The Cheetah

Nelson Vails is iconic in not one, but TWO worlds of cycling. In 1984 he became the first African-American to win an Olympic medal for cycling, winning the silver for the sprint He was inducted into the Lehigh Valley Velodrome Cycling Hall of Fame in 2005 and to the US Bicycle Hall of Fame in 2009. Simultaneously, this pro-cyclist was the emblematic New York City bike messenger in the 1986 movie Quicksilver starring Kevin Bacon. Vails was also a legendary NYC bike messenger in real life, BTW.

You can learn more about in Vails in the 2014 documentary Cheetah: The Nelson Vails Story