Charles Miller (cyclist)

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Charles Miller at the destination of Paris-Brest-Paris (1901)

Charles "Charly" Miller (born July 9, 1875 in Hildebrandshausen , † August 20, 1951 in Chicago ) was an American cyclist . Together with Frank Waller , he won the first six-day race for teams of two in 1899 .

Charles Miller was born as Karl Müller in Hildebrandshausen, Thuringia . It is not known when he immigrated to the United States, but it was reported that he spoke English with a heavy accent. From 1897 to 1901 he was active as a professional cyclist. Twice he won the six-day race from New York in Madison Square Garden , which was denied at this time not by two teams, but individual athletes: In 1897 he drove in these "Solo Six days" 3,229 kilometers and two years later 3,368 km, In 1898 he also won the solo six-day race in Houston , and the following year the solo race in San Francisco .

For his victory in the New York race in 1896 against 37 competitors, Miller received $ 1,500 (about $ 40,000 in today's value). The New York Journal described this form of cycling as "pernicious to the sensible use of the bike" and the New York Herald wrote of an "inhumanity in the name of sport". The following year, the President of the Board of Health , Michael C. Murphy, tried to prevent the race because it was "an animal event that no white man should watch" and in which the athletes were subjected to inhumane efforts. However, the doctor who examined Miller after the race the previous year assured him that Miller was in good physical condition. The 1898 race went as planned, and Miller won again. About an hour after the end of the 1898 race in New York, Miller married his fiancée Genevieve Hanson (or Hansen) in the presence of several thousand spectators. The bride is said to have made her yes-word dependent on Miller winning the race. Her mother was against this connection, but it lasted for over 50 years.

The following year, concerns about the solo six-day race were taken seriously, and the authorities passed a law that a driver could only drive twelve hours a day; the solution was teams of two. Miller also won the first of its kind in 1899, together with Frank Waller, a native of Munich who was 16 years older than Miller. Waller himself had already won the solo six-day races in Washington and Pittsburgh in 1894 and again that in Washington in 1896. Although the two drivers were of German origin, they were advertised as the Flying Dutchmen . The following year he started in New York with Robert Walthour , whom he had chosen as his partner, but had to give up the race after a few hours due to stomach problems. Since the races with two-man teams were held for the first time in Madison Square Garden , the track cycling discipline two-man team riding is also called Madison or Americaine .

In 1901 Charles traveled to France to be the only non-European and the first US-American to take part in the second edition of the 1200-kilometer Paris – Brest – Paris (PBP) long-distance journey. He had to face all sorts of adversities: unlike the European starters, he had no support from pacemakers or supervisors, and he had to organize his meals himself. His bike also had a defect 350 kilometers from the finish and he had to borrow another one. With a time of 56 hours and 40 minutes, he finished fifth behind three French and one Swiss, while he mastered the last kilometer of the race with the fastest time (1 minute, 26 seconds) of all participants. It was not until 1975 that a second American started at PBP, and no sooner than 1979 was Miller's time undercut by a compatriot.

After finishing his active cycling career , Miller worked as a columnist for the newspaper New York World .

Web links

Commons : Charles Miller  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Beginnings. In: sixday.org.uk. 2015, accessed December 5, 2015 .
  2. ^ A b W. Joseph Campbell: The Year That Defined American Journalism. Routledge, 2013, ISBN 978-1-135-20505-8 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Andrew M. Homan: Life in the Slipstream. Potomac Books, Inc., 2011, ISBN 978-1-59797-768-5 ( limited preview in Google Book Search)
  4. ^ Patrick R. Redmond: The Irish and the Making of American Sport, 1835-1920. McFarland, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4766-0584-5 , p. 200 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  5. ↑ Miller wants to be married. In: Daily Mail and Empire. December 10, 1898, accessed December 7, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Jacq van Reijendam: 6-daagsen-statistieken 2010 , No. 17, p. 55
  7. ↑ Frank Waller. In: radsportseiten.net. Retrieved December 5, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Les 6 jours individuels. In: Memoire du Cyclisme. Retrieved December 7, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Charly Miller. (No longer available online.) In: Randonoodler. February 3, 2011, archived from the original on December 8, 2015 ; Retrieved December 5, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.randonoodler.com
  10. ↑ RUSA: La Société Charly Miller. In: rusa.org. October 25, 2015, accessed December 5, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Miller, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Müller, Karl (original name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Hildebrandshausen
DATE OF DEATH 20th August 1951
Place of death Chicago