Fast Digs: The Nonpareil Cycling Club

 Nonpareil, an adjective or noun meaning unrivaled or without equal. In Los Angeles of the 1890s, black American bicyclists would have found it difficult if not impossible to join any one of the city's bicycle clubs. In response they formed their own. One such was the Nonpareil Cycling Club. 

Right now I have more questions that answers about the Nonpareil club - not the least of which is their name. The Nonpareil Cycling Club - it is the perfect name for a cycling club, full of confidence and bravado. But was it chosen? Or, as was frequently the case (at least for professionally supported teams) did the club take its name from the bicycles its members rode? And yes, if you were wondering, there was a manufacturer Nonpareil. For now, at least, that question must remain unanswered. What ever the case may be, and whatever other questions exist, it is known that the Nonpareils had been trying for several weeks to get a race for its members (and others in the black community) on the schedule of the Los Angeles Athletic Club's Fall Field Day of 1895.

As difficult as it was for black cyclists to find a bicycle club in which they were welcome (allowed) to join, it was equally difficult for them to find a race program, within the general racing community, on which they could compete. Yes, Marshall 'Major' Taylor would soon begin to smash apart that barrier, but in 1895 Los Angeles, as elsewhere in the country, such an event was still far distant from the norm. Thus, when the National Circuit Races finished up a successful three day race meeting at Los Angeles Athletic Park in mid-November 1895, and headed off to Santa Ana for the next round of races, bringing many of the city's best cyclists along, an opportunity opened up. With time on the schedule to fill, and declaring it would allow the club to show the public what they could do, the LAAC gave the Nonpareils their chance to race. Not against others, mind you; only against themselves. As racial / ethnic barriers prohibited Asians from competing amongst anyone but themselves, so to did those barriers prevent blacks in the city from competing against anyone else as well.

Never-the-less, when the time came, E. L. Crew, A. Whitesides Benseman, Washington Fowler and Thomas Jefferson Nelson, rolled up to the start line to begin their one-mile (four lap) race. It was an historic moment for bicycle racing in Los Angeles, and what happened next you can discover once Fast Digs: Bicycle Racing Venues of Los Angeles is published...