Thought Patterns
by Emanuel
An amazing story is the one of Marshall Walter ‘Major’ Taylor, the second black World Champion in any sport and the first one in cycling. I’ve been wanting to read the story of this forgotten American hero for quite some time now as it had been suggested to me by a cycling fiend who happened to work at Powell’s in Portland, possibly the best book store in the world.
Major Taylor was crowned World Champion on track in 1899 at the Montreal held championships and had a long and very distinguished career even though he had to battle blatant racism very much omnipresent in the United States during this time. The situation was otherwise in Europe and he was very successful overseas as the ‘fastest man in the world’, this with the surprising chainless bike as pictured below.
A very interesting aspect of the story, besides the personal dimension of Major Taylor’s career, is how popular track cycling was during the last decade of the 1800s and the first decade of the 20th century. It was before the widespread popularization of the automobile and at the height of cycling’s claim as the fastest moving wheels on the planet, reaching speeds of close to 100 km/h.
Here are a few links if you want to read more about the Major:
Guy
NIce! ça me semble une bonne lecture. Merci!
Je sais pas si tu (vous lecteurs) savais mais sur la première chaine de radio-canada (je suis un fan) il y avait l’émission d’histoire “Les chemins de Travers”. Vraiment intéressant comme émission et pendant les JO il s’intéressait à des athlètes comme Mayor Taylor. Voici un lien vers le site de l’émission pour les francophones
http://www.radio-canada.ca/radio/emissions/emission.asp?numero=384