On the recommendation of a friend, Ive been looking for this book for years. So I was delighted to learn that it had just been republished for the first time since 1902. Yes, 1902: Stevens started his trip in 1884. This intrepid wheelman (note: "wheel" is singular because Stevens cycle was so dominated by the 50 inch front wheel he would often just refer to it as his "wheel") recorded his adventures and thoughts about the people and lands he visited during 13,500 miles of cycling.

As you might expect from a bicycle journalist, Stevens carefully describes the riding quality of most of the roads and trails he followed, comments on his many headers, and joked about the amount of food he could eat at the end of a long day pedaling a 41 pound bicycle. But the book is far more than a cycling story, it is a glimpse into a world that is long-gone yet still relevant. He saw the hostility between different ethnic groups in the Balkans, he visited Kurdish nomads in what is now northern Iraq, commented on how the mullahs were preventing Iran from modernizing, etc. A man of his times, some of his words (e.g., not particularly flattering portraits of the Native Americans that he met) would definitely not be considered politically correct 110 years after he wrote them. But all in all, it was a delightful read.