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over. Then all would know who was really the fastest bicycle rider in the world.”

The gun’s report echoed throughout the park, and the five racers took o in a flurry. Nat Butler quickly took the lead while Taylor moved toward the back. Each racer worked to get the best position before making his jump into the lead. Jumping too early would spell defeat just as much as jumping too late. It was a science that each had perfected. Taylor’s one worry was that he might get caught in a “pocket” as he had in the half-mile race, which caused his late jump and second-place finish.

The two Butler brothers were of the utmost concern as they “worked with clock-like precision” to place opponents in pockets and adjust their speeds and positions in order to favor each other. The five riders zoomed down the home stretch to the rising roar of the crowd. Taylor was nearly “caught in a very bad pocket” but avoided it “only by the narrowest margin” when he overtook Canadian champion Angus McLeod. There were only the Butler brothers left in his way.

“As we swung into the home stretch our three front wheels were almost abreast,” Taylor recalled. “At a glance I realized that for the first time in my life I was going to be able to make that last supreme e ort to break the tape first without interference of any kind. In a word, the four of us came down that home stretch much the same as sprinters are confined to their lanes in a 100-yard dash. It was a fair field there was no crowding or elbowing, it was a case of winning or losing the world’s championship on merit alone.”

The crowd’s roar hit a fever pitch as Taylor hit the tape first by more than a full length ahead of Tom Butler. Taylor had never been more relieved or proud. He basked in the thunderous applause from the Montreal crowd as he took his victory lap. Munger’s promise to make Taylor into “the fastest bicycle rider in the world” had now “become a wonderful reality in such a spectacular manner.”

As “a boy of ten or twelve,” Henry would often transition between the Boston home of his father, Charles Francis

Adams, and the home of his grandfather John

Quincy Adams In the former president’s library, he proofread the collected works of his great-grandfather John

Adams, which his father was preparing for publication