Thomas Stevens (cyclist)

bicycle Stevens, known as Tom, Tom went with a half-brother but without his parents and sisters in 1871 and the rest of the family followed two years later. They moved to Denver and then to San Francisco, where he learned to ride a bicycle. 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." 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." == Around the World ==

America In 1884 he acquired a black-enameled Columbia 50-inch 'Standard' penny-farthing with nickel-plated wheels, built by the Pope Manufacturing Company of Chicago. 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", probably a British Bull Dog revolver) and left San Francisco at 8 o'clock on 22 April 1884. From Sacramento, Stevens travelled through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. En route, he was greeted by members of local bicycle clubs, most prominently the president of a chapter of the League of American Wheelmen in Laramie, Wyoming. He had never seen North America east of the Mississippi before. Europe Stevens passed the winter in New York and contributed sketches of his transcontinental trip to Outing, a cycling magazine. It made him a special correspondent and sent him on the steamer City of Chicago to Liverpool. He landed there 10 days later, on 9 April 1885. It began raining within minutes. He rode, wearing a white military helmet through England, passing through Berkhamsted, where he had been born. He recorded that roads in England were better than in America. He took the ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe to cross to France and continued through Germany; Austria; Hungary, where he picked up a temporary cycling companion with whom he shared no language; Slavonia; Serbia; Bulgaria; Rumelia; and Turkey. 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, where he waited out the winter in Teheran as a guest of the Shah, Naser al-Din. Afghanistan Having been refused permission to travel through Siberia, he set off on 10 March 1886 through Afghanistan although its borders were closed to foreigners and its guards had a fierce reputation. Upon entering the country, Stevens was arrested. As guards took him to his place of detainment, he entertained them with a demonstration of his bicycle, pedalling far ahead of them until an officer caught up on horse and had him wait for the on-foot soldiers to catch up. He was kept in a villa where he was fed well and given new boots, soap and biscuits imported from England. A fine horse was kept in the garden aside his quarters that he might enjoy looking at. Finally ejected from Afghanistan, Stevens was accompanied back to Persia. Again, he was allowed to speed ahead of his captors so long as he stopped and waited for them occasionally. Eventually, however, the soldiers grew nervous and disassembled his bicycle, strapping the pieces to a packhorse, which later laid upon the larger wheel, breaking many spokes, the most severe damage the penny-farthing experienced upon the trip. Afghan gunsmiths drilled new holes and stretched new spokes. Some spokes remained subpar, though sufficient to complete the thousands of miles yet ahead. Asia He took a Russian steamer across the Caspian to Baku, a rail to Batoum, and a steamer to Constantinople and India. In the Red Sea his knowledge of mules was useful to the British Army. He cycled across India, noting that the weather was always hot and the Grand Trunk Road was excellent wheeling and free from bandits. Much of his description of life in India, however, suffers from being based on the opinions of experts rather than his own observations. Another steamer brought him from Calcutta to Hong Kong and southern China. He pedalled to eastern China, encountering great difficulty in asking directions in a language he couldn't pronounce. A Chinese official gave him refuge from rioters who were angry over a war with the French. From the coast he took a steamer to Japan, where he delighted in the calm of that country. The bicycle part of his journey around the world ends 17 December 1886, at Yokohama. His itinerary accounts "DISTANCE ACTUALLY WHEELED, ABOUT 13,500 MILES". Stevens returned by steamer to San Francisco, in January 1887. Stevens' travels through Japan were reported in the Jijishinpou newspaper. Along the way, Stevens sent a series of letters to ''Harper's Magazine detailing his experiences and later collected those experiences into a two-volume book of 1,000 pages, Around the World on a Bicycle'', which is available in a single-volume paperback and publicly available at digital library projects. The price of an original has been estimated at between US$300 and US$400. The Pope Company preserved Stevens's bicycle until World War II, when it was donated to a scrap drive to support the war effort. == The search for Stanley ==

The New York World asked Thomas in 1888 to join its search in East Africa for the explorer Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley had travelled up the Congo but a year and a half had passed without news. Stevens called it "a grand opportunity; the one chance, mayhap, of a lifetime, to spring into fame on the stage of African exploit. How would I Found Stanley look in the libraries with I Found Livingstone?" Stevens left New York by ship on 5 January 1889. His instructions, he said, were: : Go to Zanzibar. Investigate the state of affairs there. Let us know the truth about the troubles between the Germans and the Arabs. See what is to be seen of the slave trade. Find out all you can about Stanley and Emin Pasha, and, if necessary or advisable, organise an expedition and penetrate the interior for reliable news of the Emin Pasha Relief expedition. Spare no expense in carrying out the main object of the enterprise, but at the same time don't throw money away recklessly. Stevens led a six-month expedition, writing for the newspaper of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and hunting big game. He found Stanley's camp in a race with the rival New York Herald and wrote his memoir, Scouting for Stanley in East Africa. It concluded: : By the end of February 1890, I was again in New York. I had been gone fourteen months. I had not 'found Stanley,' as Stanley had found Livingstone in 1871; the circumstances were altogether different. I had, however, gratified a pardonable journalistic ambition in being the first correspondent to reach him and to give him news of the world, after his long period of African darkness. That I had done this under most trying conditions, Mr. Stanley fully appreciated; and warmly reciprocated by showing me every courtesy in his power, on the march to the coast, in Zanzibar, and in Egypt. Stevens then reported from Russia, sailed the rivers of Europe, and investigated miracles claimed by Indian ascetics. His conclusions that "the stories of travelers, from Marco Polo to the latest witness of Indian miracles ... are quite true" were greeted with scepticism and his career faltered. A planned tour of London with his Indian photographs fell through. == Return to England ==

Stevens returned to England around 1895 • Wild Pea-Fowls in British India, St Nicholas Magazine September 1888 • Some Asiatic Dogs, St Nicholas Magazine February 1890 • African River and Lake Systems, Scribner's Magazine, September 1890 • Through Russia on a Mustang, Cassell Publishing Company, New York, 1891 • Bicycling, Lippincott's Magazine (V49) May, 1892 • Across Europe with a Petroleum Launch (From the German Ocean to the Black Sea), Outing Magazine April 1892-September 1892 • Babes of the Empire, London: William Heinemann, 1902 == See also ==