by The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer;His Mysterious Disappearance
In early September, Lenz landed in the state capital, which was born forty years earlier amid the area's still-productive gold mines. "I tarried for five days in hospitable Helena," the wheelman reported, "and was kept very busy scribbling notes, developing negatives, and inspecting the place." He felt "quite at home" with the city's wheelmen, thirty "kindly fellows." They put on "one of those dinners which make life pleasant and enable a wheelman to laugh at the next mountain range." Lenz nevertheless took a few practical steps to prepare for the precipitous roads ahead. He flipped his rear wheel to engage his low gear, and he shifted his one brake from the front to the rear wheel to increase his stopping power.
And then he began his long ascent, walking much of the way. "The approach to the Rockies, that huge backbone to the continent, is indescribably impressive," Lenz effused. "A mountain range was never better named—with its soaring heights, monstrous cliffs, and its grim, shadow-laden gorges stretching as far as the eye can see." Three days later, Lenz emerged on the other side, regaining civilization at Missoula, a major military outpost and trading center. Its ten wheelmen, only one of whom rode pneumatic tires, begged Lenz to stay for a few days, to no avail.
In mid-September, Lenz reached Pend d'Oreille, Idaho. A reporter described the scene: "His arrival excited quite a little curiosity as a bicycle is not seen here every day. And when it became known that he had come from New York in three months on his machine, and that he was on his way around the world, he attracted as much attention as a circus." Once again Lenz was unfazed by all the attention. "He changed his apparel and appeared very neatly dressed. He strolled around the streets asking numerous questions about the place. He sent the magazine he represents a fifteen page letter." When Lenz left town the next day, he went over "the long trestle at a high rate of speed, and was watched by quite a crowd of wondering people till he was out of sight."
While he was in Idaho, Lenz reported, "forest fires were raging, and I had trouble with fallen timbers. Often my pedals would strike a stump, and I would go one way and my machine the other." But after passing through Spokane, Washington—"a city that seemed to have been transplanted from the east"—Lenz faced even worse conditions. In fact, traversing Oregon's Columbia River Gorge proved "the hardest part of the journey." Recounted Lenz: "The desert between Walla Walla and the Dalles—that was tough. I was enveloped in a sand storm and had to walk 100 miles in five days. I had a canteen of coffee and some hardtack [biscuit], but they were gone long before I could find a settler to stock up from."
As consolation for his sufferings, however, Lenz enjoyed a steady stream of spectacular scenery that seemed to change "at every bend in the river." He gushed to a reporter: "What a grand gorge that Columbia is! What a magnificent river! It is worth coming clear across the continent to see it. In all my journey, I have seen nothing to compare with it." Told that he would find similar scenes when he crossed the Siskiyou Mountains in southern Oregon, Lenz snapped: "I don't want to see anything grander. I don't think the Columbia can be beaten."
By the end of September, Lenz had reached the bustling city of Portland on the banks of the Willamette River. His first evening at the Hotel Portland proved a memorable one. "I went into the toilet room and commenced washing," Lenz recalled. "The janitor eyed me suspiciously. I confess that I did not present a very creditable appearance." Seconds later, the employee ordered the intruder off the premises. But Lenz issued a terse "Guess not" and calmly carried on with his chore. Infuriated, the janitor yelled: "Be gone or I'll throw you out. We don't allow tramps around here!" Lenz at last turned to his antagonist and stated matter-of-factly, "Well, my friend, I am a guest here." Lenz would never forget the man's horrified reaction. "I never saw an Irishman so astonished in all my life. He had to go upstairs and satisfy himself from the clerks. After that, there wasn't a darky in the hotel more attentive to me."
The next evening Lenz attended a reception in his honor. He explained the finer points of his wheel and camera to a rapt audience of some 150 wheelmen. After one day of much-needed rest, he joined some 65 cyclists for a Sunday excursion to Vancouver, Washington, site of the famous fort. He tarried one more day in Portland, so reluctant was he to leave his adoring friends. At the same time, however, he was anxious to reach the Pacific coast. Finally, on the morning of October 3, he prepared to resume his ride.
Before leaving the hotel, Lenz dashed off a letter to his step-uncle, Fred Lenz, back in Pittsburgh. It alluded to the darker motives behind his long journey. "Dear Sir," he began in his beautiful cursive.
At the request of my mother I write you so you will rest assured that I have no ill-feeling against you. Having had nothing but a miserable existence at home under my step-father, I at last decided to travel the world awheel, for my own learning and pleasure. So far I am well pleased with my trip, every foot I am making on this wheel, 4,028 [miles] so far. From here I go to San Francisco, then sail for Asia. I may return maybe fifteen months again. Of course, I make some money writing for the N.Y. magazine Outing. With kind regards to your wife, I remain, Yours Truly, Frank Lenz.
A few days later, at Grants Pass on the Rogue River, an enterprising journalist used a novel, if taxing, technique to gain an interview. "Sunday being our day of rest," he explained to his readers, "we mounted our flying Dutchman and accompanied the tourist as far as Gold Hill, returning on the evening express. We made the eighteen miles in 2:30." The grueling workout, however, destroyed the writer's romantic notions about long-distance cycling. "From a common standpoint," he opined, "it seems very easy to ride a bicycle. But it gets very monotonous and tiresome after a few thousand miles."
At Ashland, the local wheelmen warned Lenz that the five-mile road to the first summit was a sheer "terror." He began his ascent on foot and was soon panting. Behind him, he heard a faint rumbling. Turning around, he spotted an oncoming wagon. The driver, a farmer, was furiously whipping his horses, in an apparent effort to catch up to him. Lenz, anxious to save his breath and avoid a round of inane questioning, picked up his pace. But the determined driver leapt from his vehicle and managed to catch up to the cyclist on foot. "He sheepishly asked me, by way of starting a conversation, if I was really going to the top of the mountain," Lenz recalled. "I gruffly answered in the affirmative and spoke no further. He wisely troubled me no more."
As Lenz sauntered on, a light rain began to fall. It had turned into freezing sleet by the time he reached the snowy summit. Still, he concluded that the climb "was not as bad as I had been led to believe." He paused to take in the spectacular view from 4,300 feet above sea level. To the south, in California, he could see the stage road wind its way over "ridge after ridge of mountains." He climbed on his bicycle and quickly reached a breakneck speed as his rear wheel skipped over the wet pebbles. He applied his brake spoon, but soon desisted when he realized that its leather casing had worn off. Mercifully, he reached Edgewood intact and retired for the night in the shadow of Mount Shasta.
Over the next two days, Lenz negotiated even steeper grades. Except for a few packhorses and wagons carrying prospectors and migrant families, he had little company. The only reminders of civilization were the wagon road itself and the rails of the Southern Pacific, which occasionally came into view. At last, he reached Redding and the fertile Sacramento Valley. Passing through beautiful Chico on a graveled, tree-lined road, he entered the capital city, whose prominent dome reminded him of the national Capitol building. The local cyclists took charge of him, and a number escorted him to Stockton the next day, including one "splendid lady rider."
Leaving the valley at Livermore, a mere forty miles from the Golden Gate, Lenz made a final push for the coastline. Reaching a prominent hilltop, he looked down on the "welcome expanse of San Francisco Bay, glimmering in the bright sunlight." He gleefully coasted downhill on smooth, shaded streets lined with elegant houses. That evening Lenz boarded a ferry in Oakland. Passing Goat Island, the vessel at last docked at the Golden Gate, his home for the next five days.
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bsp; Lenz loved the "witchingly beautiful" landscape of San Francisco: its steep hills, foggy beaches, and coastal rocks filled with barking seals. He admired its bustling port, the wild and expansive Golden Gate Park, and the neat rows of "artistically built" homes. He lamented, however, that the preponderance of wooden constructions invited "a great conflagration at some future day." (Indeed, some fourteen years later fires ignited by the great earthquake would destroy much of the city.) Despite its inclines, Lenz enjoyed riding about town, taking advantage of the cable car slots on the major avenues.
Lenz found one square mile of the old city center especially intriguing: dirty, jam-packed Chinatown, where some thirteen thousand souls—over half the city's Chinese population—"huddled together in terrible conditions." It made him think nervously ahead to his date with the native Chinese, for he felt as though he had just walked into "China proper." Pungent restaurants serving Asian fare abounded. Countless shops sold everything from junk to jewelry, while a host of artisans busily practiced their trades. The inquisitive Lenz even took in an afternoon of Chinese opera.
Lenz readily discovered that this beehive had its sordid and shocking underside. True, the gambling houses were not unlike the dives he had seen in Montana. But the smoky opium dens were something else entirely. There he saw "sickly wrecks of men," slaves to the dreadful drug that poisoned their brains with "wondrous visions" while robbing them of any hope. The filthy lodging houses, where each room held two or three wretches crammed together, were no less disturbing.
Still, Lenz felt little sympathy for Chinese Americans. He found the "bitter hatred" harbored by his western compatriots toward them "hardly surprising." Declared Lenz: "The Chinese, with their great cunning, oust American labor. They work at what would be starving wages to a white man, then leave for home a few years later with their hoarded earnings." Lenz decried their resistance to American culture. "Their mode of dress they never change, showing no affinity to the United States whatever."
Fortunately, the city's vibrant cycling community kept Lenz from dwelling on the negative. Two days before his departure, on October 23, he joined fifty members of the Bay City Wheelmen for a sixty-six-mile bayside run to Palo Alto and back. The group enjoyed a hearty lunch in leafy Redwood City and a tour of the nearby Stanford campus. Lenz was reportedly "much impressed by the buildings of the university."
The next evening, the same club held a lavish banquet at a downtown hotel. The guest of honor spoke about his transcontinental journey, showing photographs he had taken en route—before getting himself into a fix. "After the last cup of black coffee had been drained," the Chronicle reported, "Lenz and his new-found friends started up Market street, filling the air with joyful adieus. The young men were seven abreast, and everybody else had to clear the way for this imposing front." Suddenly the lads noticed a bar across the street and made a beeline for it. Lenz, the self-professed teetotaler, imbibed a few too many beers and wound up spending the night in jail.
The next morning the groggy wheelman appeared in police court. "Lenz was disturbing the peace," Officer John Green explained to the judge, "and no one could sleep on the same block." The officer asserted that he had advised the young man to go home, "but Lenz declared he would not, until he had traversed the Tartar desert and conquered Africa's sands, or something to that effect."
Then it was Lenz's turn to march to the stand. "It was just this way," he began in a firm voice. "I have been in many cities but I never saw such a policeman as this one," he declared, thrusting an accusative finger in the direction of the arresting officer. "I was standing quietly with my friends, and he rushed in furiously. He saw I was the smallest, so he grabbed me."
After Lenz concluded his statement, the judge sat expressionless for a few moments. Suddenly he "smiled peacefully." Without further ado, he announced his decision. He could not fault the officer for his course of action, but he would nonetheless dismiss the case so that the overzealous but earnest wheelman would not miss his boat, scheduled to depart that very afternoon for Honolulu.
Returning to his hotel to collect his gear, a still-somber Lenz was struck by a sudden and sobering realization: "to wheel around a world is no trifling task." Up to that moment, he had "retained the privilege" to turn his wheel around and reverse his course, even if he had never seriously considered such a humiliating retreat. Once aboard the Oceanic, however, there could be no turning back. As he mounted his loaded bicycle and headed toward the pier, he tried valiantly to rally his flagging spirits.
As he prepared to board his vessel along with five hundred fellow passengers—mostly Asians who would be crammed into steerage—Lenz paused to shake hands with his small entourage. In the background, he could hear the missionary ladies singing sacred songs to their departing brethren. As he clutched his bicycle and approached the plank, it occurred to him that he was about to take his last step on American soil for "many a day." Minutes later he stood on the deck watching as the steamship pulled away and a flock of seagulls followed in its wake.
A week later, on the morning of November 1, the Oceanic approached the mountainous Hawaiian Islands. After entering the bay of Honolulu, it anchored just outside the coral reef. Several long boats, paddled by enterprising oarsmen, suddenly appeared at the ship's side. Lenz boarded one with his bicycle and soon landed on the island of Oahu. Spinning his way along narrow streets, he took stock of the locals. "Some were as black as negroes, others of a brown color; all have black, straight hair, and many boast beautiful and intellectual countenances." Lenz especially admired the "picturesque" police, "clad in their white linen trousers and blue coats." He soon deduced that "nearly all the natives speak English, and are very polite."
Lenz called on George Paris, a former resident of San Francisco and the local agent of Columbia wheels. The two wheeled up Punchbowl Hill, taking in a magnificent panoramic view of the surrounding islands. In the distance, Lenz spotted his vessel, bobbing like a toy in a tub. In the city center, Lenz photographed himself and his bicycle before the Iolani Palace, the official residence of the Hawaiian monarch. He then reluctantly retreated to the port to board the Oceanic. That same evening, as it departed for Yokohama, Lenz bid a fond farewell to this picturesque "one horse kingdom."
Back on the high seas, Lenz battled seasickness and his persistent "blue funk." During the day, while the officers and other cabin passengers played cricket and other spirited games on the deck, he stood idly by, staring blankly at the endless sea. Every evening he returned to the same spot to ponder the stunningly beautiful sunsets. "Sometimes I vaguely wondered what might await me in lands overseas," he confessed in his first report since leaving shore, "and if I was to face any serious perils."
Still, Lenz found a few pleasant diversions aboard. He would often descend to the engine room to admire the great furnace, "fired by Chinese stokers stripped to the waist." He conversed regularly with his fellow cabin passengers, some forty in all, including two American missionaries returning to Kobe, Japan, whom he promised to visit shortly. He also spent much time in his cozy cabin, attacking the pile of mail he had collected in San Francisco. For the most part, he enjoyed writing his friends to tell them of his progress. A reply to his step-uncle Fred in Pittsburgh, however, was painful to write. It ended with an earnest plea reflecting his growing anxiety. "If you see my mother, always try to drive the fear from her, as I will no doubt get through everywhere without trouble."
On November 14, the Oceanic anchored in the harbor of Yokohama at dawn. Hundreds of sampans, small scows propelled by oars, quickly surrounded the steamer. A swarm of Japanese merchants invaded the vessel. They spread out their wares on its main deck to entice the captive Chinese passengers, who were not allowed to debark. Three of them could not have descended anyway, having died in transit. Their bodies were being embalmed for the final leg of their voyage back to their homeland.
Lenz was eager to explore Japan, having read up on its history and culture, including this passage from Thomas Stevens: "Artific
ial lakes, islands, waterfalls, bridges, temples, and groves abound. Occasionally, a large figure of the Buddha squats serenely on a pedestal, smiling in happy contemplation of the peace, prosperity, and beauty of everything and everybody Happy people! Happy country!" The Japanese, in turn, had thought highly of the peculiar ordinary rider. Wrote one journalist: "Stevens is a tough fellow, fit and well dressed; said to eat noodles as he travels." Another was struck by Stevens's willingness to sleep in tents or even outdoors, gushing: "It's hard to believe he comes from an advanced nation where luxury is the norm."
With the majestic Fuji, a snowcapped volcano, already visible in the distance, Lenz was certain that Japan would live up to its billing as an "Earthly Eden." He looked forward to spectacular scenery, even if he knew he was in for a few rough climbs. He was not quite sure how he would cope with the strange language, diet, and customs, but he sensed that he would get along well with Japan's "clever and industrious" citizens.
First, however, he had to get past the pesky customs officials, who demanded a 5 percent duty on his bicycle and camera. Lenz grudgingly forked over the $5 they had stipulated. He later appealed to the American consul but was told that, to get a refund, he would have to exit from the same port. Lenz took some consolation in the fact that the clueless officials had undervalued his gear.
Lenz spent two days in Yokohama, a bustling city of 115,000. He toured its curio shops, stores, and temples replete with splendid wooden carvings. Spinning around the city on his wheel, he admired its charming canals and strange watercraft. The narrow streets were crowded with rickshaws and pedestrians carrying babies tied to their backs and goods suspended on poles. He attended a theater and found the production refreshingly different from the Chinese performance he had seen in San Francisco. He relished his first visit to a teahouse, where "beautiful Japanese girls smile and bow." Lenz mused: "How different from America," where a man was lucky just to get "ordinary politeness" from café employees.
