One of the Metz bicycle racers was Harry Elks. Using an Orient bicycle, with a “pacer”* to break the wind, he traveled the mile in one minute and 30 seconds. This was done in 1894 at the Charles River Racing Track in Cambridge. The following year Metz called that model bicycle the Model 130 bike. A few years later Harry Elks raced the mile in one minute. This was a world’s record and resulted in Metz calling that bicycle the Mile-a-Minute model bicycle. You may suspect, racing bicycles this fast was very dangerous. That was proven a year later when the chain broke on Harry Elks’ bike and another pacer bike ran over him and killed him. The bicycle-racing track on South St. in Waltham opened on May 30, 1893. It was 1/3 of a mile long with cemented curves at both ends and flat dirt tracks connecting them. Great races were held here for 10 years. But a pail of gloom fell over the Waltham track on May 30, 1900, when the popular motor-pacing team of Harry E. Myles and William F. Stafford were killed in a tragic accident. Interest shifted to baseball and football at the Bicycle Track soon after. (*A pacer bike is a motorized or tandem bicycle, which goes ahead of the single bicycles to break the wind and make the racers go faster.)
Waltham Museum Newsletter March 10, 2009