July 1, 1893 – It was a beautiful day for a bike ride! At least in San Francisco where on this day they opened the first American wooden bicycle race track. Velodrome is the proper name of the venues that started popping up all over the world in the late 19th and early twentieth century as people racing bikes around a wooden oval track was all the rage.
According to Wikipedia, the first such cycling stadium was built in 1877, the Preston Park Velodrome in Brighton, United Kingdom, constructed by the British Army. Some of these sites after that were purpose-built just for cycling, and others were built as part of facilities for other sports; many were built around athletics tracks or other grounds and any banking was shallow.
We have talked about football fields being placed in the infield of these velodromes on many of football history podcasts on SHN.
To find more great daily sports history make sure to check out the Sports Jersey Dispatch and Pigskin Dispatch.
More From Sports History Network
The Most Lopsided Blowout In College Football History
Every year in college football there is a game where one team finds out
Relive My First Super Bowl Experience With Me (Super Bowl IV)
The first Super Bowl I can remember watching was Super Bowl IV. I was
Remembering Chester Marcol’s Incredible Rookie Season
By the time of the 1972 NFL Player Draft, the Green Bay Packers, in
The Pro Football Hall of Fame (From My Perspective)
***This is an updated article that I released about 2 years ago.*** The Pro
Dancing Sheik to Sheik: Blood, Fire, and The Original Sheik
The NEW YOU ASKED FOR IT, a show that ran in syndication from 1981
Art Folz: The NFL’s Biggest Villain That You Never Heard About!
Who is Art Folz, and why is he one of the most notorious villains
What Makes An NFL Dynasty?
In terms of gratuitous overuse in the American sports vocabulary, “dynasty” is a word
Joe Nuxhall: The Story of the Youngest Player In MLB History
The date was June 10, 1944, and for the Cincinnati Reds they, like the