I raced in the Kissena Park velodrome in 1964, in the National Championships, which I qualified for solely because I was apparently the only 13-year-old boy with a track bike in Connecticut. I don't know why Jean, a 12-year-old girl with a track bike in our local club in New Haven, didn't get a similar opportunity.

My Helyett track bike had 10-oz. Dunlop road tubulars. All the other kids had Schwinn Paramounts with orange Criterium Setas.

They laughed at my tires! Sweet revenge: a year later, I won an Intermediate-class criterium race in Hartford, beating the national Intermedate champion. (He clipped a pedal going into the final turn, but still.)