Stolle Walter (w2658)

Walter Stolle's Bicycle Saga, or Around the World in 18 Years. When he was a teenager, Walter Stolle got a crazy idea. “I decided,” he recalls, “that I would make the longest journey ever on a bike.” He did. It covered 400,000 miles—the equivalent of 16 trips around the world—took him to 159 countries and lasted 18 years.

Born 50 years ago to Austrian parents in Czechoslovakia’s German-speaking Sudetenland, Walter expected to run the family’s tree nursery. World War II changed all that. “In 1945,” he reflects sadly, “we lost everything. I remember the cold war—the Berlin blockade. I wanted to get away from allot it.”

He went to England, became naturalized and prepared five years for his epic journey. “I read all kinds of travel books,” he says, “and I learned languages.” Stolle speaks Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese, Dutch and Afrikaans. He got his legs in shape by cycling from Land’s End in the south of England to John o’Groats in northern Scotland.

When he set out on Jan. 25, 1959, Stolle traveled light. Half of his 44-pound pack was photographic equipment. He crossed the oceans on freighters, liners and planes and stayed in youth hostels and inexpensive hotels. Five of his bikes were stolen and six wore out. He was robbed 231 times—twice on one day in Jakarta, Indonesia. He was never ill—although he was gored by a gazelle in Africa—and managed to donate blood in 12 countries. Most satisfying about the cycling, he says, was “going downhill.”

Stolle financed the journey by giving some 2,600 lectures and slide shows at $100 a performance. Some of the income went to fix his 1,000 flats.

He has now come to rest in London, where he is staying with a lady friend, working on a book about his experiences and making plans to buy a three-bedroom bungalow in Spain.

Looking back, Stolle believes that he has achieved something far more satisfying than the wealth his family had before the war. “What I have learned and seen,” he says, “nobody can take away from me.”
http://people.com/archive/walter-stolles-bicycle-saga-or-around-the-world-in-18-years-vol-7-no-2/