Ride Report - Major Taylor Pilgrimage
Kicking off randonneuring season with a tribute to an icon.
Why isn’t Major Taylor a household name?
I’m someone who has been very into sports all his life. Heck, I was even pretty into cycling as a kid compared to the average American child. While I won’t pretend to know the names of every athlete who broke a color barrier or was otherwise influential in fighting racial prejudice, there are still many who stand out.
Jackie Robinson.
Check.
Jessie Owens.
Check.
Even a boxer like Jack Johnson made his way into my broad sports consciousness despite my relative apathy towards combat sports.
But Major Taylor? No. Despite being a world champion. Despite being “the first Black American global sports superstar.” The name “Major Taylor” only entered my awareness after moving to Chicago, after seeing members of the local club named in his honor, after coming to a vague understanding that he was a historically significant Black cyclist.
If Major Taylor is similarly unknown to you, I highly recommend you take 50 minutes to watch this documentary about his life and legacy.
So why don’t we all mention Major Taylor in the same breath as Owens, Robinson, and others? Racism, historic and present, certainly plays a role, as does the relative low modern profile of competitive cycling. But this man - the son of a Civil War veteran who lived through the worst of postwar de-Reconstruction and the establishment of Jim Crow - deserves our remembrance. He earned, with hard work, dignity, and integrity, our respect and appreciation.
Once again I’ll say, go watch this documentary (YouTube won’t let me embed it here) or read about him on Wikipedia. This is a man worth knowing.
Chi Rando Season Opener 100k
This year’s first club ride of the season for the Chicago Randonneurs paid tribute, in whatever small way we can, to the man and legacy of Major Taylor, with a route that followed the length of a bike path named for him and went out to his grave site. It was also the first (or second, if you want to count an abortive ride last September where I broke my hand) ride I’ve actually been able to do with the Chi Rando club.
And what a turnout! The official start list, I’m told, numbered 44 cyclists, including 18 new randonneurs. At least one rider set a new personal best distance on the ride.
One of the things I love about randonneuring (or perhaps should say, love already, considering how new I am to this particular scene of long distance cycling) is how many different kinds of riders it brings out. Because of its noncompetitive nature, randonneuring encourages all sorts of different cyclists to participate, from the quasi-competitive like me to those who are stretching themselves just to make it a full 100km. I don’t feel like I got to talk to half as many people as I would’ve liked on this ride even though I met so many people for the first time.
To that end, you shouldn’t be limited just to my photos. Here’s some more of the team, courtesy of Chuck Judy:
As a bit of a gearhead, I also love seeing the different bikes that make it out to rando rides. Again, because randonneuring is non-competitive, not everyone is on an aero-optimized carbon race rocket. I saw some beautiful race bikes, sure, but there were also riders on ATBs, bikepacking rigs, and classic steel steeds. It’s like a bit of a rolling bike show, and everyone’s got a story of where their bike came from and why it’s built up just the way it is.
There’s no expectation that 44 cyclists are all going to stay together through the city, much less for a full 100km, but through the first part of the course the group I was in stayed relatively large, maybe a third or so of our entire crew.
Starting from the lakefront in downtown Chicago, we headed south, with the first control point coming at the head of the Major Taylor Trail. As we stopped for photos, riders peeled off to continue in ones and twos, but regrouped somewhat as we continued on.
I would love to go back sometime and take more time examining each part of this mural. It’s beautiful, as is the trail itself, which carried us about 15km down nearly to 138th Street on the south side.
By this point, the group began to stretch ever so slightly. I was surprised by the pace at the front, usually just above 30kph (about 18-19mph), but given the weather, perhaps I should have expected it. It’s been a cold couple months in Chicago, but last Saturday broke out into an above-freezing, beautifully sunny day. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of good weather, and I decided pretty early on I wasn’t going to worry about my planned endurance ride morphing into a long tempo session. Riding bikes is fun. I had a LOT of fun on this ride.
Near the midpoint of the course, we visited Major Taylor’s gravestone. I love the inscription:
Here again, the group splintered slightly as people took little breaks at the cemetery, but a group of about 10 came back together shortly thereafter on maybe the most fun section of the whole route: the Thorn Creek Red Trail.
Ten kilometers of winding, well-paved bike trail is engaging enough, but I ended up creating a little extra fun (or trouble) for myself when I took a quick nature break. (At a porta-potty, to be clear. I don’t know how to write this so as not to be awkward. So I suppose it just will be, but I felt compelled to note that I did not pee on a public trail in the middle of the day. Ok. Ending awkwardness in 3, 2, 1…)
Since I wasn’t too far behind the group, I decided to try to chase back on. With the group ahead rolling a fairly consistent 30-34kph, at least the last I’d been with them, that meant I needed to get aero and try to lay down a consistent 35+. I pretty quickly settled in, and over some more open stretches I could see the group ahead. Having a rabbit to chase is helpful sometimes, and I was able to regain contact before the end of the trail.
This was the first time this year I’ve tried to put any real power down outdoors, and it was nice to see that the offseason training is paying off. The conditions were basically ideal, but holding 34-36kph is not something I’ve historically been able to do for very long on my own. And I didn’t do it especially long here, but it felt doable without destroying myself all the same, and I’ll count that as a win.
From there, we had a long drag northward, on road rather than cycle path but largely with bike lane. Our group of ten stuck together for most of that, but after a while four of us went off the front until we came to Grindhouse Coffee, the last control point before our finish back at the Chicago lakefront.
Grindhouse proved to be a reshuffling point, as some riders chose to continue on without stopping, while others (myself included) paused for coffee and food. I believe we overwhelmed the shop, which had only two or three people working, and the stop stretched quite a bit longer than I’d originally intended. Oh well. Plenty of other Chi Randos were there with me (with more rolling in by the minute), and it was good to sit a chat for a bit.
After that, it was just a final stretch up the lakefront. Maybe 15 of us got stopped right away by a paused train, but once we got rolling it became apparent that the wind had picked up over the course of the day. We had a headwind to fight, but eventually I found myself in a group of three, and we rolled turns to the end at 32-35kph, a delightfully stressing (in a training sense) way to close out the day.
…And Plenty More Ahead.
I guess this ride wasn’t exactly my randonneuring season opener, seeing as I’ve logged a pair of 200k rides already this year for RUSA credit, but there’s something very special about getting out with a whole bunch of people who just want to spend the day on their bikes. It feels like the adventures I had in Austria when I was first starting to get deep into cycling, although with its very own flavor.
And there’s so much more for the Chicago Randonneurs this year! Next weekend is a 125km ride, and April brings the club’s first RUSA Brevet (200k or longer; 200k in this case). I’ve got a lot of randonneuring goals this year, and most of them are going to (hopefully) be achieved on club rides.
Riding long distances sounds crazy at first, but if you’ve got a certain kind of crazy gene, it’s the best way to spend a day, a weekend, or more.
