dan emery
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 6890
Location: Maine1/28/18 5:33 PM |
Thanks Tom
I grew up outside Buffalo in Amherst, which is right next to Tonawanda. I don't remember the Eldredge Club, but in '75 I rode for awhile with the great Buffalo Bicycle Club before I left town for school. Buffalo has a great bicycle tradition. A guy a year behind me high school, Jim Huetter, was not in the club as he was a national class rider, but he rode with the club at times. He was on the national team at one point.
The club had two iconic riders - Larry Reade, a steelworker who won about a million national age group time trial championships; and the late Ted Smith, a barber who was nat road champ around 1950 and won a pro race in Europe (he may or may not be the first American to do so). There is a lot about Ted in "Hearts of Lions," the great book by Peter Nye. Under the "amateur" rules at the time, he had to sit out 5 years after returning to the US because he had ridden as a pro. His first race back he was second in the Tour of Somerville, nipped by a friend who followed the same path. He remains the smoothest pedaller I have ever seen.
I didn't know Ted, but he seemed like a fine guy, and Larry was the no.1 guy you would want in a bike club.
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