by The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer;His Mysterious Disappearance
For Lenz, however, the aftertaste was bitter. Although the Bulletin insisted that he had "covered himself in glory" and would have won had he been "better coached," he felt only the pangs of failure and betrayal. Aggravating his misery, the package he had sent from Erie, containing about $60 worth of valuables, failed to appear, leaving him without a change of clothing, a coat, or a watch. He found himself in the humiliating position of having to borrow money from the disloyal Bankers, of all people, so he could pay for new clothes and a night in a hotel room.
Fortunately, Lenz enjoyed a much-needed pick-me-up the following morning when he examined the historic bicycles on display at the industrial exhibition. He stood mesmerized before the "velocipede" of Pierre Lallement, the oldest bicycle in existence, dating back to 1865. Here was the ingenious breakthrough that had given rise to the magnificent high-wheeler. As crude as this vehicle was, it had established the surprising principle that a slender vehicle on two wheels could be steadily and continuously propelled by means of the cranks protruding from its front hub.
Ironically, given its relatively low profile, the quaint relic more closely resembled the latest Rover safety than the ordinary it had spawned. Perhaps Lallement had the right configuration after all, Lenz mused. An English writer had recently predicted that the ordinary "would soon be relegated to the place where all obsolete machines go." Of course, not everyone accepted this startling prognosis. Retorted Bicycling World, "The Ordinary will never be an obsolete pattern; it has far too many splendid qualities for that."
Thanks to his profuse reading of cycling literature, Lenz was well aware of Lallement's personal saga. In July 1863, the Frenchman completed a bicycle prototype in the Parisian workshop where he built baby carriages and carts. After mastering his new steed in a long corridor, he rode it along the boulevards, to the astonishment of onlookers. Two years later, in search of greater opportunity to exploit his invention, he left Paris for New York, toting the makings for an improved machine—this very bicycle.
Lallement settled in Ansonia, Connecticut, where, in the fall of 1865, he made the first bicycle ride on American soil. The following spring he rode his creation around the New Haven green. His curious gyrations attracted an investor, and the two secured the world's first patent describing a basic bicycle. But the hapless pair failed to enlist a manufacturer, and a dejected Lallement retreated to France, unaware that a velocipede craze had already erupted there in his absence. It would soon spread around the world, sparking high hopes that the long-coveted practical mechanical horse was at last at hand.
A mere toddler in early 1869 when the great velocipede craze exploded, Lenz had been too young to remember that brief episode. Indeed, the vehicle quickly lost favor once it became painfully apparent that it was not about to serve as the "people's nag" anytime soon. Nearly a decade would pass before the ordinary, developed primarily in France and England, partially filled its void. Unlike the discredited "boneshaker," the new bicycle made no practical or popular pretensions. It offered a recreational ride, pure and simple, to young, athletic males. Still, it validated the principle of the bicycle and opened a promising path for development.
Lallement himself made little from his patent, having sold it to an American maker at the peak of the craze for a fraction of its worth. Years later the patent wound up in the hands of Albert Pope, who used it as the cornerstone to a lucrative monopoly controlling domestic high-wheel production. In 1888, a few years after his patent expired, Lallement himself entered Pope's employ and was now working as a lowly mechanic in Pope's elegant Boston headquarters on Columbus Avenue—further proof, Lenz concluded, that the inventor himself rarely profits from his audacity and sweat. Lenz, who took great pride in his own mechanical ingenuity, hoped someday to meet the reclusive Frenchman.
Even more intriguing to Lenz was the nickel-plated Columbia Expert, reminiscent of his own first bicycle. It belonged to his idol, Thomas Stevens, the world-famous "globe girdler." Between 1884 and 1887, Stevens had ridden and trundled his way across three continents, covering about 13,500 miles in all. After riding from San Francisco to Boston, Stevens received the bicycle on display from Albert Pope himself and then rode it across Europe and Asia.
Lenz had eagerly devoured Stevens's firsthand accounts published in Outing, a monthly dedicated to sports and travel. The Pittsburgher knew all about Stevens's harrowing adventures in distant and exotic lands, his joyful encounters with foreign dignitaries, missionaries, and fellow wheelmen, and his narrow escapes from hostile men, beasts, and elements. In fact, while riding in the countryside, the young clerk would often imagine himself as Stevens, plunging into a thick Indian jungle in search of the next thrilling adventure.
Lenz simply could not fathom how any pursuit could be more exciting or satisfying than touring the world on a bicycle. Life post-tour would not be bad either, he surmised. Stevens was about to release a two-volume book set entitled Around the World on a Bicycle, and he was in high demand as a travel writer and lecturer, making appearances across the country. Anytime he wanted to embark on a new adventure he could afford to do so. Certainly, Lenz would rather be a famous cycle tourist than a miserable bookkeeper, toiling his life away in the bowels of a dingy factory, juggling meaningless figures for a callous boss. If only he, too, could engineer such an envious arrangement, he would be off in a flash.
Shortly after Lenz returned to Pittsburgh, his lost package miraculously surfaced. As it turned out, it had never left Erie, owing to a faulty address. His elation over the return of his possessions quickly dissipated, however, when the ugly Banker affair spilled into the press. A well-meaning journalist blasted the Bankers for their failure to help out their own club mate, "a good man who is honest in his riding." The reporter alleged that A. C. Banker had even admitted that he would have helped Lenz had the latter been riding a Victor, the make the Bankers rode and sold.
Banker angrily denied the charge. Partial to the Victor, he insisted that he had merely jokingly suggested to Lenz that he would have prevailed had he been riding one, given its superior quality. In no way did he mean to insinuate that he had withheld assistance on account of Lenz's mount. Banker explained that he and his brother were unavailable simply because they were scheduled to race the next day and could not risk tiring or injuring themselves. He added that they had done all they could for Lenz, taking care of him on the fairgrounds and spotting him cash, though "not one word of thanks was vouchsafed by the object of our solicitude."
Lenz did his best to put the Banker affair and the Erie debacle behind him. Two weeks after that bitter disappointment, he entered another cycling contest in his hometown. His preparation, however, was lax. In the two-mile state championship, he finished behind both Banker brothers. In the one-mile open for amateurs, won by the reigning national champion, William W. Windle of Millbury, Massachusetts, Lenz again finished third. Although Lenz's performances were eminently respectable given the competition, they could not mask his waning enthusiasm for competitive cycling.
To be sure, Lenz still loved attention. And he knew he could hold his own with the very best on either the track or the road. Yet he always seemed to finish second-best. Perhaps he could redouble his efforts and break through to the top. But what future did racing hold for him anyway? Training was hard and time-consuming, the opportunities for glory were limited, and the material rewards were meager. Even if he became a professional, he could hardly expect to make a decent living from racing alone. Perhaps touring was his true calling after all. He loved to ride at his own pace, taking in the scenery, visiting distant cities, and meeting new people.
As the winter of 1888 set in, Lenz began to think more seriously about traveling full-time on his bicycle. If he could just persuade a publisher to send him on a world tour, he could indulge in his favorite pastime while still enjoying the respect and admiration of his peers—indeed, of the public at large. Of course, he knew that his poor mother would bitterly object to the scheme. As it was, she constantly implored h
im to focus on getting ahead in the workplace. She begged him to settle down and find a good girl he might want to marry someday, but Lenz refused to relinquish the idea. However far-fetched it might be, he was convinced that it offered his best, if not only, chance to roam the earth while he was still a young, unattached man.
In the spring of 1889, Lenz discovered a second love, one that would cement his transition from racer to tourist and bring him a step closer to realizing his pipe dream. Reported the Bulletin that April: "Lenz created quite a sensation last Sunday when he appeared out Forbes street with a big camera case and tripod strapped on his back, which has the appearance of an elongated knap-sack." Noted the columnist: "The outfit makes a considerable load but Lenz thinks he is equal to the task."
The alluring concept of a roving photographer on wheels was as old as the bicycle itself. Twenty years earlier the Illustrated Photographer had gushed: "A practical two-wheeler would be a great boon to an amateur, as he could go about the country with great ease and pleasure to expose his plates." Of course, the primitive bicycle was hardly ready to facilitate that romantic notion. Nor was the camera. Photographers at that time typically employed a complicated "wet" process that involved immersing glass plates in an assortment of chemicals just before exposure—in the dark no less.
Even though a few daring pioneers did in fact manage to cart all the necessary equipment on primitive bicycles, the lengthy setup time precluded anything approaching snapshots. One man who was painfully aware of this drawback was the photographer who had attended the Gettysburg address in November 1863. Having just endured a two-hour monologue by Edward Everett of Massachusetts, he felt no pressing need to start preparing his plates when the president stepped forward. "We all supposed that Lincoln would make a rather long speech—half an hour at least," recalled one witness. Two minutes later, after reading three paragraphs, the concise chief marched away from the podium—leaving the crowd hushed and the idle photographer dumbfounded. "Were the scene to be re-enacted today," reassured a contemporary journal, "the photographer could easily secure a dozen or more exposures."
In fact, thanks to simpler "dry" processes and improved wheels, cycling photographers were no longer mere abstract concepts but rather proud members of a small but growing fraternity. After joining their ranks, Lenz routinely sped off into the countryside with his wooden Blair camera and glass plates, measuring five by eight inches. Whenever he spotted an attractive scene, he dismounted and took the shot within a matter of minutes.
In August 1889, Lenz again rode to New York City and back, but this time he brought along his photographic gear. The American Athlete recapped his adventure:
Lenz, recently returned from a three weeks' wheel tour, reports that he made about 150 exposures, photographing scenery of every description, towns, cities, street scenes, public buildings, bridges, canal streams—everything that looked at all inviting. His method, after making 12 exposures, was to unpack the holder, refill it with fresh plates, and ship the others home by express. The big pack which contained camera and plates created no end of comment. He was taken for a peddler, drummer, and [itinerant] quack doctor. The total mileage for the trip was 836 miles, and the weight of the knapsack that burdened his broad shoulders is exactly 35 pounds.
Lenz was confident that his world tour would become a reality once he had perfected his skills as an amateur photographer. Whereas Stevens had merely sketched the passing scenery from memory, using pen and paper, Lenz was prepared to record his trip in a plethora of stunning photographs. In the meantime, he resolved to spend his month-long summer vacations taking ever-longer and more ambitious tours on his wheel. Sooner or later, he firmly believed, he would be off on "a wider flight."
2. ATHENS, GREECE
January 4, 1891
ON A BRIGHT but cool Sunday morning, two young Americans hastened up the interminable stony steps to the Propylaea, the crumbling gateway to the Acropolis. For William Lewis Sachtleben and Thomas Gaskell Allen Jr., both steeped in the classics at Washington College in St. Louis, entering that bastion of antiquity was no ordinary treat. "Here are the soul-inspiring monuments of the first Republic that breathe freedom," Sachtleben effused in his diary that evening. "Even the least educated person would gaze on these remains with awe. How much more deeply must they impress those who have studied the life of the ancient Greeks, who have read of their heroic deeds in their own sweet language?"
Reaching the hallowed grounds, the awestruck pair stopped to gape at the Parthenon's gigantic marble columns rising gracefully into the radiant sky. The men pondered how glorious this temple must have been in the age of Pericles and wondered aloud how the ancients could have erected such a massive structure at these heights. "It is impossible to record my thoughts on first seeing the ruins," gushed Sachtleben. "I looked upon them with something akin to veneration. One has such opportunities so rarely in a lifetime that they are all absorbing when they do come."
After a leisurely stroll, the pair picked out a grassy spot by the temple of Nike Athena. There they spread out their picnic lunch, a feast of bread, figs, oranges, cakes, and sweets. They gazed at the metropolis below and the bustling port of Piraeus. In the distance, they could make out the sparkling Saronic Gulf, a smattering of islands, and the silhouette of the Peloponnesos Mountains. "One could sit among the ruins and moralize, sentimentalize, and philosophize for hours," Sachtleben noted. In fact, that was precisely their program on that unforgettable afternoon.
They began their erudite exchanges by contemplating why the cultural influence of the ancient Greeks, so pervasive some four centuries before Christ, ultimately gave way to that of the mighty Roman Empire. From there, the discussion turned to the rise and fall of great civilizations. "Then, with even greater eagerness," re-counted Sachtleben, the two young men asked themselves: "How long would be the space between the acme of Roman grandeur to that of the next culminating epoch in our world's history?"
Such profound musings naturally stirred their deepest patriotic sentiments. For while the old European powers, with their vast colonies, still held considerable sway over world affairs, the youthful United States was manifestly on the rise. "Our thoughts turned proudly to America," recorded Sachtleben, "the land of freedom and progress. To it we looked and hoped to give birth to an age grander than that of Pericles, more splendid and powerful than that of Augustus." Sachtleben's conclusion was uplifting: "Greece, Rome, America, three gigantic steps in the development of civilization."
These two philosophers in fact were out to make a little history of their own. They planned to register the first "round the world" tour on safety bicycles, by now the acknowledged successor to the high-wheel bicycle and an object increasingly in demand worldwide. To that end, over the previous six months, they had already logged nearly four thousand miles apiece, riding through Great Britain, Ireland, and continental Europe. They had come to Athens to wait out the winter and restore or replace their battered bicycles before attempting the most difficult part of their journey: a seven-thousand-mile trek across Asia. Such a feat would eclipse, in both distance and daring, that of the great Thomas Stevens and doubtless secure their own places in the pantheon of cycledom.
Although they traveled in tandem, there was no mistaking the architect of this madcap scheme. At twenty-five years of age, the dark and dashing Sachtleben was a good two years older than his cohort. Moreover, with his fit 150-pound body on a 5′7″ frame, Sachtleben looked downright Olympian beside Allen, who was an inch shorter and fifteen pounds lighter. "So great is the difference between the two," remarked one astonished reporter, "one involuntarily wonders how Allen could hold his own with his more athletic friend." In fact, Allen was a determined trooper willing to follow his charismatic leader to the ends of the earth.
Sachtleben, the eldest son of a wealthy clothier in Alton, Illinois, had long enjoyed a reputation in his hometown as a feisty fighter and a free spirit prone to energetic excesses. As a boy, he excelled at baseball and marbles. He eagerly
devoured Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and became a hearty outdoorsman himself. The summer after his sophomore year at college, he enticed four local boys to travel with him by train to Minneapolis, where they boarded a sixteen-foot raft to cruise down the Mississippi River back to Alton. One stormy night, stranded in Quincy, Illinois, the boys sought refuge in a paper mill. The alert night watchman spotted them and telephoned the police, who hauled the vagrants off to jail. The next morning the lads got an earful from the judge, much to the embarrassment of their well-heeled parents.
Allen, the only son of a county judge from St. Louis, was barely fifteen when he met Sachtleben at Smith Academy, Washington College's preparatory school. At that time, Allen was despondent, having just lost his nine-year-old sister to a sudden illness. Some years later, he would describe the tragedy in an award-winning essay published in Student Life, the Washington College review: "Little did I think as we strolled home from school together one June afternoon, talking of the vacation soon to come, that it was for the last time. We were playmates, she and I. Together we wandered in the woods and glens in quest of flowers. We gathered cherries from the branches which were now shading her little grave."
Sachtleben, no stranger to youthful tragedy, having lost his mother at age ten, consoled his distraught schoolmate and gradually cracked the boy's sullen shell. The two developed a special bond that carried over into their college years. They frequently studied together, and at one point they jointly managed Student Life. Though they began college several years apart, the precocious Allen eventually caught up to his buddy, and the two were together during their final year, when they jointly discovered the safety bicycle.