Pedal and Path: Across the Continent Awheel and Afoot — Themes and Context

From Clerk to Cyclist: The Making of a Traveler

Thayer’s preface is unusually candid about his motives. He describes a “feeling of discontent with the monotonous routine” of business, and his first vacation in years felt like a risk—he wondered “whether the sun would not stand still if I ventured out of my little orbit.” The bicycle becomes both a practical tool (he rides twelve miles to Hartford to buy goods) and a source of “intense delight.” This dual role—utility and pleasure—recurs throughout the trip. Thayer emphasizes that he has “no desire or intention of making or breaking any records,” a disclaimer that sets his account apart from contemporary cycling feats. Instead, he frames the journey as a way to acquire “knowledge of the country and the people who live in it.” The preface thus establishes a modest, observant persona, one that will later prove willing to engage with strangers and ask questions.

A Misunderstood Crowd: The Mormon Encounter

In Salt Lake City, Thayer’s narrative shifts from landscape description to social investigation. He recounts a comic misunderstanding: hearing a knock at his hotel door, he assumes a crowd has gathered to see him, and trembles at the prospect of making a speech. The “crowd” turns out to be “two men and a boy, sitting under the trees with their feet cocked up, reading, unconcernedly.” This deflation is typical of Thayer’s self-deprecating humor. More seriously, he interviews a Mormon cyclist who tells him that “every member of the club is a Mormon” and that Eastern tourists are “afraid to ask us questions.” Thayer also speaks with the editor of the Tribune, who disputes the claim that only one-eighth of Mormons practice polygamy, arguing the figure is closer to one-half. Thayer admits his knowledge is “only superficial” after a two-day stop, yet he ventures a prediction: “Polygamy must go.” The passage shows him weighing conflicting testimony without resolving it.

Salt Lake Bathing and the Weight of Water

Thayer’s description of bathing in the Great Salt Lake is one of the book’s most sensory passages. He notes that the water is so dense that “you can’t swim in it. It is almost like trying to swim in thin mud.” The lake’s buoyancy is a novelty: “It is only three or four years since the people of the city have availed themselves of the benefits of their salt water to any great extent.” Thayer observes that cheap excursion trains now bring back “2,000 passengers” from the lake twenty miles away. The detail is characteristic of his method: he records what he sees and hears without embellishment, letting the numbers and physical sensations speak for themselves. The lake becomes a microcosm of the West’s transformation—a natural wonder being packaged for tourism, even as Thayer himself participates in that tourism.

The Letter-Writer’s Craft: Structure and Revision

Thayer acknowledges that the book is “to all purposes a binding of those letters, with considerable revision.” The original letters were “sometimes rather meagre from having been written out in the fields to escape too curious observation of passers-by.” This admission reveals the practical constraints of his method: he wrote in the open, dodging onlookers. The revision process allowed him to “give fuller details at certain interesting points” and “round out a narrative.” Readers should therefore expect a hybrid text—part immediate dispatch, part retrospective polish. The episodic structure, with each chapter likely corresponding to a letter, means that the book moves from town to town without a strong overarching plot. Thayer’s voice remains consistent: curious, self-aware, and more interested in people than in scenery. The result is a travelogue that feels both personal and reportorial.

Thayer’s account rewards readers who attend to his offhand remarks and the people he quotes. He rarely lingers on landscapes; instead, he captures the texture of daily life in 1880s America—the Mormon cyclist who sets the record straight, the editor who parses statistics, the bathers at Salt Lake. Because the book originated as newspaper letters, each section can be read independently. First-time readers may wish to start with the preface, which establishes Thayer’s tone, then sample a later chapter to see how his method holds over distance. The journey is less about reaching California than about the conversations along the way.

Years after Mr. Thayer’s wheels fell silent, I still recall his patient wonder at Utah’s wide valleys, and how a passing thought drifts to that older, statelier collection, American Scenery, Vol. 1 (of 2) or, Land, lake, and river illustrations of transatlantic nature — Key Ideas to Explore. One rode, the other painted, yet both held the same hushed reverence for a land still learning its own shape.