CHAPTER XV
BREAKING A WORLD’S RECORD
After having participated in about 50 regularly scheduled bicycle racing events in 1898, there was an insistent demand that I try to reduce the one-mile record behind human pace. It had been established a short time previously by Edward Taylore, the famous French flier, at 1:32-3 as against the 1:35 mark created by J. Platt Betts in England some time previous. It is a coincidence that three Taylors figure prominently in the assaults on Betts’ record as the following newspaper story will indicate:
“Three Taylors have figured in reduction of the One-mile World’s Record. It is an interesting fact that since the days of Willie Windle, when that wonderful record breaker from Millbury, Mass., brought the world’s bicycle (ordinary) record for one-mile across the Atlantic wresting it from Fred J. Osmond, the English Champion in 1892, whose best time was 2:15, the one-mile has been held by no less than three Taylors. Windle’s record was 2:25 3/5.
“The first of these Taylors was George F. Taylor of Ipswich, Mass., a Harvard University graduate. He made two trials; and when he finished the record was 2:14, behind human pace. Later he went out to lower this 2:14 mark and succeeded in 1894, setting up as his final record 2:11. He was satisfied with having lowered the mile mark and after devoting some time to competitive racing he retired to private life in 1894 and is now a prosperous dentist.
One of the first things of vital importance that I learned after joining the big pros, which gave me a world of confidence was that no rider on the track could handle his machine with greater dexterity than I, which was due to the fact that I had formally been an expert trick and fancy rider. Another thing equally important to me was that all of the top-notchers were extremely afraid of a fall, and if forced into a pocket, or suddenly bumped or elbowed, many of them would actually sit up, or quit cold rather than risk bumping the track.
I was not so much in fear of a toss from the big riders as by the second and third class men, who were in the pay of the big riders for a cut of the purse, and they would stop at nothing. Knowing these vulnerable spots in the big sprinters was a great advantage to me, and now that I had mastered the scientific and technic of bicycle racing, “pockets” and “elbows” no longer had any terrors for me. I have been asked numerous times how I got out of a pocket.
In order to be able to get out of a pocket successfully, is to do it without interfering with or bringing any one down. To pull this
