Thomas Stevens (cyclist)

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Thomas Stevens (December 24, 1854, Berkhamsted, Herts, England - 1935) was the first person to circle the globe by bicycle.

A voracious reader of travel literature, in 1872 Stevens left his parents' home and moved to the United States where he held a number of assorted jobs before becoming a miner in Colorado. In 1884 he acquired a black-enameled Columbia 50-inch Standard model penny-farthing with nickel-plated wheels built by the Pope Manufacturing Company of Chicago. Stevens struck out across the country, carrying in his handlebar bag: socks, a spare shirt, a slicker that doubled as tent and bedroll, and a 38 Smith & Wesson. Leaving San Francisco at 8 o'clock on April 22, 1884, he traveled eastward, reaching Boston after 3700 wagon trail miles, to complete the first transcontinental bicycle ride on August 4, 1884.

As reported in Harper's: "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."

Passing the winter in New York, Stevens contributed sketches of his transcontinental trip to Outing Magazine. The Magazine made him a "Special Correspondent" and sent him on April 9, 1885 to Liverpool aboard the steamer The City of Chicago to continue his journey around the world through England, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, Armenia, and Iran, where he then waited out the winter in Teheran and was a guest of the Sultan. He set off on March 10, 1886 for Afghanistan, then Pakistan. He took a Russian steamer to Baku; rail to Batoum; steamer to Constantinople and India, then through to Hong Kong and Japan. After circling the globe, Stevens returned by steamer to San Francisco, on December 24, 1886. His itinerary accounts "DISTANCE ACTUALLY WHEELED, ABOUT 13,500 MILES".

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 book, Around the World on a Bicycle currently available in a single-volume paperback and publicly available from the Ibiblio digital library project.

The Pope Company preserved Stevens's bicycle until World War II, when it was donated to a scrap drive to support the war effort.

Thomas Stevens is buried at St Marylebone Cemetery in East Finchley, London.

His publications also include: