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Handlebar Hobo
FRED BIRCHMORE PEDALED THE WORLD AND LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT
By Pete McCommons pete@flagpole.com
The UGA Press recently recycled the perfect
antidote for all that ails us shut-in, worn-
out, Trumped-up, beaten-down citizens in
the gloaming of the year that was. Here’s a
hometown hero who set forth on his bicycle
and pedaled around the world just before it
was engulfed in war.
In the mid-1930s, Fred Birchmore grad
uated from UGA with an MA and a law
degree simultaneously and then eventually
went to Germany to study international
law. There, he bought a heavy, one-speed
bicycle that he aptly named “Bucephalus”
after Alexander the Great’s horse.
Birchmore began exploring Germany on
his bike and then ventured on to Denmark,
Sweden and Norway. Eventually, he did
Switzerland, too, climbing the Matterhorn
on foot, then pushing his bike over others
of the Alps.
He took a holiday ride from Germany
to Egypt (!), where his passport and his
stash of traveler’s checks were stolen while
he slept on the beach beside the Red Sea.
By the time he got everything replaced,
his school semester had already begun, so
he headed east on Bucephalus. Eighteen
months and scores of incredible adventures
later, like Odysseus returning to Ithaca,
Birchmore made it back to Athens, where
he remained for the rest of his life—prac
ticing real estate law, raising a family and
immersing himself in the civic and charita
ble endeavors of his community, while tak
ing time out to bike across the country and
through Latin America and Europe.
You will see in this book, not surpris
ingly titled Around the World on a Bicycle,
that Birchmore was eminently qualified for
the rigors and dangers of his journey. He
was an athlete with four years as a member
of the UGA boxing team. He had an excel
lent education, as is evident from his writ
ing, and he had a deep self-confidence and a
belief in the better angels of human nature,
perhaps instilled by the Methodist church
he attended all his life.
Even so, Around the World chroni
cles unbelievable hardship and danger.
Birchmore traveled on his bicycle (except to
cross oceans, of course—even he was not
that good a Methodist). Most nights, unless
invited inside, he slept outside, wherever
nightfall found him, whether mid-desert or
deep jungle. And he encountered the native
people wherever he went, meeting them
on their own terms, even in regions where
they had never seen a white man, let alone
a bicycle. He traveled light (no tent) and
he traveled cheap (no restaurants). No cell
phone or GPS, either. Just his one-speed
bicycle.
“It may sound silly and sentimental
to some, but when one’s only companion
during 18 months of awful, beautiful and
horrible experiences is a bicycle, it becomes
more than a mere inanimate piece of
metal—it is a real friend. When I think of
the thousands of miles of jungle mud, des
ert sands and rocky mountain sides my old
‘iron horse’ had to plow over; the scores of
snow-blocked passes making its life misera
ble in my mad mid-winter dash through the
Dolomites, Bavarian and Tyrolean Alps, and
how, like old Job in the Bible, Bucephalus
came through with colors flying—well, I
just can’t keep from loving that old bicycle
as a true friend much more trust
worthy and ‘human’ than many
human beings.”
One other point about the book,
perhaps the most important: Fred
Birchmore is a very compelling
writer. He had plenty to write
about, of course, and it comes alive
through his writerly language:
“Next morning, after a hurried
breakfast of popped rice, I plunged
down the 25 miles of red, muddy
trail, through icy rain and dense
layer of cloud to Kentung, lying
3,000 feet below, in the midst of
a beautiful valley cupped by con
centric circles of cloud-enshrouded
blue mountain ranges.”
And on and on like that for 353
pages, plus grainy black and white
pictures he took along the way—
not to mention his traveling com
panion for a while, his pet monkey,
“Vociferous.”
The UGA Press, which origi
nally published Around the World
on a Bicycle in 1939, has done us a
great service by bringing it back.
This hefty paperback would make
a great gift for just about anybody because
it is packed with death-defying true adven
tures told by a storyteller whose colorful
prose invites us to become a part of all that
he has met. ©
tyiwund the tyfo ild on a
ICYCLE
FRED A. BIRCHMORE
Pfoi/DAVID V. HERLIHY
“The story of Birchmorc's epic ride is still one of mv favorite travel book sand a
fascinating artifact of a time when die world was a much Istrit place."
—CHARLES FDAZIEP. author of VdTiiui
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IT'S £LACKPOUe TIME A<3AIN'
BUT HUZZY/ PBAPUNB &
MONPAY, VBC. 7
We're turning the writing over to you
for our year-end double issue, while
we curl up and take a little rest. Send
us your stories (600 words or less),
comics (one page), poems and photos.
Send submissions to
slackpole@flagpole.com
PUMP PfZIMBfZZ
• How I made it through 2020.
• Things the pandemic has forced me to learn.
• The best Christmas present ever.
• Predictions for 2021.
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DECEMBER 2, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM 13