The Woman Who Rode Roads That Didn't Exist — Annie Londonderry, the American Who Cycled Around the World

The Night Before She Left, She Didn't Know How to Ride a Bike

In the early hours of June 25, 1894, a woman stood in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston, gripping a bicycle. Reporters swarmed around her. Onlookers murmured. Her name was Annie Londonderry — well, not exactly. Her real name was Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, the daughter of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants.

And one more thing: until just days before her departure, she had barely ridden a bicycle in her life.

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A Single Bet Changed History

It all started with a wager between two Boston gentlemen. Could a woman actually circumnavigate the globe on a bicycle? At the time, American society viewed women cycling as something close to scandalous. Newspapers ran headlines declaring it "morally harmful" and "unsuitable for the female body."

The terms of the bet were simple: circle the world within fifteen months, leaving with only five dollars in hand. She would have to fund the rest herself. Annie raised her hand. A twenty-four-year-old housewife and mother of three.

Just before setting off, she struck a clever deal. She accepted $100 from the Londonderry Lithia Spring Water company in exchange for displaying their name on her bicycle — and from that day forward, she renamed herself "Annie Londonderry." It was a moment that could rightly be called the first sports sponsorship in American history.

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Riding the Line Between Courage and Fabrication

Annie's journey was far from smooth. She started out riding in a long women's skirt, but by the time she reached Chicago, she boldly switched to men's trousers. People talked, but she didn't care. She passed through France, Egypt, India, China, and Japan, crossed the Pacific, returned to San Francisco, and on September 23, 1895, officially completed her world tour in Chicago.

Of course, her journey wasn't entirely what it seemed. She covered some stretches by ship and by train. She introduced herself at various points as a doctor, and at other times as a Harvard Law School graduate. Her stories grew more colorful with every telling.

But that's precisely what makes her so fascinating. She was a woman who wrote her own story. Straddling the line between truth and invention, the one thing she truly wanted to prove was simple: a woman can do this.

After returning home, Annie contributed articles about her travels to The New York World and went on to work as a journalist. In an era when the women's suffrage movement was spreading like wildfire, the tracks left by her bicycle wheels were more than a travel log — they were a declaration of the space women would claim in this country.

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🎬 This History on Screen

The 2022 documentary 《Spin: The Annie Londonderry Story》 traces Annie's life and digs into the fascinating question of how much of her account was actually true. The film doesn't portray her as a straightforward hero. Instead, it quietly reveals how a self-narrative woven from exaggeration and fiction was simply the way women survived in the nineteenth century.

Reese Witherspoon's 2014 film 《Wild》, the story of a modern woman hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone, is often seen as a spiritual descendant of Annie's legacy. The narrative of finding yourself again on the road transcends any era.

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Two Wheels That Moved the World

The roads Annie Londonderry traveled weren't on any map. No one had ever drawn a path and said women were allowed to ride it. She simply pushed down on the pedals — changing her name, finding sponsors, spinning tales along the way.

The sound of those bicycle wheels never stopped — not until, twenty-six years later, American women reached their hands into ballot boxes for the very first time.