The "young Irish lady" still writes and rides. Her last two books are about cycling in Africa, both are well written and just gut-wrenching reads, one about South Africa during the last year of apartheid and the other about cycling the "AIDS highway" across Central Africa. Her name is Dervla Murphy and the public library in my town (Vancouver, WA) has both books; yours might be able to borrow them.
> Still rambling about books, etc., I'd like to see -
>
> 4. I've been thinking about this particular one for a few days now, and
> it's time to inflict it on someone else ... ;>)
>
> By the late 1930s, there were stirrings of renewed interest in cycling.
> From snippets gleaned in some contemporary publications, as well as asides
> dropped in a number of recent cycling history writings, it appears that
> cycle-touring was growing; bike racing continued to be popular in Europe;
> and the financial difficulties of the Great Depression made utility
cycling
> more acceptable in the U.S. There were numerous articles (even in
National
> Geographic!) about Americans cycling around the world ...
>
> Couple that with references on the Malvern Star site to a plan to
introduce
> a line of Australian-made lightweight bikes in the U.S.; Schwinn's
> introduction of their lightweight line c. 1937; the reactivation of the
LAW
> in certain Northeastern and Midwestern cities ... and you have an
> interesting historical might-have-been. If World War II had not started
in
> 1939, would there would have been a major revival of cycling in the U.S.?
>
> Lots of questions could be played with here. Even if we conclude that the
> war was inevitable, what if it had come later? Would dominating the
> American bicycle market have been the goal of world manufacturers in
1942 -
> instead of becoming their goal in 1972? Would the resurgence of cycling
> have had any effect on post-war housing development, or would we have
wound
> up with the same designed-for-automobiles living spaces we have today? It
> makes for some neat speculation, at any rate - but I think it's worth
> exploring ...
>
> 5. Wierd footnote to above - I mentioned National Geographic. I think
it
> was the August, 1939 edition that had an article about a young American
lady
> cycling around Eastern Europe. It was a to-be-continued thing, and she
was
> crossing the border into Poland as the article concluded. I wonder what
> happened ...
>
> 6. Travellogue writers of the world, unite! Can you picture a
collection
> of cycle-touring stories, from Thomas Stevens to today? I would plead for
a
> chunk of Ian Hibell's travel accounts, or the young Irish lady who rode
> through India in 1963 ... a serious editing task, to be sure, but still
...
> perhaps even back to back excerpts on the same region, but as seen in
1912,
> say, and 1979 ...
>
> Russ Fitzgerald
> Greenwood SC
> rfitzger@emeraldis.com