Page:The fastest bicycle rider in the world - 1928 - Taylor.djvu/70

 Michaels. Incidentally thousands of dollars were waged on the outcome with the odds being two to one on me.

I noticed that as Michaels came to the tape for the final test his face was colorless. His countenance plainly showed that he had been through a trying ordeal in the last heat. When I won the toss for the pole position Michaels seemed to grow even paler. That position gave me a slight advantage such as he had over me in the other two heats. As he stood over on the track it was apparent that Michaels realized that all the breaks were in my favor, and he seemed especially conscious of the bad defeat he had received in the last heat. The mental suffering and physical strain under which Michaels was laboring at the moment seemed to bewilder him. I felt I had him beaten even before the race started.

I jumped to the front at the crack of the gun, taking the lead by 10 or 12 wheel lengths, which I steadily increased as the race continued. The pace in this heat was terrific and I could tell from the outset that we were travelling in record time. Still it did not seem to have the same strenuous effect on me that I had experienced in the second heat and several times I called for more pace.

After the start I did not see my opponent again until the race was concluded. Michaels quit somewhere on the last lap, and for the first time in his life he was roundly hissed as he rode past the grand stand. I felt sorry for him, because Michaels was the best man in the world at middle-distance racing. But he had made the mistake of his life by going out of his class just as I did sometime later when he defeated me in the 20-mile paced race which was his favorite distance. As I made my way to the dressing room it dawned upon me, as never before, that the public is always with the winner, regardless of color.

It was a well-known fact among trainers, managers, riders and newspaper men that Jimmie Michaels was practically unbeatable as long as he could maintain the lead. However, it was agreed among them that if for any reason he lost the front position he was at that moment a beaten man. In a word he could not fight an up-hill battle to win a race. I knew this before we started that epoch-making race referred to above.

As a result of this extraordinary match race with Jimmie Michaels I gained a distinction that never befell the lot of any other racing cyclist in the world, and created a precedent in bicycle racing that has never been equalled, let alone excelled in the history of any athletic sport as far as I have been able to learn.

In all three heats the world's record for the one-mile competition, standing start, 1.45, which was established by Edward Taylore, the famous French rider, was broken. In the first heat Michaels turned