Oscar Julius: A Quart of Champagne and Six Cups of Cocoa

It was Friday, 10 December 1897 and Oscar Julius was engaged in a six-day bicycle race at Madison Square Garden. Though he may have been exceeding the expectations of many, including perhaps himself, he was far behind the distance of the race leaders. Julius was unfazed by that, and was simply happy to be competing against some of the world's best racers. On that night, however, he came near to being "laid out." When an uncle took the young rider to his tent for a rest, then "poured a quart of champagne into him," and followed that up with "six cups of cocoa so as to make him feel right." Needless to say, that particular concoction did not have the desired effect, and Julius needed an hour to somewhat recover, then still "rode around the track as if in pain." No wonder.

Oscar Julius (middle) back seat of the pacing tandem

When Oscar Julius raced his first six-day race, at Madison Square Garden at the end of 1897, he was about as close to a novice as one could be. Julius had made a name for himself as a runner and skater in his native Sweden, so much so in fact, that one description enthused that he had "no superior among the thousands of superb skaters who had acquired their skill on the frozen fjords of Sweden." Grown tired of the competition at home though, and wishing "to branch out into a new world of sport," he ran away from his home in Stockholm over his parents' objections, and arrived in New York unknown, friendless and not speaking a word of English.

Perseverance allowed him to enter that first six-day race, though he was "without any sort of condition." His pluckiness and never-say-die attitude made him "the most talked of man in the ring." One newspaper reflected the sentiment of many with the headline "Oscar Julius a Hero," with another calling the "Little Swede a Wonder." Julius's rise in the sport did not take long and by May of 1898 during a half-mile professional handicap race at the Willow Grove track he was given a mere ten yard lead over the three scratch riders Al Newhouse, Fred Titus and 'Major' Taylor. Later that same year, Julius found himself on the wrong side of the LAW. At this point in time, numerous of the top racing cyclists were in open rebellion against the League of American Wheelmen and were eager to force a change in the organization or throw their support behind an entirely new governing body. Along with riders such as Eddie "the cannon" Bald, Tom Cooper, Floyd McFarland, Arthur Gardiner, O. T. Stevens and others, Julius was suspended on two separate occasions during 1898, the most serious of which was for training on a blacklisted track, the Berkeley Oval in New York City.

Oscar Julius is one of the racers who competed in Los Angeles who you can, soon, read about in Fast Digs volume 2. In the meantime you can still purchase Fast Digs vol. 1 from my Blurb bookstore.