Page:The fastest bicycle rider in the world - 1928 - Taylor.djvu/176



So popular was the bicycle racing game, and bicycle riding on the part of the general public, that by 1900 all of the bicycle builders of the country had the crack riders riding their wheels. They used this method as an advertising medium and it paid liberal rewards as it was a rare person, indeed, either man or woman, who did not own a bicycle or even a tandem. In that era a bicycle occupied much the same position as the automobile today.

While Tom Cooper and Floyd MacFarland, two of the greatest sprinters in this country, were riding in Europe during the season of 1900, the American Bicycle Company whose wheels they were riding, carried on an advertising campaign in the Parisian daily and weekly papers. It was a costly campaign but the company felt amply repaid for spending a large amount of money to inform the Continent that Cooper and MacFarland were riding all of their races on two of their best known models of bicycles.

Before the season opened that year I was secured by the Iver Johnson Arms and Cycle Company of Fitchburg to ride their make of bicycle that season. This firm was very conservative, and I was the first rider that was ever engaged to participate under its colors. Although other bicycle manufacturers had been engaging the stars to ride their wheels in races throughout the country for years I was passed up, because of my color, until this company engaged my services. Mr. Johnson went a step farther than any bicycle manufacturer had ever gone before in his quest for championship honors for his bicycles. He also selected the late Harry Elkes, one of the greatest middle-distance riders that ever pedalled a bicycle, as my team-mate.

And true to Mr. Johnson's predictions, to say nothing of his good judgment, I won the sprint title in 1900, and my good friend Harry Elkes won the laurels in the long distances.

This is the only instance in the history of bicycle racing in which a firm of bicycle manufacturers engaged two champions to ride their wheels simultaneously in the same season. Not only did Harry Elkes and myself win the championship laurels for both the sprints and distances that season we appeared under this company's colors, but we continued our victorious march until Elkes, my team-mate, was killed while riding in the 1901 season at Boston.

Manager Purtell of the New York branch of the Iver Johnson Company made the following statement to the New York newspaper