The Well Fed

 One thing I have learned from all the research I have conducted for the Fast Digs volumes, is that the general public (or at least those who report to the general public) have always had some fascination with the amount of food a perpetually thin cyclist will scarf down at a meal, between meals, during races, you name it. Beginning in 1932, six-day races and weekly sprint and distance races took place on a specially constructed ten lap track at the Winter Garden ice rink in Hollywood. The venue remained in use for so long that is came to be referred to as the Winter Garden Velodrome. It attracted not only west coast champions and Olympians such as Eddie Testa and Henry "Cocky" O'Brien, Russell Allen and Neil Davidson, and easterners like Cecil "Rabbit" Yates, but long-standing veterans of the six-day scene like Alfred Grenda as well.

Anyway, back to the point at hand, on 18 February 1933, the Los Angeles Times printed this photo with the caption headline "What Well-fed Bike Rider Will Eat," not great grammar perhaps, but you get the idea. Gathered around the table at the Velodrome club house are from left to right "Rabbit" Yates, Irving "Mouse" Schuller, "Cocky" O'Brien, Trainer C. W. McKee, "Piccolo" Pete Hagopian (I don't think Piccolo was his real nickname, just a reporter trying, and failing, to be clever), Bobby Echiverria and Erwin Muller.

Seque...

volume 2 of Fast Digs: Bike Racing in Los Angeles, 1900-1929 has finally wrapped up and been sent to the printer - 230 pages of bike racing history. Once I get a copy to review it will be available for purchase...

and, watch for a special volume in the CLR Effect Occasional Series, all about the Winter Garden Ice Palace and Winter Garden Velodrome.