of adventure he took up residence in England and remained comfortably British for the rest of his days.

[Sid Aluminium]

A fascinating, thrilling and ultimately tragic around-the-world cycling story is that of Frank Lenz (book: The Lost Cyclist, Hirlihy). Lenz was a photographer as well as a cyclist and he packed along a massive 1890s field camera. His surviving photographs still convey wonder and transport the viewer across time and place.

[nsew]

I think the book is available as a free read

https://www.wiredforadventure.com/story ... -farthing/

“Thomas was born in 1854 in Berkhamsted near London. A restless character with a hunger for adventure, he left his parents at 17 and went to America. He tried a variety of jobs in the American West, and in San Francisco learnt to ride a bicycle, which gave him an idea…”

29yrs when he set out from San Francisco. Later commissioned to find the explorer Stanley, who’d found Livngstone, who’d gone missing. Took him 6 months.

[mjr]

The book is available for download on the Project Gutenberg website.