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 towards the United States. He was greeted by bicycle clubs, most prominently the local chapter of the League of American Wheelmen in Laramie, Wyoming. He reached Boston after 3700 miles on wagon trails, railroad ways, canal towpaths and public roads, 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 and was again greeted by bicycle fans. He continued his journey around the world through England, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary (where he picked up a temporary cycling companion with whom he shared no language), Slavonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Rumelia, Turkey. In Constantinople he rested among people who had heard of America, refitted with spare spokes, tires and other parts and a better pistol, 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.

Having been refused permission to travel through Siberia, he set off on March 10, 1886 through Afghanistan where he was expelled by local authorities. He took a Russian steamer across the Caspian to Baku; rail to Batoum; steamer to Constantinople and India which he bicycled across, noting that the Grand Trunk Road was excellent wheeling and free from bandits. His descriptions of life in India, however, suffer from being based on the opinions of experts rather than his own. Another steamer brought him from Calcutta to Hong Kong and southern China. He pedalled to eastern China, escaped rioters who were angry over a war with the French, and took a steamer to Japan. The bicycle part of his journey around the world ends December 17, 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 poorly edited book, Around the World on a Bicycle currently available in a single-volume paperback and publicly available at a number of digital library projects.

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: