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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
June 2010
On Sale: June 18, 2010
Featuring: William Sachtleben; Frank Lenz
336 pages
ISBN: 0547195575
EAN: 9780547195575
Hardcover
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Historical | Non-Fiction
In the late 1880s, Frank Lenz of Pittsburgh, a renowned
high-wheel racer and long-distance tourist, dreamed of
cycling around the world. He finally got his chance by
recasting himself as a champion of the downsized
"safety-bicycle" with inflatable tires, the forerunner of
the modern road bike that was about to become wildly
popular. In the spring of 1892 he quit his accounting job
and gamely set out west to cover twenty thousand miles over
three continents as a correspondent for Outing magazine. Two
years later, after having survived countless near disasters
and unimaginable hardships, he approached Europe for the
final leg. He never made it. His mysterious disappearance in eastern
Turkey sparked an international outcry and compelled Outing
to send William Sachtleben, another larger-than-life
cyclist, on Lenz's trail. Bringing to light a wealth of
information, Herlihy's gripping narrative captures the
soaring joys and constant dangers accompanying the bicycle
adventurer in the days before paved roads and automobiles.
This untold story culminates with Sachtleben's heroic effort
to bring Lenz's accused murderers to justice, even as
troubled Turkey teetered on the edge of collapse.
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