Those Novelty Races of Yore

 

The athletic contests of the 1897 Fiesta de Los Angeles included numerous novelty races, also known as gymkhana. These included a one-hundred yard potato race in which each competitor held a basket, with potatos placed along the track front of them at ten yard intervals. Each rider was required to dismount to pick up each potato. There was a Japanese umbrella race, where each rider had to open and close an umbrella ten times along a one-hundred yard course. Additional bicycle races included a one-hundred forty yard basket race in which riders wore baskets on their feet, a fifty-yard blind race with blindfolds being worn, and the more common Bellamy, or backwards, race of one-hundred yard distance.

From today's standpoint these contests seem more like jokes than serious competition, yet the same men who competed in the more typical racing events also took part in these, challenging one another for real prizes - in this case boxes of cigars, table lamps, and various articles of clothing.

Kind of makes you wonder what happened to the novelty races; did a desire to promote bicycle racing a serious sport doom them? Was it expediency? There never seemed to be as many entries in the novelty races. Admittedly, they didn't completely disappear - the slow races of today (mostly held on velodromes) and track stand competitions, though lacking the novelty of umbrellas and baskets, can be viewed as descendant from the earlier competitions.