Pelotome –
around Slovakia on a bicycle.
“Near about noon we roll into Presburg [Bratislava], warm and dusty, and after dinner take a stroll through the Jewish quarter of the town up to the height upon which Presburg castle is situated, and from which a most extensive and beautiful view of the Danube, its wooded bluffs and broad, rich bottom-lands, is obtainable.”
~ Around The Wheel on a Bicycle – Thomas Stevens (1887).
My Life and Times
by Jerome K. Jerome
From £4,75
May 1885 – Published 1887.
Around the World on a Bicycle.
“From San Francisco to Teheran” was the first illustrated volume of 29 year old English immigrant Tom Steven’s pioneering ride around the globe. The book covers the first half of the novice rider’s journey on his fifty-inch Pope “Columbia” high-wheeler, with a handlebar bag containing socks, a spare shirt, a raincoat that doubled as a tent and bedroll, and a pocket revolver.
Leaving California, on 22nd April, 1884, he became the first cyclist to cross the United States in the process, sailing from New York to Liverpool, and continuing his journey in May 1885 through Europe, arriving in modern day Slovakia – then part of Austria – at Presburg (Bratislava), where he stays for the evening and explores the castle, before immediately crossing into Hungary at Altenburg (today Mosonmagyaróvár), on his journey towards Iran,
- By Thomas Stevens.
- Published by Sampson, Lowe, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London.
GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND HUNGARY
“After leaving Presburg [Bratislava] and crossing over into Hungary the road-bed is of a loose gravel that, during the dry weather this country is now experiencing, is churned up and loosened by every passing vehicle, until one might as well think of riding over a ploughed field. But there is a fair proportion of ridable side-paths, so that I make reasonably good time.”
~ Around The Wheel on a Bicycle – Thomas Stevens (1887).