Monday, April 05, 2021

if you want to hear an interesting history podcast on an 1890's bike ride around the world, that a woman in Boston undertook, which was all publicity and fakery, I just found a cool podcast about Annie Londonderry

She DID actually bike about 7000 miles. But actually took a ship from port to port, for publicity interviews and to raise money, about 5000 dollars. 

THAT is actually astonishing. Made up an "around the world in 80 days" type bet - STORY, which never happened, used it to get sponsors, a free bike or two, and money. 

for the podcast:  https://www.iheart.com/podcast/stuff-you-missed-in-history-cl-21124503/episode/annie-londonderrys-dubious-bike-trip-around-60716456/



Initially, Kopchovsky cycled west to Chicago before reversing her route, apparently having realized that she would not be able to traverse the Great Plains before winter. On the verge of abandoning her trip, she cycled back east to New York. The bet did not specify how many miles Kopchovsky had to ride, and she made the most of this ambiguity, catching a steamer ship from New York to France, cycling across the country to Marseilles where she caught another ship to Alexandria before traveling to Yemen, then sailing to Sri Lanka and Singapore. From there she rode and sailed her way across Asia, claiming to have visited Russia and North Korea before cycling across Japan and sailing home from Yokohama. On March 23, 1894, she arrived back in the United States, and spent the next six months cycling eastward from San Francisco, reaching Chicago on September 12, 14 days ahead of schedule.

On her journey, Kopchovsky was reportedly nearly killed by a runaway horse and wagon in California, and she collided with a drove of pigs in Iowa, falling and breaking her wrist. A first-person account of the trip was published in the New York World on October 20, 1895

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