by The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer;His Mysterious Disappearance
As Lenz dutifully waited for the nine o'clock hour to strike, the bystanders fired off a barrage of questions:
"How heavy is your load?" asked a small boy.
"About 240 pounds," Lenz replied instantly. "My camera [weighs] about 13 pounds, and I have another 25 pounds of gear. The bicycle weighs 57 pounds and I weigh 145."
"Will you encounter any danger?" queried a young lady.
Without flinching, Lenz allowed: "I might have trouble in China and Turkey, the two countries most difficult to tour in."
"What if they don't like Americans?" shouted another lad.
Lenz cracked a smile. "That's no problem! They can consider me German. I speak the language fluently."
"Are you sure you'll make it back?" pressed a young man.
Assured Lenz: "I shall succeed if it takes a lifetime. I have nothing but the most pleasurable anticipation of my trip abroad. Besides, I have never encountered anything yet that I have not overcome."
Asked about his diet, Lenz, an avowed teetotaler, asserted that "daily plain living is the best kind of preparation." He said he had no intention of making any drastic alterations in his eating habits. He would continue to enjoy a hearty meal whenever he was sure it would do him good. He also stated that he would avoid sleeping outdoors, except as a last resort. But he acknowledged that he would face so many "unusual circumstances" along the way that it would be "useless to say now exactly how I will live."
At last, at the appointed hour, Lenz straddled his bicycle and took off amid a fresh round of cheers. He sailed past Kaufman's department store looking, as one reporter put it, "extremely happy" About one hundred wheelmen were supposed to follow him that day to "Little Washington," where a banquet was scheduled in his honor. As it was, however, only three—one of them, of course, being Petticord—chose to do battle with the heavy mud. The rest would take a ferry the next day to Brownsville, where they would meet up with Lenz and his party for one last celebration.
The next afternoon, after all the hoopla finally had subsided, Lenz found himself on the National Pike heading east, with only Petticord at his side. Together they reached Uniontown, a manufacturing center at the base of the Alleghenies. There, after a satisfying lunch full of good cheer, it was time for wrenching goodbyes. The two friends embraced, then headed in opposite directions.
As he crossed the toughest stretch of the Alleghenies, Lenz was alone for the first time since starting off—but not for long. In Hagerstown, the local bicycle club once again extended its hospitality. This time a dozen members took Lenz out to lunch, and afterward three escorted him on the pike as far as Frederick. There they decided "to tarry the afternoon" in the old town, visiting its "peculiar streets and quaint old buildings." Lenz took several photos, including a snapshot of the grave of Francis Scott Key, the revered author of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
The next day, in the nation's capital, Lenz met Bruce, his "business manager." When the pair stopped by the Washington Monument to take a photo of themselves, Bruce observed firsthand the wheelman's verve. "A dozen colored toughs thought to have a little sport at our expense," recalled Bruce, "by standing in such a position that any picture of us two would include them also." Without a moment's hesitation, Lenz "jumped into the midst of them, putting the whole crowd to flight."
The pair then called on the secretary of state himself, James Blaine, who furnished Lenz's passport and a letter of introduction addressed to foreign authorities demanding that Lenz be well treated in their territory. The official queried Lenz about his plans, before offering the wheelman a warm handshake and a hearty "good luck to you!"
Ten days out of Pittsburgh, Lenz entered Baltimore. He sailed past "hundreds of negroes building cable lines who shouted with delight." The local wheelmen took him around the city, and he photographed the inner harbor and a few historic buildings. The next morning he started for Philadelphia, his native city, via the bucolic Lancaster Pike. Three days later, he wheeled through the leafy suburbs of Bryn Mawr and Ardmore before bumping along the cobblestoned Lancaster Avenue to his downtown hotel. A journalist on hand noted that Lenz's bicycle was already "patched up with decorations of hard yellow clay." The next day Lenz visited several bicycle clubhouses, as well as Independence Hall.
Leaving his native state once again, Lenz pedaled through Camden, reaching Trenton for the night. The next day, May 30, he arose at dawn to catch the Irvington-Milburn road race, held every Decoration Day. Along with the Pullman race near Chicago, it was the country's premier amateur cycling contest. Lenz passed wheelmen "by the tens and twenties," all headed to the same destination. Arriving at the starting line just before the 11:30 start, he joined thousands of spectators. One hour and seventeen minutes later, Hoyland Smith triumphantly rode in on his pneumatic safety. He shattered the record for the twenty-five-mile course by ten minutes, vindicating Lenz's choice of tire.
The tourist wheeled on to Newark for lunch, then Jersey City, where he caught a late afternoon ferry to New York City. He rode to the Outing office in midtown Manhattan, where Worman anxiously awaited. The editor warmly received his intrepid correspondent, who seemed to grow in stature with every revolution of his pedals. In two weeks, Lenz had already covered 555 miles, according to his odometer. Not a torrid pace, to be sure, but a respectable one, given the poor roads and bad weather.
After a brief rest, Lenz was set to make his official departure. On the morning of June 4, he rode to the steps of City Hall, leaving his bicycle and gear with a few friends. He then slipped off with a few intimates for a hearty lunch. Returning that afternoon for the sendoff, Lenz happily discovered that his bicycle had been covered with cards and flowers. Meanwhile, the crowd was swelling so fast that Lenz decided to forgo the official photograph and make his way at once to the corner of Chambers and Broadway, behind a wedge of policemen. There he patiently awaited the three o'clock hour.
Taking advantage of the lull, a reporter from The Sporting Life sprang forward to confront the wheelman about the practicality of his inflatable tires. Lenz calmly explained that he had tested them thoroughly and was fully confident that they would prove their merit. Besides, he would have plenty of spare tubes and tires in his trunk should he need them.
The skeptical scribe scoffed the next day in his column: "Anyone who knows anything about cycling is aware that Lenz's trip is impossible upon any form of pneumatic ever made. Granting the tire should escape puncturing—a thing almost impossible—the mere wear and tear of so long a journey will destroy a dozen or more of them, which will make touring an impossibility in any foreign lands beyond communication with European civilization." The journalist was equally critical about Lenz's naive scheme to ship a trunk ahead of himself. "Any one who has toured either in this country or abroad," he huffed, "knows the fallacy of ever expecting to have any sort of baggage follow or precede him."
The journalist challenged the very validity of the mission. "I'm blessed if I can see what the object of the trip is," he fumed, "except for Mr. Lenz to earn the money that Outing is foolish enough to expend." He denounced Lenz's entrepreneurial spirit, labeling him a "perambulating sandwich man" after "gingerbread glory." And he derided Lenz's comical appearance, likening the overloaded wheelman to "one of those stalking musicians who play a dozen instruments at the same time." His harsh conclusion: "What benefit is to be derived from this trip? It is not a new idea."
Lenz merely shrugged off such criticism. Admittedly, he was not the first globe girdler on wheels. Nor would he be the last. But God willing, he would go down as the most memorable of the lot. And he had his defenders. "Lenz is a plucky young fellow for undertaking such a long and perilous trip," wrote one cycling journalist. "He should be encouraged by the cycle papers, instead of being dismissed with a few lines like the winner of a country race." Moreover, he had a noble purpose: to prove, as he put it, that the safety bicycle offered "an easy and healthful manner of traveling and sightseeing."
At last it was time for Lenz's departure. A report
er described the dramatic scene: "Promptly at 3 o'clock, Lenz clambered slowly on his machine. He settled himself carefully into the middle between the humps of baggage behind and before, which made it look like a veritable ship of the desert, and then he trundled away up Broadway" Scores of men and women looked on and cheered from sidewalks, while others leaned out their windows and waved handkerchiefs.
At Madison Square Park, Lenz veered onto Fifth Avenue. A few blocks later, he looked up at the Outing office and waved to the cheering staff. Yet another enormous crowd awaited him at the Manhattan Athletic Club on the corner of Forty-fifth and Madison. He pulled over and mingled with his admirers. At four o'clock, he pushed off again, accompanied by one hundred wheelmen who would escort him all the way to Tarrytown, where he would spend the night.
The vast assembly gaily spun through Central Park. Upon reaching the iron bridge spanning the Harlem River, Lenz turned around to glance one last time at the fading metropolis and the barely visible spire of Trinity Church. His mind raced ahead to the distant day when he would make his triumphant return. He knew he would face countless hardships and perils before then. But for now he was content to savor the moment as he pedaled along the shady banks of the Hudson, surrounded by a sea of goodwill. After all those years of dreaming and scheming, his epic journey was at last under way.
4. PEKING, CHINA
November 3, 1892
CHARLES DENBY HAD SEEN many unusual sights in Peking during his seven-year stint as the American minister to China, the world's most populous nation. But nothing had quite prepared the sixty-year-old lawyer from Evansville, Indiana, for the stunning spectacle in store for him on this chilly afternoon: two haggard and emaciated figures trundling a pair of beat-up safety bicycles toward the Hotel de Peking.
The pathetic duo promptly identified themselves as William Sachtleben of Alton, Illinois, and Thomas Allen Jr. of Ferguson, Missouri—the same names given in a recently published dispatch from Pao-ting-fu (now Baoding), about ninety miles south of Peking, announcing their approach to the imperial capital. The weary wheelmen claimed to have just accomplished what Denby would soon describe to the secretary of state as "nothing less than the crossing of Asia, from Constantinople to Peking."
Indeed, the men professed to have covered the entire distance—some seven thousand miles—on their sturdy steeds, save for one six-hundred-mile stretch in Turkestan, when they reluctantly rode the newly operational trans-Caspian railway. Denby could scarcely believe this mind-boggling claim, much less their harrowing tales of hardship and deprivation. In riveting detail, the cyclists described how they had overcome an unrelenting succession of extreme conditions and hostile encounters, including a twelve-day crossing of the Gobi Desert.
True, their wheels looked as though they had been thoroughly abused. Both frames were scraped and battered. The integrity of one top tube had been crudely restored by means of an iron bar inserted into both broken ends, which was held in place with twisted telegraph wire. But ultimately it was the cyclists' "tattered and travel-worn look" that compelled the seasoned diplomat to believe their wild assertions. Observed Denby with a hint of amusement: "They presented a most picturesque appearance in which Turkish, Chinese and European clothing had lost their identity in a uniformity of rags."
The cyclists had formulated their bold itinerary some twenty months earlier in Athens, after Allen had returned from London with two new Humber bicycles equipped with the latest cushion tires. Having failed to obtain more favorable terms from either the Iroquois Cycle Company or the PIP, he had ended both relationships. But with more robust bicycles in hand, and with no pressing editorial duties, the cyclists had a freer hand mapping out the most appealing route to the Pacific.
After considerable debate, the young men decided to start their Asiatic journey in Constantinople after all, despite all the dire warnings to avoid tumultuous Turkey. From there, they planned to spend the next two cycling seasons—roughly April to November—pedaling relentlessly eastward to the Pacific coast, though they were not quite sure how to get there. Their preference was to follow the ancient Silk Road through northern China, though this would necessitate crossing the vast Gobi. Should this plan prove impractical, for bureaucratic or physical reasons, their backup plan was to take a more northern route via Siberia. Either way, they would need Russian travel papers, so they resolved to head to Teheran, where they could apply for permission to enter the czar's domain. Based on the results, they would finalize their route. If the Russians refused to cooperate, they could always retrace Stevens's southern route through India.
Their grand yet flexible scheme in place, the tourists sailed away from Athens in early March 1891, headed for the capital of the Ottoman Empire. There they found lodgings with an Armenian doctor. They learned rudimentary Turkish, toured historic sites, and prepared for their thousand-mile trek across Turkey. The grand vizier, the sultan's chief consultant, kindly supplied a letter of introduction that the cyclists could present to local officials en route, requesting their goodwill and protection. William Peet, the treasurer of the American Bible House, allowed the young men to purchase drafts they could cash at various missions along the way, thus eliminating the need to carry large sums of currency.
Finally, in early April, the pair crossed the mile-wide Bosporus in a small steamer, accompanied by their host's twelve-year-old son, who had volunteered to point out the caravan road on the other side of the strait. As the Americans hopped on their wheels and began their first pedal strokes on Asian soil, the boy bade them an emotional farewell. Allen described the wrenching scene in their book Across Asia on a Bicycle: "He trotted for some distance by our side and then, pressing our hands in both of his, he said with childlike sincerity: 'I hope God will take care of you.'"
At first it seemed as though they were still in Europe, a land that had presented few cultural or linguistic barriers. As they skirted the Sea of Marmara and streaked toward the ancient city of Ismid (Izmit), they still had a familiar and reassuring lifeline at their side. Cutting through the lush fields was the sultan's new railroad, which German engineers were busily extending all the way to Baghdad. At Gevieh, one hundred miles south of Constantinople, they saw for themselves how this modern marvel was already changing ancient ways of life. There, dozens of men busily transferred piles of goods from camels' backs to freight cars. Only a few years earlier, the beasts would have continued all the way to the Bosporus.
As they turned their wheels east, however, toward the great plains of Anatolia, the harsh reality began to sink in. They knew they would not see another train until they had reached the other end of Turkey. Large cities, where they might hope to find some creature comforts, would be few and far between. The long, desolate tracts in between were said to harbor ruthless brigands poised to pounce on any foreigner who exuded wealth. Only sporadically could they count on the hospitality of missionaries and diplomats stationed along the route. Fortunately, the lads, anticipating the added hardships, had beefed up their provisions. They now carried a tin with bicycle oil and two blankets. On the downside, their burden had ballooned to about forty pounds apiece.
They began each day at the inn dousing their bodies with water from a large spouted can, the traditional "Turkish bath." They consumed regional staples such as coffee, yogurt, and raisins, though they sometimes found the diet an "incongruous mixture of sweet and sour." On rare occasions, they feasted on a roasted chicken. They also consumed traditional bran flour paste, baked in a huge disk. That peculiar form gave them a bright idea. They punched gaping holes in the middle of the disks and wore the giant rings around their necks, a setup that allowed them to snack all day long without descending from their wheels.
A week into their Asian journey, sailing over gentle hills in beautiful spring weather, the cyclists emerged on the Angora Plateau, where King Midas and Alexander the Great once trod. There they found nomadic tribesmen, dwelling in caves and mud huts and tending to the shaggy indigenous sheep famous for their fine fleece. A
t the city of Angora (now the capital city of Ankara), they stopped to inspect the venerable fortress. A few nights later, they were roused from their slumber by the sounds of cannon fire and bagpipes announcing the start of Ramadan, the month-long observance that commemorates the revelation of the Koran to the prophet Muhammad.
Already, a number of vexing routines had become painfully familiar. Whenever they arrived in a town in the evening to search for an inn, they inevitably found themselves surrounded by animated mobs of men and boys hollering, "Bin, bin!" (Ride, ride!). The cyclists quickly enriched their lexicon with the Turkish equivalent for "impossible," but such protestations, however sincere, rarely staved off the mandatory demonstration.
The privileged few who gained admittance to the cyclists' inner sanctum, their rented room, found many more mysterious devices, such as Kodak cameras and fountain pens. But perhaps the travelers' most amazing possession was a giant map of Asia, which they obligingly spread out on the floor. As the crowd hovered over it, the cyclists pointed out where they had been and where they were going. Many simply could not fathom how the foreigners knew the names and locations of towns they had yet to visit. The concept of a global circuit was even more perplexing. The cyclists patiently explained how, if they kept going east, they would eventually return to their starting point. "Around the world!" the onlookers kept muttering, with mystified expressions.
Inevitably, the cyclists received a summons from the local authorities, notably the powerful civilian governors known as valis. Some had already received an official cable from the central government in Constantinople, known as the porte, alerting them to the approach of the "devil's carts." Ostensibly, these conferences allowed the officials to flaunt their authority as they inspected the cyclists' credentials. The Americans, meanwhile, were plied with tea, coffee, cigarettes, and at times even full meals. The officials usually asked for, and received, a cycling demonstration of their own.