Cycling 2: Cycling's Golden Era
The first recorded bicycle race was a 1,200-meter event held on May 31, 1868, in St.-Cloud Park, near Paris. It was won by an Englishman, James Moore. Coincidentally, the first English race was staged in Hendon the following day. In 1869, Moore won the first point-to-point race, from Rouen to Paris, a distance of about 83 miles.
During the 1870s, many bicycle clubs were established in the United States. They started as social clubs that organized mass rides but most of them soon began conducting races. The first recorded race was held on May 24, 1878, in Boston, and others followed very quickly.
In 1880, a group of clubs formed the League of American Wheelmen (LAW) at a meeting in Newport, Rhode Island. By 1898, the organization had 102,600 members. The main purpose of the LAW was to promote recreational cycling by lobbying for better roads and favorable laws, but the organization also served as the governing body for amateur racing.
The International Cyclist Association was founded in 1892 by Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. It was replaced in 1900 by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), which is still the international governing body for racing.
Cycling's two main racing disciplines, road and track, developed early. In continental Europe, which generally boasted good road systems, road racing predominated. However, England's roads were not nearly as good, so track racing was much more common. In the U. S., the two disciplines were pretty much equal, but most professional races were conducted on tracks.
To promote their various models, bicycle companies began hiring racers, known as “scorchers.” The LAW, committed to amateur racing, began trying to identify professionals and ban them from races. More important, the LAW had a rule against Sunday racing, which is when the professionals could attract the biggest crowds, so the National Cycling Association was organized in 1898 to supervise and sanction pro racing.
Within a short time, virtually all professional racing was done on enclosed tracks, where admission could be charged, while most amateur racing was done on the road, though there were some amateur track races.
At first, bicycle races were staged at existing harness or horse tracks, but as the sport's popularity increased, special tracks, called velodromes, were built. The typical velodrome had a wooden track, 200 to 500 yards around, with sharply banked turns. The most common distance was 333.3 yards, so three laps constituted a 1,000-yard race. By 1895, there were about 100 velodromes staging regular races across the country and a “Grand Circuit” had been established for top cyclists. The circuit began in May in the Northeast and traveled across the country, finishing with November races in California.
The six-day race phenomenon started in England in 1878, with just one race that didn't draw much interest. But when Madison Square Garden began staging its six-day races in 1891, the event became one of the most popular in American sports. Originally, individual riders competed, cycling as far as they could over a six-day period, taking breaks when and as they felt necessary.
Single-cyclist races were banned in 1898, so Madison Square Garden began staging six-day races as two-person relays. In the meantime, six-day racing had spread well beyond New York, to velodromes in Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, and many other major cities.
Before the 20th century began, cycling had produced several American heroes and the first internationally famous black athlete. The first hero was George Hendee, who set a world record for the half-mile in 1886 and won five straight national championships before retiring at 29. He later became a motorcycle manufacturer.
Charles “Mile-a-Minute” Murphy had set seven world records by 1899, when he won his nickname by doing a mile in 57 4/5 seconds, pedaling behind a Long Island Railroad locomotive. The historic ride also proved Murphy's contention that speed could be increased by “drafting” behind another vehicle.
August “Zimmie” Zimmerman began riding as an amateur for the New York Athletic Club and was then invited to race in England in 1892. He won all four English championships, at distances of one, five, twenty-five, and fifty miles, went on to win both world championships in 1893, and then became a professional. Zimmerman attracted crowds of as many as 30,000 spectators to velodromes in Europe and the United States.
The international black star was Marshall “Major” Taylor of Indianapolis, which had one of the finest velodromes in the country, the Newby Oval, with seating for 20,000. The 15-year-old Taylor set a track record for the mile there in 1894, then was banned from the track.
A local bicycle manufacturer, Louis Munger, moved his business to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1895 and took Taylor with him. Taylor won a number of local and regional amateur races and turned professional in December of 1896. Within a short time, he was making up to $850 a day racing in the Northeast. He went on to win the world professional 1-mile championship at Montreal in 1899.
In 1901, Taylor went on a European racing tour that culminated in his victory over the reigning world champion, Edmund Jacquelin, and a $7,500 purse. He won a total of $35,000 in Europe and America in 1902, then went on a successful tour of Australia. Taylor never received the acclaim he deserved in the United States, because of his color, but he was celebrated on two other continents.