In 1894 Annie "Londonderry" Kopchovsky traveled "around the world" on a Sterling. Starting from Boston and heading west, her first bike was a Columbia but it proved unsuitable. In Chicago, the Sterling company gave her a men's Sterling (weighing 21 pounds, it had no brakes) which made riding in skirts impossible. She then wore bloomers and finally rode in a men's riding suit. Peter Zheutlin's book "Around the World on Two Wheels" records her journey. She claimed to be the first woman to "cycle around the world", duplicating a feat that Thomas Stevens had accomplished 10 years earlier. However, there was much controversy at the time as to whether she really had ridden her bicycle the entire way. In fact, she bicycled across the United States and France, and took steamships and trains the re