I sat down one day and jotted down some thoughts on why exactly I want to do this. Usually I wouldn’t feel a need to justify myself, but, I mean come on, around the world by recumbent bicycle and skateboard?

Alfred Henry Tipper (1867-1944), cyclist and showman, was born on 12 July 1867 at Sale, Victoria, second son of Thomas Tipper, a grocer from England, and his Irish-born wife Catherine, née Chadwick. Alfred claimed to have been abandoned by his parents at the age of 2 and brought up as a ward of the state. In his youth he worked on a dairy farm and also acquired a considerable knowledge of mechanics. He took up competitive cycling in the 1880s, during the early stages of the boom in that sport.

George Francis Train (1829-1904), merchant and entrepreneur, was born on 24 March 1829 at Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, son of Oliver Train and his wife Maria, née Pickering. His parents and three sisters died in a yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans in 1833 and he was raised in Waltham, Massachusetts, by his maternal grandparents, who were staunch Methodists.