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50 nAugust 2016n www.thunderpress.net THUNDER PRESS by Kenzo Popular history has George Hendee witnessing Oscar Hedstrom's tandem pacer in action during the December 1900 races at Madison Square Garden and he was so impressed that he offered Hedstrom a partnership. Another version dates this a year earlier and has Hendee signing the motor tandem team of Henshaw and Hedstrom to pace races at the Springfi eld Colosseum for the follow- ing season. In Middletown, Connecticut, 42 miles from Springfi eld, Massachusetts, Oscar Hedstrom had, by 1895, estab- lished a reputation as a custom builder of racing bicycles and was working at the Worcester Cycle Manufacturing Co. creating the Birdie Special. In October, Hedstrom changed his club affi liation to team up with another employee, Charles Henshaw, as a professional tandem pacer team and they quickly became known as one of the fastest tandem teams on the racing circuit. Pacers were teams of men—usu- ally two, but sometimes three or more—on tandem bicycles that would ride ahead of the racer and provide a slipstream to reduce wind resistance. This allowed professional racers to increase their speed and endurance. Professional medium and long-dis- tance stars demanded unlimited pacer teams and often would use 10 or 12 teams per race. De Dion-Bouton of France had designed a small internal combustion engine in 1896 and placed it in a tri- cycle. The following year they were producing and selling both the motor tricycle and complete engines. Kenneth Skinner of Boston acquired the sole U.S. distribution rights in November 1897 and partnered with Charles Henshaw to open Back Bay Cycle Company. Allegedly, Hedstrom learned to tune the engines of the De Dion- Bouton tricycles and quadracycles that were imported the following year. In the fall of 1898, French racers Henri Fournier and Gaston Ricard came to the U.S. and brought with them three motorized pacers: a sin- gle, a tandem and a tricycle. The fi rst offi cial bicycle race using a motor- ized pacer took place at the Waltham, Massachusetts, racetrack in November. The second was at Madison Square Garden on December 3, where Fournier, on the single, paced Eddie McDuffee and also demonstrated his pacer to other racing stars. Between races he rode the tandem motor pacer before a crowd of 10,000 spectators. On the 26th, a 20-mile race was held at Madison Square Garden between Fournier on his solo machine pacing Jay Eaton and Teddy Goodman, ver- sus Harry Elkes paced by a series of seven man-powered tandem teams. The event was billed as man against machine. Unfortunately, the drive belt on Fournier's machine parted during the third mile and took him out of the race. Oscar Hedstrom was pres- ent and competed in the professional half-mile race (placed 1st) and the one-mile handicap (placed 2nd): it's hard to imagine that he missed seeing Fournier's pacer perform. In March of 1899, Fournier built a motor tandem confi gured as a "bob tail." Invented by Hedstrom the previ- ous year, the frame design positioned the rear seat placed behind the axle to provide the racing bicyclist with a better slipstream; it would become an extremely popular pacer style. In May, Fournier began to import tandem motor pacers from France and fi rst used them at Ambrose Park in Brooklyn. Demand was high and that month the Fournier- Henshaw team also appeared at the Woodside track in Philadelphia and the Baltimore Colosseum. Although Charles Henshaw was involved with Fournier's import business and pace team, he also organized his own pro- fessional motor-pacer teams and pro- moted races at Crystal Lake Park in Middletown, Connecticut. The Waltham Manufacturing Co. was producing the popular Orient bicycle and developed an Orient motor pacer using an Aster engine. It was fi nished in time for a race meet on May 30, 1899, and early in June, Henshaw was riding it at the Waltham and Charles River tracks. On June 17 at the Waltham racetrack, Fournier and Henshaw riding a French pacer were beaten by the Orient machine. The same happened at the Manhattan Beach track on July 4, except this time Henshaw and Fred Kent partnered on the Orient. By the fall of 1899, the Orient pacers (not retail motor bicy- cles) were being advertised for sale— 25 sold by the end of the year—and almost no champion bicyclist now was willing to compete without a motor cycle pacing him. The evolution of and demand for motorized pacers was explosive. Promoters wanted them because they were less expensive than paying mul- tiple teams of human pacers and their novelty drew crowds. Racers wanted them because they attained faster times and thereby were able to establish new track records. In an October article in The Wheel & Cycling Review it was revealed that Frank Waller made $1,000 clear in one month while oper- ating a motor pacer and that another champion racer made enough money to purchase a second machine after only a month of operating his fi rst. Also, in one month during 1899, THE EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN Part 2: Hedstrom sets the pace Keeping up with the competition The Henshaw & Hedstrom Typhoon pacer of 1900 Like many other racing stars, Harry Elkes appeared in ads representing sponsors. He would die in a horrifi c accident in 1903 when a pacer rode over him. E. R. Thomas made the Auto-Bi, one of the fi rst American motorcycles, and was repre- sented by Charles Henshaw in New York and New England See "Indian," page 52, column 1

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