IT was a great day for the cyclers yesterday, when the much-talked-of 100-mile relay bicycle race between picked riders from the Bay City Wheelmen of San Francisco and the Acme Athletic Club of Oakland was ridden and won.
Great is the joy in Oakland, for the heavy boys from across the bay took the lightweights from the sandhill city into camp without much fuss or scattering of feathers.
The start was made at 9 A. M. yesterday and at precisely 2:48:51 3-5 P. M. the last rider of the Acme team crossed the finish line completing the relay 100-mile run in the remarkably fast time of 5 hrs. 43 min. 51 3-5 sec, beating the Bay City's finisher just 10 min. 48 2-5 sec....
San Francisco Call, Volume 73, Number 159, 8 May 1893 - FURIOUS RIDING - 100-mile relay race
The annual 100-mile relay race around the bay is on the cards for April 7, and as it usually requires fully a month's preparation for the riders to properly get into condition for this event they will soon commence active training. This is the star event in cycle road racing for the year and in the past has always attracted a great deal of attention. As many as 5000 persons witnessed the finish in Oakland last year. The relay also draws heavily upon the resources of the club for riders, trailers, clerks, etc.
Every club has to enter ten riders, each of whom has a trailer from whom he can get assistance or an exchange of wheels in case of accident; and, besides, the different clubs have to be represented by at least one man at every one of the nine relay stations, and at the start and finish to see that the interests of the club and its riders are properly cared for. Thus you will see it necessitates, at the closest calculation, thirty men from each club. There will not be less than ten clubs represented this year, which makes 300 men, and as a small army of judges, timers, clerks, scorers, umpires and other men with multifarious duties, such as referee and starter, are required, some idea can be gained of the importance attached to this race and the difficulty in perfecting all arrangements.
The clubs always find it a hard matter to get men to serve as trailers and clerks at the outside stations. They all want to be at the start and finish - in other words, they want to "see the fun” - and a man must be thoroughly imbued with a large amount of club spirit and loyalty before he can be induced to journey down to some wayside junction the night before the race and spend the whole of the next day there, waiting for the time when the rider for his club, who perhaps may be so far behind as to be hopelessly out of the race, comes tearing down the road and transfers the package to the rider of the next relay. And if perhaps he should complain to his captain the next day, the latter, who has probably been similarly reproached at least ten times, will respond. "Well, somebody had to do it," which is very poor consolation.
Talk about the relay is just about commencing, and predictions are being offered by nearly every club captain that his club will win the race. Unquestionably the Garden City Cyclers, Acme Club Wheelmen and Bay City Wheelmen will enter the strongest teams, and I would feel quite safe in predicting that, barring accidents, they will finish in the order named. Still it is almost too soon yet to tell with any degree of certainty, as the teams have not been selected, but those three clubs will certainly finish very closely together. In a relay race it is absolutely necessary for a club to enter ten men all of known speed, as a fast man here and there with the others of mediocre ability will not aid to any extent. If a team of ten men, composed of Edwards, Ziegler, Wells, Terrill and Griffith (who are acknowledged to be about the five fastest road racers on the coast), together with five other men of ordinary speed, was pitted against the Acme Club team, for instance, all of whom are very fast riders, yet not so speedy as the ones just named, it would be a safe wager that the latter team would be easy winners. The Garden City, Acme and Bay City clubs are the only clubs that can turn out ten men all about evenly matched, as they have a large number of good racing men to choose from, and as class does not figure in road racing, men from class A or class B competing against each other without distinction, the best men of these two classes in the different clubs will be brought together, and an exciting and closely contested race will result.
More Bicycle Information
Alex Rosborough's reminiscences about early day bicycle racing has brought two communications on the subject from Milton Charles Thomas and Carrie Elwell Pratt. [Carrie Pratt Elwell] Thomas writes in part: “I remember the days of the 100-mile relay race starting in San Francisco and ending at The Tribune. It was a 10-man team and I rode the first 10 miles for the California Cycling Club against riders from the Century Wheelmen and the Garden City Wheelmen of San Jose. This was about 1902. We would also make pleasure rides starting out on Saturday night and riding to San Jose where we would stay over night. The next day we would continue to Oakland, always stopping at the Estudillo House in San Leandro. We favored the Pierce bicycle. We also had 'home trainers' and held contests in Fisher's Theater in San Francisco. For these one roller was placed under the front wheel and two under the rear wheels. Percy Lawrence won the mile in a minute. It was exciting because each rider would face the other. Jimmy Britt was in his prime then and was our gym trainer.” In his story, Rosborough referred to a "big, powerful legged rider" and Mrs. Ewell identifies him as her husband, Frank D. Ewell. "He was then unknown to me," she writes, “but I learned that he was the winner of the described race by 20 minutes. The race was from Gilroy to Menlo Park. He does not remember the banquet Mr. Rosborough tells about. No wonder, that was about 68 years ago. He was the state champion racer on the high cycle and won several medals and trophies. Most club racing was done on a triangle in the vicinity of San Leandro.
The Knave - Sun, Dec 2, 1951 - Page 61 - Oakland Tribune
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