Two wheels, one woman, endless gumption: Annie Londonderry, the first woman to cycle around the world

Annie started out cycling in her long skirt (below), but ditched it once she was introduced
to the new-fangled and much more practical bloomers. 

Very soon I will get out my bicycle, hop on it wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and ride it for the sheer fun of pedalling my way through the summer weather (dear God, please send us true summer weather soon). With each pedal push, I will be thinking of Annie Londonderry — the first woman to bicycle around the world. In 1894!

I didn’t know of her until I watched her story unfold on a Winnipeg theatre stage last Thursday afternoon in the wonderfully entertaining musical “Ride”, which I had seen advertised on an old fashioned poster on a hydro pole in my neighbourhood. First, let’s hear it for old fashioned posters as a way to advertise something. And second, join me in cheering for Annie, who was nothing if not audacious. Imagine, a woman in long skirts, on a bike, travelling solo (with a pearl-handled pistol in her purse) from June 1894 to September 1895 — making headlines along the way and, on her return home, collecting the $10,000 that had been wagered against her achieving any part of her outlandish vision.

Watching Annie’s story unfold on that stage last week was a rousing reminder that one small woman can have big impact when she is prepared to buck convention, break barriers, and persist against all odds. Annie, a Latvian immigrant to the US, wanted (needed) more from life than marriage and motherhood in a Boston tenement. By getting on that bicycle, she invented herself anew, spinning more than miles: “She had a casual relationship with the truth,” according to her great grand nephew and biographer Peter Zheutlin, passing herself off variously as a wealthy heiress, a Harvard medical student, and a big game hunter in the lectures she gave throughout her journey. By all accounts, her audiences lapped up her storytelling, in turn buoying up Annie for the next leg of her journey.

I say, who can blame her for stretching the truth of her very bleak pre-ride life.

To be more than we are today, we need to push the boundaries that restrict us. We need to sketch outside the lines of convention, to tell stories — to ourselves and to others — that lift our heart and inspire us to see ourselves and the world differently, that encourage us to do more and believe bigger than what convention tells us we should.

If audacity and persistence aren’t everything, they surely are something. Without both characteristics, Annie would never have ridden that bike and, thus, her way into the history books. More than a century later, she remains a colourful reminder that busting society’s restrictions begins in our mind, moves through our body, and ends up on the road for change.

And goodness knows, this world of ours needs every one of us making every change we can if Planet Earth with all her humans are to make it into the next century.

I’ll be carrying Annie’s spirit with me on my bike this summer.

Learn more about Annie here. Watch a trailer for Ride here. Listen to an interview about the Winnipeg production of Ride here.

............................................................................................................................................

To receive my weekly blogpost in your inbox, use the SUBSCRIBE feature (above, in the left-hand column), or email fiveyearsawriter at gmail dot com. Put SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. 

Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo credit of Annie with her bike: Wikimedia Commons 

"The new woman and her bicycle" illustration from Puck magazine, 1895 via Wikimedia Commons