Think you're hardcore? Check out this Ingersoll, Ont., cyclist who travelled the world in the 1930s

If you're a cyclist looking for inspiration this summer, try looking back in time to the 1930s when the world was different, as were the bicycles.

Ingersoll, Ont., shoe salesman Douglas Carr was in his mid-20s when he booked a ticket on a transatlantic steamship to London, England, to watch the coronation of King George VI in 1937. Carr then went on an incredible journey around the world — largely completed by bicycle, much to the delight of modern-day thrill seekers.

"So he thought, 'I'm this far from home. I'll do some sightseeing.' So he bought a bicycle," said Scott Gillies, curator at the Ingersoll Cheese and Agricultural Museum, who knew Carr in his later years when he owned a local bookshop. 

Carr then cycled around Great Britain and Europe, and ventured as far as Denmark and Sweden, said Gillies.

In Rome, Carr got a new three-speed bicycle, regrouped and then cycled all the way to the tip of Africa.

"Douglas Carr was a pretty amazing individual," said Sean Smith, Archives of Ontario's curator. 

"If you look at the map of where he travelled, a lot of these places don't exist anymore," said Smith. "The names on the map have changed considerably. What's amazing is just to think about the fragility of the world at the time during which he was travelling."

Smith documented his journey meticulously in journals and photographs. 

"We're fortunate here at the Archives of Ontario to have all of the journals that he maintained during his two years of travel around the world," said Smith. "Those equate to over 4,000 pages of of written records, his reflections, his experiences.

"He also kept a series of photographs and he worked with them when he got back. He numbered them, he put them in a sequence. He had a presentation called 30 Moons Around the World that he delivered largely in support of the Canadian Cancer Society."

After finishing his ride through Africa, Carr set his sights on India.

"All I can imagine is that he got the travel bug and one thing led to another," said Smith. "Clearly he must have had some some success and some good experiences to keep him going."

"When he left Cape Town, he left the bicycle in the care of a shopkeeper who promised to ship it back to Ingersoll," noted Gillies.

Carr then worked on a ship, which took him to Southeast Asia and eventually India. By then, he was travelling by public transit, said Gillies.