THE SECOND RACE
The next year the race was set for June 28, 1897, when many outsiders from the country came in, all intent on beating Richardson, but one can imagine their surprise when I announced that I would drive a 126-gear wheel, which was equal to a ten per cent handicap from the 80-gear then in use.
MYSELF IN THE LEAD UP THE FOX RIVER ON THE FAMOUS 100 MILE RUN.
The morning was fair and hot when 140 of us lined up, of which I was the oldest by about twenty years. At the word "go" we ran in a bunch about two miles, when I pulled out, and then the race really began. At Austin Avenue I increased my speed to Twelfth Street, when I slowed down and allowed the fast bunch to pass, and when they turned west on Twenty-second, as I knew they would, I ran straight ahead through Clyde to the old Hinsdale road. This confused them, and they struck out, each man for himself, to beat Richardson in at LaGrange.
When I struck the Aurora Road again there were about twenty-five ahead of me all strung out. It was a fine sight to see them between me and Hinsdale, raising a cloud of dust in the morning sun that would have done honor to the Chicago fire department, hook and ladder included. One athletic fellow from the stockyards was actually carrying his cap in his teeth, which seemed to intensify his comical grin of confidence.
I entered the cloud of dust at a steady pace, and when I arrived in Aurora for registration, eight of the fastest in the bunch had registered and were out of sight on the road to Elgin.
The distance as our course ran to Elgin was twenty-two miles, for which I set my pace to reach there in sixty minutes, which I made in fifty-eight minutes.
One by one I passed my struggling competitors on the winding road up the Fox River Valley, registering first man at Elgin and off for Chicago before the next best man hove in sight, having the last forty miles of the road to myself, which I covered at high speed, and then ate a fine club breakfast before the second in the race arrived.