Would you take a dare, would you take a wager?
What would you wear? Would you wear bloomers?
Would you leave your home without any money?
Would you care if people looked at you funny?

Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry, Annie Londonderry rode no Ordinary!

In 1894, a young woman by the name of Annie Londonderry
Began her journey to become the first woman to ride around the world on a bicycle.

She went alone.
She left her husband at home, with her three children.
She was settling a bet between two businessmen:
twenty thousand dollars to ten
that no woman could beat the record of the only man
(one Thomas Stevens) to have cycled round the world, some 10 years previous
The terms of the men’s wager with this:
She must begin her journey penniless
Accept no gratuities: earn five thousand dollars on her journey
Collect the signatures of American authorities
in every foreign city she rode through
To prove where she had been
She had 15 months to complete the ride
And then the prize of ten thousand dollars would be hers.

So on a day in June, 1894, packing only her courage
a pearl-handled revolver
and a change of underwear
Annie Londonderry set out from her home in Boston
To stick it to the man.

Would you take a dare, would you take a wager?
What would you wear? Would you wear bloomers?
Would you care to change things, would you dare to change things?
Would you be laughed at, shrug off the laugh track
Would you ride your bike through a desert without a map
Would you go alone?

Annie Londonderry Annie Londonderry, Annie Londonderry rode no Ordinary

On the morning of Annie’s departure, a crowd some five hundred strong
Gathered in front of the Massachusetts State House to bear witness; to do business:
Sponsors, well-wishers, women’s rights agitators
Sufferagists; nay-sayers, family members, disbelievers
Disapprovers, on-lookers, curiosity seekers and
a representative from Pope Bicycle manufacturers

The Columbia Safety, Safety, Saftety!
Set the standard For Speed, Strength and Beauty!

The Columbia Safety Bicycle is made with Brains and Conscience by Pope Manufacturers: biggest and best bicycle manufacturer in the world!

Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry rode no ordinary

There are so many amazing things about this lady, not the least of which is that “Londonderry”
wasn’t actually Annie’s last name, though it became her claim to fame.
Imagine my surprise to discover that Londonderry was actually the name of her major sponsor.
“The Londonderry Lithia Water Company”
Know in its day to many
for it’s reported benefits in keeping you healthy:
Premium bottled water, for the wealthy!
The Londonderry Lithia Water Company
Gave Annie one hundred dollars to start her journey,
And an advertising placard to hang on her bike
And off she sailed like a kite in the wind: Oh freedom!

Prevents rhumatism, dyspepsia, indigestion and heart disease!

Proudly sponsored by bottled water!
The New Woman!

Cures insomnia, insanity, apoplexy and heart failure!

Taking the product as her own last name,
Effectively marrying a company for material gain.

Would you take a dare, would you take a wager?
What would you wear, would you wear bloomers?
What would it take for you to change your last name?
Is it all a game? Is it all the same?
A spouse or a sponsor? What’s in a name?

Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry! Rode no ordinary

“By the time I got to New York, I spent some time devising a more practical riding costume. Well, I set out from Boston in my blue serge skirt, petticoats, corset, shirtwaist, jacket, hat and gloves, but I found that my skirt kept getting in the way whenever I tried to make any speed and I would be obliged to stop and fix it. So my new costume is made up of long bloomers under a short skirt, which comes only to my shoe tops. This way, when the wind blows, I don’t have to stop to hold down my skirts. “

Finally she traded in her skirts altogether:
Now wearing long bloomers, gathered at the ankle
She also traded in her 42-pound ladies Columbia roadster
for a 21-pound men’s Sterling Rover: Lighter! Sleeker! Easier! Faster!

Sterling! Ride the road like a lady!
You could ride around the world like Miss Annie Londonderry!

"Miss Annie Londonderry, arrived in Buffalo yesterday afternoon and rode to the rooms of the Ramblers Cycling club, where she answered the considerable correspondence awaiting her. Miss Londonderry’s riding trape presents a very attractive appearance: she wears ribbons advertising various goods and received $400 for one firm’s ad that graces her left breast. "

“On my right bloomer leg I am carrying $100 worth of advertisements and I have just closed a contract to cover my left arm. My back is for rent yet and I hope to get $300 for it.”

Would you take a dare? Would you take a wager?
What would you wear, would you wear bloomers?
Would you stand out on a proverbial limb
Would you speak your mind, would you fight to win?
What would you do for freedom?
Cover yourself in slogans? What’s the problem?

Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry rode no ordinary!

“A few weeks back, I stopped in Elkhard, Indiana, where I was threatened with arrest for wearing bloomers. I was forced to apply to the chief of police in order to go about town. The Chief of Police eyed me from head to foot and when he got to the foot, he seemed satisfied and gave me the permit, but the women in town nearly dropped dead, staring at me as though I had escaped from the circus.”

Travelling unaccompanied, Miss Londonderry will be arriving in Cleveland Thursday October 25th, at Eberhart & Wright’s bicycle store on Euclid Avenue.

"I will be selling and signing photographs of myself with my Sterling Safety Bicycle, for the price of $1 each, as well as souvenir pins available for twenty five cents!"

By the time she got to Chicago, it was November, and her progress was slow:
only 11 months left to go, or lose the wager
So she decided that rather than cross the west in winter,
She would ride back to New York and, from there, take a steam ship across the Atlantic to France.

When Annie got off the boat in Marseille, a huge crowd was gathered to greet her
She rode down streets lined with curious and cheering on-lookers:
the stars and stripes flying from her bicycle!

Zee courageous and daring Miss Londonderry pedals with only one foot! Zee other is wrapped in bandages and propped up on zee handlebars:

An injury she proclaimed to have sustained in a highway robbery!

Unabashed self-promoter, full of plucky, derring-do!
Annie was the face of the New
Woman: the legendary Londonderry!

-- who’s real last name, by the way, was Kopchovsky.
That’s right, Annie Cohen Kopchovsky was actually
a 23 year old Jewish, Latvian immigrant to America;
Before Annie had departed on her around-the-world adventure
She had worked as an advertising solicitor for several daily Boston newspapers.
This was a woman who knew a thing or two about sales and promotion
and not only that: she had the audacity to ride on her own publicity.

So around the world she went, riding and then sailing from continent to continent:
Egypt, Jerusalem, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Singapore:
In every port a signature: In every new country, another photo opportunity.
Along the way, she shed her long bloomers.
Simply dressed in men’s riding britches, shirt and jacket: she never tried to pose as a man,
But a trip like this demanded practical clothing!
10 thousand miles away from home,
she dressed for the long, dusty, dirty, muddy, hard-working road
She became lean and strong, riding thru Saigon, Hong Kong, Lushun China,
Vladivostok Russia, Nagisaki Japan: Finally boarded a ship
to sail the Pacific back to her homeland, arriving in San Francisco on March 23, 1895,
with three months left to go.

But neither her growing celebrity, nor appearance in many bicycle ads
were enough to meet the terms of the wager: she was still short a couple thousand dollars.
At this time, most people in America had never traveled further
than 25 miles from the place they were born,
and Annie discovered people would pay good money to hear her lecture
about her travels in so many distant, foreign lands.

Her wild tales of high adventure on the road
Were enough to capture the imagination of a two-wheeled-nation:
And to raise the remaining funds in question.

But in the heady days before syndication or fact-checkers
If Annie Londonderry told different stories to as many
Different audiences and as many different circulars about her adventures, did it matter?
Isn’t it all in the spin?

Spin spin spin

15 months to the day from her departure
She made it back into Boston,
Where she won the ten thousand dollars.
Or so seems.

Wasn’t there a dare, wasn’t there a wager?

Upon her return, Annie moved her family to New York,
And enjoyed a short-lived career in journalism
Writing sensational stories under the by-line “The New Woman”

What would you wear?

And then, the records fade into obscurity:
Buried under a mountain of more famous men in history.

Would you take a dare?

It has been said that perhaps there never was a wager:
That she simply made up a story in order to go on an adventure

Would you take a dare, would you take a wager?
What would you wear, would you wear bloomers?

Shyster, sell out, entertainer?
Athlete, charlatan, daring adventurer?

Would you tell a few tall tales, make up the details, follow the train rails?

Against all odds, in any weather

Was she everything she seemed?
Would you follow your own dream?
What would it take for you to get you where you want to go?
Would you let them tell you “no”?

Would you ship your bicycle across the sea?
What would you do for a fee? What would you do to feel free?
What would you do to prove what a woman can be?
What would you do to prove what a woman can be?
What would you do to prove what a woman can be?

Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry rode no ordinary!
Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry! Annie Londonderry rode no ordinary!