Annie Kopchovsky 1870–1947

First woman to bicycle around the world!  I just had to look her up after seeing Evalyn Parry’s terrific show “Spin” at Tranzac the other night…

Here she is on the day she started her trip in 1894:

That bike (42 pounds!) didn’t last long… When she got to Chicago the Sterling Cycle Works company gave her a mens bike (only 21 pounds!)… and Annie switched from skirts to “bloomers”. The whole trip took 15  months.

Great story and bit of HERstory (smile)… turns out her great-grandnephew has recently written a book about her and he has a nice web site here:

http://www.annielondonderry.com/index.html