A 21,000-Mile Bicycle Ride, Just to Show He Could

Tom M. Winder, who is making a ride around the United States on a wheel as the representative of the Buffalo Illustrated Express, arrived in this city Friday from Tacoma and will remain until this morning, when he will continue his long journey, which he hopes to complete January 1, 1896. Winder is a young man whose home is in Warsaw, Ind., and has been in the newspaper business for sixteen years. Last February he discussed the matter of making a trip around the United States on his wheel with several friends, and while they treated it at first as a joke, Winder finally made up his mind to attempt the journey. The Express agreed to send him, and a company promised to give him $1,000 if he would ride a certain type of wheel.

Winder left New Orleans March 11, making that city his starting point for the reason that by so doing he would be able to make an early start and at the same time escape cold weather. After crossing Louisiana, Texas and Arizona, Winder went to Los Angeles and then went up the coast to Santa Cruz. At the latter city he cut inland and rode to San Francisco, where he followed the Sacramento valley and came northward into Oregon. He was more than three weeks in making the trip from San Francisco to Seattle. Eleven days of bad weather were encountered, and there were times when the cyclist wished that he was back in his Indiana home, instead of trying to travel around the United States on a wheel.

It was Winder's intention in continuing the journey east to follow the Great Northern railroad, but after coming to Seattle yesterday and conversing with some wheelmen and others who are acquainted with the route, he concluded that better time could be made by following the Northern Pacific, thus escaping the switchback and at the same time encountering better roads.

"Allowing for crooks and turns," said Winder to a reporter last evening, "I figure out that in making the trip I will have ridden 21,000 miles. Just how far I have ridden thus far is impossible for me to say, because I lost my cyclometer in Arizona and did not discover the fact for some little time. As far as I can figure out I have thus far covered about 4,000 miles. I will go East as far as Belfast, Me., and then skirt the Eastern coast southward. Instead of going into the interior southern part of Florida I will cut across it and continue my journey to New Orleans.

"Thus far I have had a very delightful trip, and yet it has at times been very tiresome. In order to reach my destination in the time allowed me I must average seventy-two miles a day, but during the trip north from California I did not cover more than sixty, owing to the bad roads. In Southern California I encountered fine roads and finer weather, and made splendid time. In the East I will have good traveling, as it is well known that along the Eastern coast the roads are of the finest.

"My journey of adventure might not be regarded as a great success. I cannot honestly say that I have been chased by any wild animals, but before I get through with it I may have some trouble with the Indians farther east. The state which made it the most interesting for me was Texas. One night I was held up by a couple of negroes, who tried to rob me, but I had a revolver with me and scared them off. At another time, while crossing a bridge in Texas, a train came along and I was compelled to place my wheel at the side of the bridge and hang over until the train passed.

"I have thus far done all my riding by day except in Arizona and New Mexico, where I encountered moonlight nights and put in from sixteen to eighteen hours a day. Once down in that country I went thirty-eight hours without a bite to eat. I could not induce any family I met to sell me anything. I learned that there had been so many tramps in the country that the railroad companies had ordered their men not to feed any of them, and I came within the category."