Reggie McNamara

Reggie McNamara

Cyclist Reggie MacNamara with his cycling partner Edward Seufert
Personal information
Full name	Reggie McNamara
Nickname	'Iron Bones', 'Iron man', 'Iron McNamara'
Born	November 7, 1887 Grenfell, New South Wales, Australia
Died	October 1971 (aged 83–84)
Team information
Discipline	Road and Track Sprints and Endurance
Role	Rider
Major wins
1913 - Sydney Six-days 1915-1917 - 5 World records, 1–25 miles 1918-1932 - 7x Six-days at Madison Square Garden 1918-1932 - 5x Six-days at Chicago Six-day races in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and England More than 700 career victories

Reggie McNamara (born Grenfell, New South Wales, Australia, 7 November 7 1887, died Belleville, New Jersey, United States, October 1970 or 1971 or 1972) was an Australian cyclist known as a roughhouse velodrome rider with a string of dramatic crashes and broken bones over 20 years. He was known as the Iron Man. He specialised in six-day races but rode races from 200m sprints to 100 km endurance races. He rode 3,000 races on three continents over 30 years and won more than 700 before he retired aged 50 in 1937.

Reggie McNamara grew up in the Australian countryside, the son of a sheep rancher. A snake bit him on a finger when he was 12 and hunting rabbits with his brother. He and his brother chopped off the finger with an axe. He and his 13 brothers and sisters learned to ride on the same bicycle. He began racing for money in local fairs around Sydney, shooting kangaroos and selling their skins to raise the entry fee. Some reports say he was 14, others 16.

He won his first race, over a mile and a half on a dirt track, and travelled across Australia and New Zealand to wherever he could find races. He won the Sydney six-day race at the start of 1913 and caught the eye of Alf Goullet, an Australian international who had been asked to find two good Australians to race in Newark, New Jersey, United States. Goullet signed just McNamara, telling the historian Peter Nye that McNamara was worth any two other riders.

"Reggie did crash a lot. But he caused a lot of his crashes. He would go and go and ride himself dead and then fall down."

McNamara went to the USA and took American nationality when he married an Irish nurse, Elizabeth McDonough in 1913, whom he had met after breaking a leg during his first training ride. They had two daughters, Eileen and Regina. McNamara set five world records from one to 25 miles at Newark velodrome in 1915, 1916 and 1917. He won seven six-day races at Madison Square Garden in New York between 1918 and 1932, another five at the Chicago Coliseum and other six-day races in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and England. He won the 1932 Madison Square Garden six-day at the age of 45. His winnings up to 1933 reached the modern equivalent of at least A$2 000 000. McNamara was known for spectacular crashes on the steep wooden tracks. He crashed up to 20 times in some sixes.