Thomas (the Barrel) McCarthy Bike Race Scandal by Edward Brown special to the Star
As the Tour de France kicks off in Europe, we look back at Toronto’s long-standing Dunlop Trophy Road Race. In 1894, scandal engulfed Canada’s cycling elite during its inaugural event.
The 110th edition of the Tour de France, a multiple-stage bicycle race steeped in history and marred by scandal, kicks off on June 29. Hundreds of thousands of fans line the streets across France and millions more watch the multi-week event on television.
Nine years before the inception of the prestigious global sporting event, the Canadian racing community was caught up in its own scandal involving the biggest names in the sport. Controversy at the inaugural Dunlop Trophy Road Race hosted in Toronto in 1894 rocked the fledgling Canadian bicycle racing community. That year, spectators lined a race course in the city’s east end to cheer on teams of cyclists in a competition that started a decades-long racing tradition — the seven foot trophy is still on display at the Royal Canadian Curling Club in Riverside.
To the shock of many observing the race, eyewitnesses claimed champion cyclist Thomas McCarthy cheated when he failed to complete the course by turning short of the midpoint indicated by a barrel on the Kingston Road course.
Scotsmen John Dunlop’s 1888 patent of the inflatable tire launched a global bicycle craze, and by the early 1890s, Toronto boasted several cycling clubs. In 1894, Dunlop Tire Co. sponsored Toronto’s significantly shorter road race to pump up tire sales. Up for grabs was bragging rights to a seven-foot, 10-inch silver and ebony trophy, thought to be the world’s largest at the time. Proceeds from the race financed the installation of cinder paths and early bike lanes in the city.
“The Dunlop Road Race was absolutely huge,” sports historian William Humber, author of “Freewheeling, The Story of Bicycling in Canada,” told the Star. Humber’s book and articles from the Toronto Star archives detail what went down in the inaugural race. “The race started in an era when the safety bicycle, the one we are familiar with today, had just replaced the high wheel or penny farthing.”
The inaugural Dunlop Road Race featured five teams: the Wanderers, the Athenaeums, Queen City, the Royal Canadians, and the Torontos. Individual racers earned points by winning relays. The team with the most points won.
The first Dunlop Trophy, now on display at the Royal Canadian Bicycle & Curling Club on Broadview Avenue in Toronto
Thomas McCarthy 1894, Stratford-Perth Archives
The Torontos were favoured to win even with their best riders sidelined. The Royal Canadians’ chances appeared slim with cycling phenom Harley Davidson (no relation to the famous motorcycle brand), the Lightning Cyclist, not competing. Even though Athenaeums’ Thomas McCarthy of Stratford, Ont. dominated the sport, his team wasn’t expected to place above third.
The race kicked off under ideal weather conditions on Sept. 29 at 3:30 p.m. without mishaps. Teams circled old Woodbine Racetrack four times before embarking on a grueling road race up Kingston Road to St. Clair Avenue East, where they would “turn the barrel,” retracing their ride back to the track to complete a final lap.
The Athenaeums lapped the packed soil track in good time, leaving 21-year-old Thomas McCarthy to overtake Torontos’ wheelman William Hyslop on a stretch of Kingston Road. Riding northeast past Woodbine Avenue, Norway Hill tested cyclists’ endurance. The unpaved climb proved treacherous, and tire punctures were common. Stray dogs accosted riders. Enthusiastic spectators doused passing cyclists with water to quench their thirsts. McCarthy blew a tire near Blantyre Avenue, and the rear wheel of a Royal Canadian cyclist’s bike fell off.
Official race observers were posted along the route to enforce rules. Thirty-four minutes after the starter’s pistol, racers reached St. Clair and turned back. By the midpoint, many dust-covered competitors were scraped and bloodied. On the home stretch, the fastest cyclists covered one mile in three minutes. Thousands gathered outside the gates of the horse track to cheer on the returning pack led by the Torontos. McCarthy had dropped to sixth place but miraculously climbed back to second behind a fellow Athenaeum teammate on the last lap.
At the race’s conclusion, the Athenaeums and the Royal Canadians were locked in a dead heat, each with 216 points. Before crowds dispersed, officials scheduled a runoff race for the following Wednesday. Then, word rippled through the crowd that eyewitnesses saw McCarthy cheat by turning short of the barrel. Learning this, the Royal Canadians claimed victory on the spot.
Race observers stationed along the course didn’t help the situation. Since cyclists weren’t assigned numbers, they claimed it was impossible to distinguish the soiled and bloodied competitors. In a suspicious twist, officials announced that the Royal Canadians had mistakenly been allotted unearned points in the tabulation process, ignoring claims that McCarthy cheated.
The Athenaeums were proclaimed the winners. The Royal Canadians blew a gasket. They hired a lawyer to petition the court at Osgoode Hall to impose an injunction preventing the Athenaeums from being awarded the win. Humber writes in ”Freewheeling” that the judge threw out the case. Two weeks later, a race observer stationed on Kingston Road swore in an affidavit that he witnessed McCarthy turning at the barrel. With the matter settled, the Athenaeum Cycling Club was declared the official winner of the first Dunlop Trophy Road Race.
Though the Royal Canadians had victory snatched from their grasp in their first attempt, they would go on to dominate the competition in the following years, taking the Dunlop Trophy nine times.
Known for the rest of his life as Thomas “The Barrel” McCarthy, the record-breaking cyclist competed for another decade. In retirement, he remained close to the road race that earned him his nickname, stationed at the barrel during the 1922 race to ensure cyclists didn’t cheat by turning short.