Ray Florman

Winning Despite Disadvantage
A Personal Remembrance of Ray Florman
By Ed Ruesing

 

Kirkwood resident and business owner Ray Florman, who died last March at 84, was a champion cyclist whose racing career spanned a remarkable 66 years, an Influential coach, who helped guide the ascendancy of American cyclists in international competition, and a person who refused to allow his physical disability to become a handicap.

Ray was born in Venice, Illinois January 22, 1917 without a left hand. His left arm ended at the wrist. That was the first thing everyone noticed about him, and then forgot because he never allowed this disability to slow him down in any respect. He became an expert brazer and bicycle frame builder and a master bicycle mechanic. For most two- handed tasks, he would grasp an object-a bicycle wheel, say-between his forearm and his chest. For fine work he attached the required implement brazing rod, for example-to his wrist with a bicycle toe strap. On his bicycles he used a tandem- style brake lever that enabled him to operate both front and rear brakes with a single II lever.

Ray took up bicycle racing in 1932 at age 15, winning a live turkey in the St. Louis Cycling Club’s annual Turkey Day Race, his first victory, at least the first reported in his scrapbooks. Why bicycle racing? Perhaps, because it doesn’t take two hands to ride a bicycle.

But Ray competed at a disadvantage against able- bodied athletes. Racing cyclists pull on the handlebars with both hands to increase pedaling leverage, especially when sprinting or standing on the pedals while climbing. He had no alternative, however. The Amateur Bicycle League of America was the only body sanctioning amateur bicycle racing at the time, and ABL rules, like those of the successor United States Cycling Federation, were written for the able-bodied.

If Ray were starting his bicycle racing career today, “ he would be eligible to compete against other one-handed cyclists under the rules of Disabled Sports USA, which organizes national championships qualifying athletes for the Paralympics held in the same years and venues as the Olympic Games. Nonetheless, Ray achieved considerable success in competition against able- bodied cyclists. In 1936 he was Missouri State Champion in the Senior Men’s division, winning the title on points after finishing first in the 50-mile race and third in the 25-mile event. He repeated his victory in 1937, again on roads in Forest Park, winning both the 5-mile and 25-mile events.

Ray rode his bicycle from St. Louis to Standard Steel Spring in Madison, Illinois daily during World War II, working as a metallurgist inspecting truck parts. Returning to bicycle racing after his son Raymond was born in 1947, he came close to making the 1948 Olympic Team for the men’s road race, finishing sixth in the first of two 135-mile qualifying races in Milwaukee, fourth in the second.

After opening what is now A-I Bicycle Sales in 1953, located in Kirkwood since 1974, Ray began to coach young cyclists. Among them was Ed Ruesing who was Missouri Junior Men’s champion in 1956 and 1957 and was third in the 1956 National Championships, second in 1957. (The author of this remembrance was just good enough to appreciate how excruciatingly difficult it is to be a champion cyclist.)

Ray’s most important contribution to the development of American bicycle racing lay in mentoring Springfield, Missourian John Howard beginning in 1967. “Without Ray Florman, there would have been no John Howard,” Howard wrote in a memorial tribute. “Most of my big wins... were directly a result of his financial assistance and encouragement.”

Howard won six National Championships and represented the United States on three Olympic Teams between 1968 and 1976. But to appreciate fully his role in the ascendancy of U.S. cyclists in international competition, one needs to recall the history of American bicycle racing in the 20^th Century.

The United States was a major power in bicycle track racing in the early years of the century when big money and big crowds made velodrome racing the big league of international cycling. Black star Major Taylor from Indianapolis and I Frank Kramer from

Evansville were world professional sprint champions m 1899 and 1912, respectively. But Americans were never on the victory podium in the international road races, which television helped make into big-league bicycle racing in the second half of the century. Europeans and Latin Americans were the stars.

Road racing specialists like Ray Florman and John Howard could only aspire to international success.

The breakthrough came at Cali, Columbia in 1971 when John Howard became the first, and only, American to win the gold medal in the road race at the Pan American Games. His victory, which also made him the first American male ever to win a major international road race, was the first milestone in a progress which has seen Alexi Grewal win the men’s road race at the 1984 Olympics and American World Champions Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong win the Tour de France six times in the last 15 years. LeMond, in fact, was inspired to take up bicycle racing while watching John Howard and his breakaway companion in the 1975 Pan American Games trials in Nevada. Howard and Peter Nye write in Howard’s autobiography Pushing the Limits.

Ray Florman’ s last contribution to American success in international competition came in the 1990s when A-I Bicycle sponsored the junior road racing team The Spirits of St. Louis, which under coach Jim Schneider, helped to develop Glencoe native Kevin Livingston into a professional road racing standout. Livingston was a chief lieutenant to Lance Armstrong in the 1999 and 2000 Tours de France. In 2001 he was top lieutenant to Armstrong’s principal rival Ian Ullrich, a role he is expected to repeat for the German star in 2002.

When The Spirits disbanded in 1996, Ray saw to it that A-I Bicycle Sales became a sponsor of the St. Louis Cycling Club-the oldest continuously active cycling club in the United States-a practice continued by his son Raymond who now owns the business.

Ray rode his bicycle regularly throughout his life, and in the 1990s he returned to racing in the age-graded Masters competition of the United States Cycling Federation. In 1998, at age 81, he became National Champion in his age group. His National Championship jersey and gold medal are on display at the Manchester Road Store. Ray Florman died March 26, 2001 of complication from colon cancer. He was looking forward to riding his bicycle again in the spring.

 

 

 

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