Many Americans participated in the Olympic road races of the period, including a bronze for Carl Schutte in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. See http://users.skynet.be/
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Great Notch, NJ
> Fascinating, but that still leaves the question as to road racing
\r?\n> in say 1890 to 1920, which was more or less the heyday of American
\r?\n> track racing.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Regards,
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Jerry Moos
\r?\n> Big Spring, TX
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Edward Albert <Edward.H.Albert@hofstra.edu> wrote:
\r?\n> Jerry...There was road racing long before the bike boom. I have
\r?\n> pictures of a hundred guys lined up in Queens, NY in 1941 and in the
\r?\n> late 30's waiting for the start of 100 mile road races that went
\r?\n> out to
\r?\n> Nassau County on Long Island and back. It wasn't just immigrants
\r?\n> per se
\r?\n> although the clubs tended to reflect European origins like Unione
\r?\n> Sportiva, the German Sports Club, the French Club, Dick Power's All
\r?\n> American Wheelmen, etc. People like Otto Eisle Sr., President of the
\r?\n> ABl, the Seuberts, etc. Racers like Furman Kugler, Arthur Lauf, Jacl
\r?\n> Heid....on and on. These guys organized and raced on the road. Of
\r?\n> course it wasn't Italy but it wasn't then and it isn't know our
\r?\n> nationalpasstime and never will be.
\r?\n> Edward Albert
\r?\n> Chapaqua, NY
\r?\n>
\r?\n> >>> Jerome & Elizabeth Moos 02/27/06 10:46 AM
\r?\n> >>>
\r?\n> No, by Golden Age I meant the Golden Age of American racing, when
\r?\n> riderslike Major Taylor were winning World Championships. What I was
\r?\n> questioning was whether there was any significant road racing in
\r?\n> Americain this era, or if the competition was all on the track. If
\r?\n> all on the
\r?\n> track, this would imply the increase in American road racing in
\r?\n> the late
\r?\n> 60's was not a renaissance, but a new phenomenom. Except that
\r?\n> there was
\r?\n> probably always a little road racing in America, emulating Europe and
\r?\n> involving recent European immigrants.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> One thing which makes me suspect that there was not much road racing
\r?\n> in America in the early 20th century: I was watching the DVD of
\r?\n> Lance'sWorl Championship in Oslo in 1993 a few days ago. Phil
\r?\n> Liggett, who was
\r?\n> commentating, mentioned that was the 100th Professional World
\r?\n> Championships, the first being held in Chicago around 1900.
\r?\n> However, he
\r?\n> said the first Professional Road Race World Championship was not held
\r?\n> until about 1927. That there was no Professional Road Race World
\r?\n> Championship until 1927, even though the Tour de France started
\r?\n> in, I
\r?\n> think, 1901 would imply that perhaps in the early part of the 20th
\r?\n> century, road racing was a mostly European form, with limited interest
\r?\n> in America, and perhaps in the British Empire.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Regards,
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Jerry Moos
\r?\n> Big Spring, TX
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> greenjersey@ntlworld.com wrote:
\r?\n> If I am following this correctly Jerry is referring to a Golden
\r?\n> age of
\r?\n> road racing in Europe between 1890 and 1920. Clearly that was the
\r?\n> periodwhen the Monuments and National Tours were founded but does that
\r?\n> constitute a Golden age? I'm not sure it does. I suppose you would
\r?\n> needto know numbers competing, public and media interest etc. to
\r?\n> identifythe right era. I think I would plump for the thirties and
\r?\n> forties when
\r?\n> bikes were "modern" but the races were still over heroic distances and
\r?\n> terrain.
\r?\n> On another topic I read that the British are "socially conservative"
\r?\n> Maybe, but equally there is a long tradition of eccentricity at all
\r?\n> levels of society. After all how conservative is a grown man
\r?\n> racing a
\r?\n> trike? Also in many towns there was a frame builder who would, for a
\r?\n> modest sum, express your personality in steel. One of the last frames
\r?\n> that I saw at Bill Philbrook's had "Bates" forks and "Hetchins" stays
\r?\n> and all for the price of a weeks holiday on the Costa Brava !
\r?\n> Jerry writes:- Of course, one could argue that America never did have
\r?\n> any
\r?\n> significant road cycling in the "golden age" and that there was no
\r?\n> renaissance in the late 60's but the discovery of the European
\r?\n> form of
\r?\n> road cycling virtually for the first time. If this is true, it
\r?\n> makes the
\r?\n> Paramount even more remarkable. Anyone know of any good books or
\r?\n> other sources which discuss American road, as opposed to track, racing
\r?\n> between say 1890 and 1920? Certainly American's did a lot of
\r?\n> cycling on
\r?\n> the road for recreation and transportation before the automobile
\r?\n> killedmost of this off, but I've seen little information about
\r?\n> road
\r?\n> competition in that era.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Regards,
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Jerry Moos
\r?\n> Big Spring, TX
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> -----------------------------------------
\r?\n> Email sent from http://www.ntlworld.com