Around The World On A Bicycle, Thomas Stevens (1885) Century Hutchinson (1988 edition) 0 7126 1917 8 409pp £5.95 An account of the first globe-encircling cycle ride that is so lively and fresh that its vintage is quickly forgotten

Stevens' ride was remarkable. At a time when few people had circumnavigated the world by any means, he did so on a penny farthing. True, it was new technology at the time of his ride, but he crossed countries with few made roads, and most of his human encounters were with people who had never seen a bicycle of any kind before in their lives.

His ride started out in California - Stevens was born and grew up in Hertfordshire, before moving to the US at the age of 18 in 1872. He crossed the United States, travelling east; sailed to Liverpool, and from there set off for Istanbul. From there, he carried on to Afghanistan, before looping back to Cairo, sailing back to Karachi, crossing India, sailing from Calcutta to Hong Kong and then finishing his ride across China and Japan. A journalist by trade, his dispatches from his daily rides have an immediate quality to which many of today's long-distance cyclists could aspire.

His encounters en route are no less remarkable than his journey - the Shah of Persia, for example, demands a demonstration of Stevens' remarkable vehicle.

Here he is somewhere in eastern Turkey.

"Sunrise on the following morning finds me wheeling eastward from the salt quarry over a trail well worn by salt caravans to Yuzgat; the road leads for some distance down to a grassy valley, covered with the flocks of the several Koordish camps round about; the wild herdsmen come galloping from all directions across the valley toward me, their uncivilised garb and long swords giving them more the appearance of a ferocious gang of cut-throats advancing to the attack, than shepherds. Hitherto no one seemed in any way inclined to attack me; I have almost wished that someone would undertake a little devilment of some kind, for the sake of livening things up a little, and making my narrative more stirring; after venturing everything, I have so far nothing to tell but a story of being everywhere treated with the greatest consideration, and much of the time even petted."

As he rode, Stevens sent dispatches to Outing magazine, for whom he was 'special correspondent' and Harpers magazine. Inevitably, the two volume book that initially followed his journey (now generally issued as a single volume), was a compilation of his articles. It makes them satisfactorily self-contained pieces - but means that there is not quite so much connective narrative running through the book as one might hope for in such a long work.

There is also much detail omitted, that one would love to know. How did he finance his journey? What did he carry with him? For how long did he go without contact with his supporters at home? It is quite understandable that he did not include such details - it would more probably be the job of a biography to fill in the gaps, but you are left wondering.

Nonetheless, even 130 years after it first appeared, Around The World On A Bicycle is the equal - if not the better - of any account of the ride that has appeared subsequently. For that reason alone, it should be any reader's starting point in circumnavigatory literature.

PS Nov 09

Incidentally, I notice that single volume editions are rather rarer now than they used to me - most publishers offer the book in the original two volumes now.

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