Hugh McLean – Champion Bicycle Racer; Alec McLean – Bicycle Racer and Racing/Boxing Promoter

Alexander A. and Hugh A. McLean were born at South River, Antigonish County, on 3 May 1872 and 8 June 1877 respectively, sons of Allan McLean and Mary McGillivray. When they were just teenagers, and after their mother had died, the family left Nova Scotia for “the Boston States,” as so many Maritimers were doing at that time. Although the family was enumerated in Dunmore, Antigonish County in 1891, Hugh later claimed in an application for naturalization that he had first immigrated to the US in 1885. The family’s answers on the 1900 US Census suggest that Alec and Hugh’s sister Margaret had blazed a trail for the family in 1882, with other sisters following in the 1880s and the rest of the family in the 1890s.

Whatever their timing, the McLeans settled in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where Allan worked as a carpenter.  In the Chelsea Directory for 1895, Hugh is listed as a “bluing maker,” presumably referring to the process by which steel was coated to resist rusting, and Alec as a stone cutter. By 1899 the brothers were partners in MacLean Bros. Bicycle Dealers and Repairers, at 427 Broadway, Chelsea. Two years later, in 1901, Hugh applied for American citizenship. 

Hugh’s love for cycling extended far beyond his work life. As early as 1895, he was competing in cycling competitions in his adopted state. The Casket reported in June of that year: “At the bicycle races at Lynn [MA] on Memorial Day, Mr. Hugh McLean, son of Mr. Allan McLean, formerly of South River, Antigonish County, won the second prize – a beautiful gold watch.” Success at such local events led to greater ambitions, and in 1899 Hugh placed second in the world track cycling championships in Montreal. Although he was Canadian born, and despite the fact he was not yet an American citizen, Hugh competed as an American. 

Hugh’s racing career continued into the 20th century, so much so that in the 1902 Chelsea City Directory, his occupation is listed as “bicycle racer.” A year earlier he had finished second in the Boston Six Days race. Six day cycling originated in the UK in the 1870s. The winner was the competitor who completed the most laps over a six day period. In the early 20th century, the rules were changed to include teams of 2, to keep the race running continually. In 1905, Hugh finished third in the New York Six Days race, and first in Boston alongside Floyd Krebs in 1907. That same year, he was declared the middle-distance pace-following champion of America and then of the world (see race ad right).

Racing took Hugh McLean even further afield. In 1902, he and brother Alec travelled to Australia, and Hugh was an annual visitor to Paris between 1905 and 1908, when he won the majority of races he entered there. Races also took him to Denver, Atlantic, Providence, and other American cities. 

Hugh very nearly didn’t make it this far is his career. Following a race at Madison Square Garden in December 1903, the Boston Globe reported: “At 6:30 this morning the garden, still filled to its utmost capacity, echoed to a crash. It was the worst fall of the race to date, resulting in the complete disablement of one of the most promising riders in the race, Hugh McLean. At the latest report it is said that the New England boy is suffering from a fracture of the skull. He is out of the race for good…. To the astonishment of everyone McLean was seen to be clutching to the top boards of the track. Blood was gushing from the left side of his face, so that his features were indistinguishable.”

This was not Hugh’s only serious cycling-related injury. In August 1900, he collided with another racer and sustained “a severe fall which will keep him out of racing for some time.” In December of the same year, he suffered a sterno-clavicular dislocation, and in December 1906, another serious fall “rendered [Hugh] almost insensible from a gash about three inches long on the right side of his head. McLean may also have sustained a fracture of the collarbone.” Fractured collarbones were an occupation hazard, and Hugh suffered similar injuries many times. In the most dramatic accident, in July 1905, the Globe remarked “That there was not one or more killed at the Revere beach bicycle track last night is a miracle, for the most sensational accident ever known in the history of bicycle racing in this country occurred.” On the 52nd mile of the race, “a sudden crash was heard and McLean and a pacing machine…were soon to shoot up the precipitous banking at the turn into the homestretch.” Clearly, cycling was not a sport for the faint-of-heart!

In March 1909, Hugh startled many fans of the sport when he announced his plans to retire from the track and become a manager of prize fighter Sandy Ferguson. His retirement, however, was short-lived, and in August announced his intention to return to the sport to defend his title as the world’s middle distance champion against cyclist Elmer Collins. It proved to be a fateful decision. In a training incident just days before the race, he was killed after his front wheel caught in the front wheel of the pacer motor and threw into the air; the subsequent fall to the track resulted in a fractured skull and serious liver damage. He hemorrhaged, and died a few days later. An autopsy revealed that McLean likely suffered a burst blood vessel in his brain before the accident, causing him to lose control of his bicycle.

Hugh’s obituary in the Globe acknowledged the tragedy: “While there have been many men who lost their life on the bicycle track, the McLean fatality was surrounded by circumstances which made his case a particularly sad one, for the day upon which his body was laid to rest in the Malden cemetery was to have been his last time to mount a wheel, for he was going to rest upon his hard earned laurels and marry Miss Helen McCusker, a charming Charlestown girl, next month.” It was a tragic end to a brilliant career.

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Hugh’s older brother, Alec, was also a veteran cyclist from the 1890s, but around the turn of the century he turned his energy towards promoting the sport. He was president of the Revere Cycle Track Association for several years, despite a scandal in January 1902 that saw him suspended from the National Cycling Association after a six-day race with which he was associated failed to pay prize money to the top finishers. In later years, he became a well-known boxing promoter, and remained well-known in sporting circles for the rest of his life.

At the time of his death in 1938, Alec was eulogized in the Boston Globe for his long career in sport: “He was particularly renowned for his ability as a bicycle rider, when he and his brother, the late Hugh MacLean, toured the country as a racing team. Alex then promoted bicycle racing on a large scale at Revere and his weekly meets proved immensely popular.” He was described in the context of his career as a boxing promoter as “a man who knew the boxing game from every angle and who was thoroughly honest, of deep integrity and possessing of a constructive mind.”

The athletic success of his sons must surely have made Allan McLean proud. When he died in 1921, the Boston Post observed: “Friends of the bike game were grieved to learn of the passing of [Allan McLean], down in Revere, yesterday afternoon. Despite his having reached the ripe old age of 98 years, the bike game had no keener follower, and scarcely a race has been held in Boston in the last quarter of a century, when he was not one of the rail birds who were on hand to urge the riders on in their mad whirl around the saucer track. … [His] numerous friends…were sorry to learn of the last of one of the real old school of bike followers that the game ever knew.”

Submitted by Barry MacKenzie