The first bicycle racing at the ground took place at the Cardiff Harlequins Football and Athletic Club sports meeting on 24th June 1893, where there was a large attendance, in spite of the showery conditions. The bicycle races were a quarter mile open handicap, a quarter mile open scratch, a one mile open handicap which won by E James from Jimmy Michael and Arthur Linton and a five miles points race won by Arthur Linton from ST Eager and E James.
In the winter of 1893, Arthur Linton and Jimmy Michael were taken on by the notorious trainer Choppy Warburton and both riders became world famous, racing at home and abroad.
The future of the Harlequin's track was uncertain in 1894, as the Harlequins were very short of money and there were rumours of the track being sold or the Harlequins floating a limited company. Bicycle racing continued at the ground for another seven years. Arthur Linton died of typhoid on 20th July 1896 and there was a benefit meeting at the Harlequin's track on 26th September 1896. Professional bicycle racing in South Wales was still popular at this time, in 1897 there were 118 professional licences issued by the South Wales NCU.
The expense of renting and developing the ground finally caught up with the Harlequins and the rugby club was disbanded in the 1897/98 season. A new company, the Cardiff Athletic Ground Company, was registered on 8th October 1898, there were initially seven subscribers for the £2,000 company capital in £1 shares and the company took over the remains of the ten year lease. William Kennard, a track racing cyclist, cycle manufacturer and dealer of City Road Cardiff, was one of the subscribers and he injected some new life into the track. Training tickets for the track were on sale in 1899, priced at 21 shillings for the year or 2/6d per week. There were a number of interesting meeting in Kennard's first year, including the Cardiff AC meeting on 20th May which included the NCU half mile Championship of Wales, Platt-Betts appeared on 29th July 1899 and there was a Bank Holiday meeting on 7th & 8th August 1899.
At the sports meeting on 16th September 1899, W Clay of Cardiff attacked Chase's ten miles paced, cinder track record, but he failed because of the high winds. The amateur one mile open handicap race was won by HC Prickett of the Cardiff Catford club. CE Jenkins and E Nicholls attempted the half mile tandem record, which they beat by over a second, but unfortunately the NCU judge was told not to attend because of the weather, so the record was not ratified. The meeting was enlivened by the appearance of William Cody and his Wild West cowboys and there were two horse vs cyclist races.
The track events held in 1900 included a Christmas day meeting, where Sydney Jenkins, a former national champion, met Jed Gascoine over three races, a quarter and one mile scratch races and a half mile pursuit, Gascoine won all three races. There were Good Friday and Whitsun meetings in 1901 and the Cardiff Jockey Cycling Club held their sports. The Welsh hour record was beaten on 5th October 1901 by JJ Sheen of Aberdare with a distance of 25 miles 760 yards, at the meeting, Sheen also beat the 1,000 skips world record in a time of 5 min 17 sec.
This was the last bicycle racing at the ground and it co-incided with the ten year lease running out, but rugby was played there for many years. Later maps show the Athletic Ground named as the Recreation Ground. The Athletic ground fell into disrepair in the 1970s but it is now called the Harlequins Playing Field and is the home of St Peter's RFC.
