I don't think I even knew that motor-paced bicycle racing had been a sport before I read this book! I picked it up more or less at random - I am interesting in the general history of bicycling, so I figured this would work as another patch in my quilt.

This is a rather skeletal history, pretty much a series of races, results,... and blood-curdling crashes! Spoiler alert - just about everybody dies on the track! This was a brutal sport!

This book covers Walthour's career from its start around 1895 up to the start of the Great War in 1914. Walthour kept racing up until 1923 and lived into the 1940s, but that period just gets a couple paragraphs. The real peak of Walthour's career was around 1906. It was in Europe where motor-pace races drew huge crowds and paid big money, though it was plenty popular in the USA as well.

Even though Walthour was a quiet man, this book could have been considerably fleshed out with what people were thinking - somebody around the track must have left some record! But anyway, Homan does a good job of introducing us to the sport and its popularity in its time. Even though it is not much more that a series of race reports, I was never bored reading it at all. ( )