page_title: James Campbell Besley
section_title: Australian bicycle tour
hierarchical_section_title: James Campbell Besley / Australian bicycle tour
caption_attribution_description: English: A photo of James Campbell Besley and Percy Skeyhill on their World Bicycle Tour taken in Brisbane, Australia, May 1924.
context_page_description: James Campbell Besley also known as "Handsome Jim" Besley, "Captain James Campbell Besley", "Captain Jim", "Captain Besley", "Colonel Besley" was an Australian explorer, amateur anthropologist, film producer, mine owner, polo player, rancher and entrepreneur who traveled the world.
  Besley was also a prodigious charlatan, spinning fanciful stories regarding his birth, upbringing and career. Besley manipulated the media for decades, lying to them during their efforts to report his exploits.
context_section_description: In 1924, Besley visited a Brisbane, Australia newspaper claiming he was a veteran of the 7th Infantry Battalion of the British Columbia Regiment of the Canadian Army. He said he and his traveling partner Percy Skeyhill were attempting an around the world bicycle tour, both hoping to win a £1,000 prize.
  Besley told a reporter at the Brisbane Telegraph newspaper the bicyclists could earn the reward if they "circled every country in the world and visited all important towns". One condition of the contest was "they must neither work, beg, borrow, steal nor sell anything other than a small pamphlet describing the object of the tour". Besley claimed he had been born at Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, South Africa and was "well known in Zululand, because of his several exploring expeditions into the heart of Africa".
  Besley's fanciful story included an account of how the two travelers had run out of water on the Nullarbor Plain on the Great Australian Bight coast. In order to learn where water could be found, Besley claimed he seized an Indigenous Australian, tied him to Besley's bicycle, and "there he was compelled to drag along after him, of which he soon tired, and leaving the main track led the way to water". Besley said the two planned to finish their tour in seven years, reaching Montreal, Canada in 1931.
caption: A photo of James Campbell Besley (left) and Percy Skeyhill (right) on their World Bicycle Tour in Brisbane, Australia
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