it definitely has its similarities with the british road racing dispute from back in "the day".
i dont know that the survival of the LAW had so much to do with the lack of information on american road racings early years any more than the really minor role that bike racing had in american society once the wheelman era pretty much ended post-ww1. track racing/6-day racing had its place, but road racing practically drops off the map for the average joe (though it did continue, quite definitely)
i would guess (and thats all this is, complete conjecture on my part) that americas proclivity towards spectator sports (which road racing isnt, for the most part, except for short circuit races/criteriums, which are the dominant form of road racing in this country to this day), and our love affair with the automobile (in the somewhat tangential form of difficulties gaining access to road usage for road racing) played a much larger role than the LAWs existence (which gave up any sanctioning of racing in the early 1900s, and became an organization focused on improving road quality, for the most part - i cant remember the exact date). road racing never *fully* developed in this country in the manner it did in europe...
-joel
At 05:39 -0800 02.28.2006, Jerome & Elizabeth Moos wrote:
>Thanks, Joel. This demonstrates once again that almost nothing is
>new in this sport, just forgotten. Sounds a bit like the
>organizational dispute in UK half a century later between the
>dominant organization and the road racers. No doubt the survival of
>LAW contributed to the suppression of American road racing history.
>
>joel metz <magpie@blackbirdsf.org> wrote:
>
>there IS a whole, largely untold story about american road racing in
>the late 1800s.
>
>specifically, it was *illegal* under the rules of the l.a.w. for some
>of this time period, and was eclipsed in popularity by track racing
>for almost all of it.
>
>one of the major reasons for the late-1890s split from the l.a.w. by
>the western states was this ban on road racing, as well as the more
>commonly referred to "sunday racing" issue.
>
>road racing was immensely popular in the late 1800s in the bay area
>of california, but the west coast is largely ignored by cycling
>historians, preferring to focus on the boston/new york/philly/chicago
>area during the formative years of american cycling - despite the
>fact that during the late 1890s and early 1900s, the california
>associated cycling clubs (which evolved from the california
>inter-club road racing association, formed in 1888) was as big as, if
>not a bigger force in professional racing than the league.
>
>there are a ton of pictures from early california road racing at my
>bay city wheelmen pages:
>
>http://www.blackbirdsf.org/bcw/
>
>follow the links through to the scrapbook. most of the pictures are
>small and somewhat fuzzy, but theres some great stuff...
--
joel metz : magpie@blackbirdsf.org : http://www.blackbirdsf.org/
bike messengers worldwide : ifbma : http://www.messengers.org/
portland, oregon
==
i know what innocence looks like - and it wasn't there,
after she got that bicycle...