Page:The fastest bicycle rider in the world - 1928 - Taylor.djvu/59

THE FASTEST BICYCLE RIDER IN THE WORLD 37 Before I won the American championship I competed in the world's championship meet at Montreal, and there won the world's one-mile sprint championship title. In Chicago I established a world's record for one mile.

My first race that season for the championship honors came at the King's County Wheelmen's Meet at Manhattan Beach (L. I.), June 23. The quarter-mile national championship event was the feature of the program. It attracted more star riders than had ever competed before in a race at this distance. Among them were Bald, Cooper, Gardiner, Taylore, Kiser and Tom Butler, the "big-six" of the racing world, together with Jaap Eden, Mertins, MacFarland, Stevens, Newhouse, Eaton, Weinig, Terill, and Kiser.

The final heat found Jaap Eden, champion of Holland, Fred, Howard Freeman, Arthur Gardiner, and myself lined up at the starting line. I have never seen a group of crack riders that seemed more fit than the five of us, and each was keenly anxious for the pistol to send us away. After I had gotten away with a very bad start, things seemed to be breaking exceedingly bad for me, each of my opponents having a whack at me as they passed, and I found myself in a bad rut and was the last man to enter the home stretch, Eden leading at a furious clip.

After being bumped, jostled, and elbowed until I was sorely tried, I felt sure that as we entered the last straightaway, I must have looked like a 1,000 to 1 shot. However, I quickly found myself and went after the bunch with every bit of vitality that was in me. I pedalled down the home stretch at two kicks to every one, slipped in between Eaton and Simms, despite their efforts to close in on me and won by a scant foot with Eaton second, Simms third, Freeman fourth and Gardiner fifth. The entire field with the exception of Gardiner went over the tape within a half wheel's length of each other.

This was one of the most sensational sprints I had ever made and the crowd was not slow to appreciate it. My trip about the track immediately upon the close of the race became a triumphal march as the enthusiasts in the grandstand gave me one of the greatest ovations that had ever fallen my lot.

Shortly after this event I participated in a one-mile championship race at the Quill Club meet at the Manhattan Beach track.

Tom Cooper, Gardiner, Butler and myself won our trial heats and faced the starter's gun in the final. Butler led me over the line while Cooper trailed me, and Gardiner finished fourth. In this race I was again on the receiving end of some of the foulest tactics that I ever encountered in my more than sixteen years of racing. While I wasable to offset them in the one-quarter mile championship event, which I won, I found the odds were all strong against me in this second