Taylor soon attracted the attention of Louis “Birdie” Munger, a retired bicycle racer and entrepreneur. Munger tested how fast Taylor could sprint a single mile and clocked it at two minutes and nine seconds – just two seconds short of the 1893 world record. Munger became Taylor’s mentor, sponsor and coach . In 1895, Munger invited a young Taylor to live in Worcester, Massachusetts, where Munger had opened a new bicycle factory. Unlike in Indianapolis, Taylor was allowed to join the YMCA in this more progressive community, and it was here that he began training in earnest.
“Major Taylor lived in Worcester most of his life, from 1895 to 1930,” said Lynne Tolman, director of the Major Taylor Association, a nonprofit organization that honors his legacy. “The newspapers called it ‘the Worcester whirlwind.’ There were still obstacles, of course, like objections from white neighbors when Taylor bought a house in Worcester. But eventually, Taylor settled into a comfortable home in Worcester, and Worcester remains rightly proud that a local resident has become a superstar of international sport.
As journalist Michael Kranish recounts in his 2019 biography The World’s Fastest Man, Taylor became a legend in his time, winning countless track races and breaking world records. A devout Christian, Taylor cultivated a straightforward personality, abstaining from alcohol and tobacco and refusing to compete on Sundays. Even by today’s modern racing standards, his statistics remain astonishing. In 1898, for example, he sprinted 1 km in 57.6 seconds – the current record set by Dutch cyclist Jeffrey Hoogland is 55.433 seconds.
Yet Taylor faced endless hostility in his home country. In 1885, the American League of American Wheelmen (now known as the League of American Bicyclists) attempted to ban blacks. Newspapers published caricatures mocking Taylor, and when he was allowed to compete, marching bands played “Dixie” (which originated in racist minstrel shows in the 1850s and became the de facto anthem of the Confederacy during the American Civil War) when his name was announced. Advertisements presented Taylor’s races as a battle between black and white athletes, and opponents regularly used vicious tactics on the track, attempting to trap him in a group or dangerously overturn his bike. During a race in Taunton, Massachusetts, a white rider pulled Taylor off his bike and choked him until he lost consciousness.