Travellers' Checks | How adventures of first woman to cycle around the world were dismissed as fiction in Hong Kong and Singapore

Last month, Scottish cyclist Jenny Graham became the fastest woman to cycle around the world. The 38-year-old took 124 days, 10 hours and 49 minutes to complete the ride, starting and finishing in the German capital, Berlin, via Russia, Mongolia, China, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

Although she appears to have soundly beaten the previous record of 144 days, set by Italian Paola Gianotti, in 2014, this has yet to be ratified by Guinness World Records. Its rules state that “a rider must travel the same distance as the circumference of the Earth – 24,900 miles [40,000km] – in one direction, starting and finishing in the same place. Travel by sea and air is allowed, but at least 18,000 miles of the route must be cycled”.

Hailed as the first woman to circle the globe by bicycle, Latvian-American Annie Londonderry rode for a much shorter distance over about one year, in 1894-95, making most of her journey by steamship. She sailed all the way from France to Japan, via Singapore and Hong Kong, for example, in only six weeks. Sadly, she was noted mainly for her unladylike attire in the Singapore and Hong Kong papers, who also criticised the needlessly fabricated stories of grand adventure written on her return home.

“We fear though wilt come no more, Gentle Annie, this way round. You would have too many things to explain,” wittered The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, while Hong Kong’s China Mail dubbed her “a brilliant and original fictionist”. Her true story is, however, still a remarkable one, and was discovered and told by her great-grandnephew, Peter Zheutlin, in his book Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry’s Extraordinary Ride (2007).

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