Bewildered politicians agonized over just how to classify bicycles and bicyclists. “He is not a pedestrian and cannot be catalogued as a horse,” said one lawmaker, “and consequently he is ordinarily at war with commissioners, superintendents, and policemen.” In nearly every instance, the omnipotent League of American Wheelmen (LAW), soon to be “the most powerful athletic group in the world,” rumbled into town, fighting the mighty horsemen tooth and nail, paving the way for people like young Marshall Taylor to ride freely.
Finally, riding those first high-wheelers was a precarious endeavor. Without multiple gears, climbing even the most innocuous hills required Herculean efforts. With crude brakes or no brakes at all, descending those hills became a bloodcurdling adventure. And with the front wheel much larger than the rear, these tipsy, top-heavy machines required exceptional handling skills, an unusual desire for risk, and a high threshold for pain. Countless times, battered men stumbled into hospitals dirty and bloody, hands over their broken noses, after taking a “header.” But for some people, living in an era before practical helmets, a mere broken nose was the least of their concerns. In fact, until the safety bicycle came along, riding high-wheelers turned into such a bloodbath some newspapers created special obituary sections titled “Death by Wheel.” “Get a bicycle,” Mark Twain recommended after his eighth lesson on a high-wheeler, “you will not regret it, if you live.”
Whatever type of bicycle Daniel Southard gave his friend Taylor, he could not have had any inkling where it would eventually lead him. In the short term, it would become the instrument of his freedom from the drudgery of rural life, a life for which he would later proclaim he detested. In the long run, it would mean a great deal more.
After his private daily tutoring, dressed in Sears & Roebuck denim overalls, Taylor surveyed the Southards’ vast estate from the leather saddle of his sparkling new wheels. There, his legs spinning out of time, face radiating an endorphic glow, Taylor, like many children at the time, probably first dreamed of being a professional bike racer. Whenever he found time, he’d square off with Daniel and his friends in ad hoc races, fulfilling his need for risk, danger, and speed—things he lacked at home. On the bicycle, Taylor found a welcome diversion from his family’s staid lifestyle. When he wasn’t whipping his friends in mock races, he practiced trick riding for hours on end, imagining a large crowd watching him pedal with his hands, his bare feet pointing to the sky. Dashing across the undulating countryside, his thoughts were being forged by the bicycle. Until the day he died, he would remember those early days speeding under the broad Indianapolis skies.
Where horsemen saw a colossal irritant, Taylor saw potential. He strapped makeshift panniers on his bike, then talked a local newspaper into giving him a job as a delivery boy at five dollars a week. Loaded down with bundles of papers, he scampered around the outskirts of town, zipping by angry horsemen, putting on base riding miles that would put him in good stead later. In the evening, off in the distance, he could see the glow of brush arc lamps flickering in the bustling industrial city of Indianapolis.
The same powerful force that had tugged at young Marshall had driven him to the Southard estate. There, he developed a love affair with the bicycle, mingled with whites as if there was no difference between them, and experienced the privileged lifestyle of the wealthy. Both his father—who had chosen him over his other children—and the Southards—who entrusted him with their son—must have seen something special in young Taylor. Perhaps it was because he was a quick learner and intensely inquisitive. Or maybe it was his curious combination of coyness and assertiveness. Most notably, even at an early age, he had a way about him, something intangible.
But on a gloomy afternoon, sometime in the waning days of the 1880s, this happy scene came to an abrupt halt. The Southards sold their sprawling estate, packed their bags, and headed west to Chicago. Suddenly, teenaged Taylor had lost his best friend. What’s more, he was forced to move back to his parents’ modest farm where a never-ending stream of tedious barn duties awaited. “I dropped from the happy life of a ‘millionaire kid,’” he wrote in his 1928 autobiography, “to that of a common errand boy, all within a few weeks.”
Marshall Taylor was saved by a problem with his bike. He had become mechanically inclined from all the tinkering in the Southards’ workshop, but in the spring of 1891, his bicycle needed a repair he couldn’t fix on his own. With his broken-down bike dangling out the back of his wagon, he and his horse strayed into Indianapolis and the beginning of a new life. It was quite a sight for the impressionable thirteen-year-old to see. On either side of North Pennsylvania Street, extending as far as the eye could see, was “bicycle row,” a stretch of bicycle manufacturers, wholesalers, and retail bike shops. Amid a beehive of activity, his horse by chance paused in front of the Hay & Willits Bike Shop. Inside, owner Tom Hay, twisting a strip of jerky in his mouth, peered out the window at the reedy black boy dismounting his well-traveled horse. Taylor rolled his bike inside and gawked wide-eyed at a new model beckoning him from the front window.
After his repairs were completed, Taylor spontaneously mounted his bike and began performing stunts right in the middle of the bike shop. Mr. Hay stood dumbfounded as this unknown black boy rolled around his shop, flawlessly performing one daredevil trick after another. Curious, Hay asked where he learned to ride like that. Quick to answer, Taylor told him he was self-taught, a pioneer of sorts. Having never seen anything like it before, Hay cleared his shop floor and asked Taylor to carry on. Countless hours spent riding with Daniel Southard paid off; Hay was blown away.
Word of Taylor’s unique talent quickly spread to nearby businesses. As inquisitive people began gathering inside, Hay had a brainstorm. He shooed Taylor and his antics out to the street, a marketing strategy that drew such a large assembly, the police had to gallop onto the scene to move the stalled traffic. Anyone attracting that kind of publicity in a highly competitive industry deserved a reward. Hay offered the boy a job paying six dollars a week, a buck more than his paper route. Taylor hesitated, muttering something about first needing his mother’s approval. Ever the businessman, Hay upped the ante, adding the Holy Grail—that shiny new bike in the window. Taylor was sold hook, line, and sinker. “My eyes nearly popped out of my head,” he remembered later. He immediately raced home and appealed to his mother. Saphronia, knowing she couldn’t possibly contain such an ambitious boy in the confines of their small farm, hastily okayed the new job offer.
Taylor got busy sweeping and dusting Hay’s shop in the morning, then donning a colorful military uniform with bright buttons and a military cap to put on a streetside exhibition in the afternoon. Curious crowds continued to congregate. On a scorching summer day, one legend has it, someone saw him in his military outfit outside Hay & Willits and first uttered the word “Major.” This nickname would eventually echo around the world and stick with him until death.
Taylor was, by all accounts, a productive worker. But he had one notable weakness. Shop owner Hay, chief sponsor of a popular ten-mile road race, left the future winner’s gold medal glistening in his store window. “I spent more time fondling that medal than I did wielding the duster,” Taylor admitted. One afternoon when his boss wasn’t looking, he pulled the medal down from the windowsill and pinned it on his lapel. He drew up in front of a mirror, stared at himself, and then strutted around proud as a peacock.
When the day for Hay’s ten-mile race arrived—an event that attracted the better local amateurs—Taylor camped out at the starting line to see the riders off. Hay spotted Taylor and, for the benefit of a few good laughs, insisted that he enter the race. Only thirteen, Taylor refused, kicking, screaming, and crying. “I know you can’t go the full distance,” Hay whispered in his ear, “but just ride up the road a little way, it will please the crowd . . .”
Taylor’s competitive ears perked up, as they would for the next few decades whenever he heard the words you can’t. This, and the fifteen-minute handicap (in other words, a head s
tart) he received because of his age, convinced him to start his first official bicycle race. Thousands of fans lined the side of the road as the riders pushed off, dust drifting up and darkening their faces. Taylor sped through a corridor of noise, listening as the “friendly” crowd egged him on. When the more experienced riders began closing on him toward the end of the race, Hay rode up alongside the boy, dangling the gold medal in front of his eyes. Physically he was drained to the bottom, but the sight of the medal spurred him on. “It gave me a fresh start,” he remembered, “and I felt as though I had only just begun the race.”
Within sight of the finish line, Walter Marmon lunged for the finish line. Still in front of the pack, Taylor gritted his teeth, crossing the line just seconds ahead of a speeding Marmon. Taylor collapsed in a heap on the side of the road, only to be revived by the sight of the crowd and the medal about to be pinned on his chest.
The fact that he had been given a fifteen-minute head start didn’t quell his excitement. Somehow, he found the strength to ride home where he laughed and cried in his mother’s arms, his gold medal glinting in the Indiana sun.
Emboldened by his win, Taylor continued poking around the racing scene. By the summer of 1892, he had saved enough from his meager earnings to leave home and compete in a track meet. He booked a train west and hopped off in Peoria, Illinois, a racing mecca at the time. It was a memorable experience. Reporters were crawling all over the place, jotting down enough notes to fill columns for several days before and after the multiday event. Following his impressive third-place finish in the under-sixteen category, Taylor lingered around the track waiting to watch the headliner event. He sat spellbound as national stars—men like Windle, Van Sicklen, Lumsen, and Spooner—competed before a large and boisterous crowd. They were riding safety bikes sporting the latest and most significant invention called pneumatic tires. Those ungainly high-wheelers with rock-hard tires had gone the way of the hobby horse and boneshakers. With these exciting inventions, a galaxy of known stars, and large paying crowds, bike racing was well on its way to becoming America’s most heavily attended sport.
Sitting alone in the grandstand that summer day, viewing the world with childlike wonder, Major Taylor knew he wanted to be part of it.
In the spring of 1893, Taylor drifted into a larger, more established Indianapolis bike shop called H. T. Hearsey’s, owned by Harry Hearsey. By then the bicycle craze had shifted into a higher gear. Seemingly everyone was either already riding or desperately waiting to learn how to ride. Supply followed demand; sleek new riding schools began webbing the land from coast to coast. In New York, the Vanderbilts and Goulds honed their skills at the prestigious Michaux Club. As wheelmen moved up the social ladder, horsemen and the insular world they had spawned were slowly being replaced by the whirling eddy of bicycle spokes. Saddle-makers and harness-makers either went out of business or began making bicycle saddles. Horse riding academies were converted into bicycle schools, forcing riding masters to begin life again in other occupations. Modernity, spearheaded by the bicycle, was penetrating the suburbs, cities, and countryside. Guests at William K. Vanderbilt’s Newport mansion began requesting bicycles; before they had always thrown their legs over a horse. John D. Rockefeller was also well prepared, stocking his vast estate with thirty-eight bicycles for visiting friends.
Bike shops geared up for the historic conversion; the most successful ones had staff dedicated to teaching people how to ride. With his history of trick riding and showing well in a few competitions, Taylor was able to talk his way into a job as head trainer at Hearsey’s shop. He gave free lessons to the locals, making the conversion from horseman to wheelman easier for customers. Despite his color, customers apparently took well to his teaching and showed their patronage by buying new bicycles in vast quantities. The lessons and subsequent riding adventures even brought families closer together. “Why, I feel as if I had never known my mother,” beamed one twelve-year-old girl, “until we came here for lessons.”
It seems natural for Taylor to have found his way into Hearsey’s high-end shop. All the famous local riders—and on occasion national “cracks”—lingered there for hours conversing in the jargon of cyclists: soft arguments over gear ratios, wheel size, frame material, and components. Taylor especially enjoyed hearing tales of their racing exploits, stories that often grew in animation over time.
From inside his riding school room, Major Taylor could look out at a city slowly being overrun by the instrument of his passion. The year 1893 was the first year Americans bought more bicycles than horses, a fact affirmed every time he peered at the streets below his school’s window. All around Indy and in nearly every city and village in the country, people were viewing the world through new lenses. Railcars were refitted to carry bicycles. Newspapers were snowed under with bicycle-related ads and commentary detailing every aspect of the sport and recreation. Families sat around their fireplaces listening to their Regina music boxes churn out Bicycle Built for Two, The Cycle Man, and The March of the Bloomers. Preachers spoke of bicycles during sermons, doctors during exams, barbers during haircuts. They influenced what people wore, enhanced the nation’s roadways, and improved map-making. Politicians ran on platforms of “being friendly to wheelmen.” One-third of all patents issued that year were bicycle related. Those who could not afford them simply employed a little American ingenuity. “Will swap my wife,” read one classified ad, “28 years old and trim looking, for any two-wheeled bicycle.” The bicycle phenomenon, exulted the New York Tribune, is “one of much larger importance than all the victories and defeats of Napoleon.”
The notion that a steel mechanical device should enjoy the same rights as God’s creatures was still hard for some people to grasp. Over time, committed horsemen would put up the good fight, continually lobbying against the advance of wheelmen. But theirs was a fading world, a world in which their once-mighty powers would continually erode until the automobile came along to feed on whatever carcasses remained. This erosion brought about some unusual consequences for an animal that had perhaps been taken for granted before the bicycle. “It is pleasant to read in our livery trade,” wrote one horseman, “that people who own good horses are treating them better than they use to.”
In the coming years, significant opportunities would materialize for ambitious men in what was becoming one of the fastest growing industries in history. But few of these men were, or would be, black. In the racially charged milieu of 1890s America, if Major Taylor wished to stake his claim in the industry, he would need help. Without black role models, this young pioneer would have to align himself with strong, benevolent white men who didn’t care about the color of a man’s skin.
Sometime that summer, in the crucible of Hearsey’s Bike Shop and the busy streets of Indianapolis, two such men would find him.
Chapter 2
ZIMMIE AND THE BIRDMAN
Louis Munger’s racing career was rolling backward with all the might of an onrushing tsunami. In the summer of 1893 he was thirty, and in the youth-obsessed world of bike racing his strong but aging legs had all but spent themselves on the nation’s tracks. He was a stylish man, firmly muscled, with a full crop of hair rarely allowed to creep out of place and, at times, a Napoleonic mustache.
Born in Iowa in 1863 and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Munger was a tall, good-looking bachelor whose humor and charm seldom left him wanting for attention from those around him. He had a pronounced bird-like nose, giving rise to his nickname “Birdie.” He moved with a gentle swagger, a kinetic pantomime of silent confidence that some people could mistake for cockiness. No one seemed to know why, but when he spoke, he often raised his voice to a thunderous level; perhaps a serious accident involving his bicycle and a horse cart had caused partial hearing loss for which he compensated by speaking with a deep, penetrating voice. Regardless of the reason, people could hear him coming. His voice, quipped one acquaintance, “was a cross between the noises made by a cornet five miles away, two cats over a clothes
line, and a man churning mush with a feather duster.”
Known in racing circles as “The Western Flyer,” Munger was a well-traveled man. Before arriving in Indianapolis, he lived on the road of the racing circuit, sleeping in long-ago motels, hostelries, or homes of admiring fans. Other times, the train or train station served as his home, and his bicycle was his best friend as the circuit looped almost nonstop from Detroit to Illinois to Kentucky, then up and down the East Coast. His past had the yesteryear feel of tire tracks on dusty country roads. The exact times and places of his early days are unrecorded, but there were always racing bikes, dirt or wooden ovals, and that familiar clatter of passenger trains rolling over windblown rails.
While Taylor had been befriending young Daniel on the grassy knolls near the Southards’ estate, Munger set a few records on the road, receiving medals that he clung to like the child he’d yet to have. Despite the records he set in those early days, he remained a middling rider on the track, never to become among the nation’s elite. But the perfectionist in him left him wanting more. Since his early years, he’d had tunnel vision, viewing the world from eight feet up, perched high atop the leather saddle of a high-wheeler. So it seemed natural for him to eventually climb down and slip into the business end of the bicycle world.
Arriving in Indianapolis from Chicago in the early 1890s—“he left after his voice,” joked a reporter—Munger brought with him his medals, big dreams, and vivid memories of the speed and pageantry of the early days of bike racing. Hoping to regain his youthful form, he entered local competitions, but his racing career continued eroding there. So Munger quickly staked his business claim, parlaying his race winnings into a prosperous firm called the Munger Cycle Manufacturing Company. He made good use of his racing notoriety as well as his newfound manufacturing and marketing skills, creating an ultra light safety racing bicycle ingeniously called “The Munger.” Though of little importance to the average person for whom casual biking was becoming an obsession, Munger’s eponymous bikes would prove to be popular among the racing fraternity. Perhaps if he had sought the favor of the common rider and concentrated on wider rims or broader seats, his company may have joined the ranks of Schwinn and Co. But Munger was unable to shake the infectious racing bug, so his products followed his passion.
Major Taylor Page 2