‘Major’ Taylor paved way for future

Marshall “Major” Taylor was the first black cyclist to win a world championship. Courtesy photo

In honor of Black History month, I’m proud to introduce a few cyclists of the past and present who paved the way for future cyclists.

First and foremost, Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor. Born in rural Indiana on Nov. 26, 1878, Taylor’s parents moved from Kentucky around the time of the Civil War. He was raised and educated in the home of a wealthy white Indianapolis family that employed his father, Gilbert, as a coachman.

After receiving a bike from his father’s employer, Taylor took a job in 1892 for an Indianapolis bike shop.

Two things happened to him in 1892 that forever change his life; he earned the nickname “Major” from his soldier’s uniform costume worn while performing stunts at the bike shop to lure in customers, and he won his first bike race.

A track bike racing hero, Taylor became a legend to cyclists throughout the world when at the young age of 19, he was the first black cyclist to win a world championship, the 1-mile sprint title.

The following timeline is adapted by Lynne Tolman from “Major Taylor: The Extraordinary Career of a Champion Bicycle Racer”, an illustrated biography by Andrew Ritchie (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996):

• Fall 1895 — Taylor moves to Worcester, Mass., with his employer and racing manager Louis “Birdie” Munger, who plans to open a bike factory there.

• August 1896 — Taylor unofficially breaks two world track records, for paced and unpaced 1-mile rides, in Indianapolis. But his feat offends white sensibilities and he is banned from Indy’s Capital City track.

• December 1896 — Taylor finishes eighth in his first professional race, a six-day endurance event at Madison Square Garden in New York.

• 1898 — Taylor holds seven world records, including the 1-mile paced standing start (1:41.4).

• Aug. 10, 1899 — Taylor wins the world 1-mile championship in Montreal, defeating Boston rival Tom Butler. Taylor is the second black world champion athlete, after bantamweight boxer George Dixon’s title fights in 1890-91.

• Nov. 15, 1899 — Taylor knocks the 1-mile record down to 1:19.

• Sept. 1900 — Thwarted in previous seasons by racism, Taylor finally gets to complete the national championship series and becomes American sprint champion.

• Oct. 1900-January 1901 — Taylor performs in a vaudeville act with Charles “Mile-a-Minute” Murphy, racing on rollers on theater stages across Massachusetts.

• Mar. -June 1901 — Taylor competes in Europe, which he had long resisted because his Baptist beliefs precluded racing on Sundays. He beats every European champion.

• Mar. 21, 1902 — Taylor marries Daisy V. Morris in Ansonia, Conn.

• 1902-1904 — Taylor races all over Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, with brief rests in Worcester.

• 1907 — Taylor makes a brief comeback after a two-year hiatus.

• 1910 — Taylor retires from racing at age 32. Over the next two decades, unsuccessful business ventures and illness sap his fortune.

• 1930 — Impoverished and estranged from his wife, Taylor drives to Chicago, stays at the YMCA and tries to sell copies of his self-published 1928 autobiography, “The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World.”

• June 21, 1932 — Taylor dies at age 53 in the charity ward of Cook County Hospital, Chicago, and is buried in an unmarked grave.

• May 23, 1948 — A group of former pro bike racers, with money donated by Schwinn Bicycle Co. owner Frank Schwinn, has Taylor’s remains exhumed and reburied in a more prominent part of Mount Glenwood Cemetery in Illinois.

Another heroic bicyclist was Nelson “The Cheetah” Vails, who in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics won the silver medal in the 1000-meter sprint in track bike racing. A former bike messenger in Manhattan, Vails was so popular that he landed a role in the 1986 movie “Quicksilver” with Kevin Bacon.

Erik Saunders, captain of the Ofoto/Lombardi Professional Cycling Team, won his first national championship, the U.S. National Track Championships Madison in 2003. Teammate Rahsaan Bahati is known as one of the fastest riders in the last 300 meters.

Just like any other sport, champions are made from access to the sport. Unfortunately, black cyclists are uncommon.

Of course, the same was true with golf before Tiger Woods, the same was true with tennis before Arthur Ashe and the Williams sisters. Jackie Robinson changed baseball; Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain changed basketball.

Could the next great bicyclist come from Anniston? Maybe.

But for now, there simply are not enough safe places for kids to ride. The Chief Ladiga Trail may be our community’s best exception. The “Chief” ends in Anniston’s Michael Tucker Park, but until it’s extended southward, many people will be separated and excluded from this safe and enjoyable bicycling route.

Thank you to those in city government who are in favor of trails and advancing the plans to extend the Chief Ladiga southward.

We need trails for our health, recreation and also for the support of the next “Major” or “Cheetah.”