Pelotome –
around Poland on a bicycle.
“One day I met a young man, who answered my inquires as to the road by saying ‘Polski‘, which is Polish for a Pole, I should think.
I was remarking how the country I was travelling in resembled Poland ; the person whom I was addressing informed me I was in Poland.
I was not aware that Prussian Poland extended so far north.”
~ Eydtkuhnen to Langenweddingen by Bicycle – W.S. Yorke Shuttleworth (1879).
My Life and Times
by Jerome K. Jerome
From £4,75
Oct 1876 – published in Jan 1879.
Eydtkuhnen to Langenweddingen by Bicycle.
A 24 page account of “an attempt to ride from the Russian frontier to Calais” in winter, from Eydtkuhnen – the village on the East Prussian (German) side of the border (today the settlement of Eitkūnai in Chernyshevskoe, Kaliningrad, on the border with Kybartai, Lithuania) – to Calais, France.
After passing through modern day Kaliningrad (a Russian enclave) and Poland (then Prussia in the newly formed German Empire), the author abandoned his journey, due to thick snow, at Langenweddingen, near Magdeburg, Germany, over 600 miles (877 km) into his journey.
The book contained “a miniature map and views photographed by the Woodbury Company, from pen and ink sketches by the traveller,” which he made over his 26 day journey, twelve of which were spent at various towns due to injury or bad weather.
The 32 year old author made a book reading at the Drill Hall, Bromley, Kent, England, on January 25th 1879.
- by W.S. Yorke Shuttleworth.
- Published by John Snow & Co., London.
July 1892 – published in May 1894.
The Gypsy Road.
“A Journey from Krakow to Coblentz” is an interesting record of 33-year old London geologist Grenville Cole’s tricycle journey from Szczakowa, Poland, through Galicia, Hungary, Moravia, Bohemia and the German Empire, taking in Krakow, Prague and Budapest, and ending in Koblenz on the Rhine.
Accompanied by his friend, “The Observer” (Gerard W. Butler) who rode a high-wheeled “ordinary” (which they report was far better suited for the roads), the book is illustrated throughout by leading artist Edmund Hort New but was largely criticised in the press for not being amusing enough, with the the Pall Mall Gazette pointing the blame on his choice of drink; “so dull was his imagination, so light his thirst, that he, a cyclist, drank raspberry vinegar in a land overflowing with Pilsener beer.”
- by Grenville A.J. Cole.
- Published by Macmillan & Co, London.
Published in 1894.
Przewodnik dla cyklistów po gubernjach Królestwa Polskiego.
“A guide for cyclists in the provinces of the Kingdom of Poland” was a Polish language book offering its reader “a list and description of paved roads and postal roads in the provinces of the Kingdom of Poland with precise indication of distances to towns and villages located near them” together with “riding lessons, a practical guide for beginner riders and tourists.”
- by Mikolaj Poturaj.
- Published by the author, Warsaw.
1896. Published in 1898.
Wycieczka kolarza na Mazury Pruskie.
Written under the pseudonym “Dzierżek” – long attributed to Karol Bahrke, but more likely to have been Władysław Rabski – “A Cyclist’s Excursion to Prussian Masuria” was originally serialised in Kurier Warszawski in September 1896 before being released as a 64 page illustrated booklet. Written in Polish, it follows the patriotic author’s trip from Warsaw to the Masurian lakes in East Prussia (today’s Warmian–Masurian Voivodeship), observing not only the scenery but also bearing witness to suppressed Polish roots in German lands.
- by “Dzierżek” (likely Władysław Rabski).
- Published by Rubieszewski i Wrotnowski, Warsaw.
FROM EYDTKUHNEN TO LANGENWEDDINGEN BY BICYCLE.
“I was astonished to pass little vehicles drawn by dogs ; one containing a boy and some empty milk-cans, was drawn by two dogs, not much bigger than skye terriers.
~ W.S. Yorke Shuttleworth ~ “Eydtkuhnen to Langenweddingen by Bicycle“, 1879.
🔗 Recommended Further Reading: Two Wheel Drive: The History of Cycling in Poland. |