Pedal Pusher: How One Woman’s Bicycle Adventure Helped Change the World

Annie Cohen Kopchovsky was ready to ride her bicycle.

Not to the market.
Not around the block.
Not across town.
Annie was going to ride her bike all the
way around the world.

In 1894, when two men bet that a woman could never bicycle around the world, as a man had done, Annie set out to prove them wrong, despite not knowing how to ride a bike.

Dressed in a long skirt, she began her journey in Boston. It wasn’t easy, but Annie never gave up. Her adventure brought her attention in every place she visited along the way, and she loved it all. She told many stories--about hunting tigers, dodging bullets, socializing with royalty, and serving time in a Japanese prison--and some of them were probably not true. But she did ride all the way around the world. And she changed the way that world thought about what women were capable of doing.

Filled with captivating illustrations of the incredible globe-spanning journey, this celebratory picture book tells the story of an unsung feminist icon, the marvelous and resilient Annie Cohen Kopchovsky.