LEGS TO RIDE FOR : Junior U.S. Cycling Champion Jane Eickhoff Tries to Prove Again She Has a Great Pair of Pedal Pushers

The first thing you notice when you look at bike racer Jane Eickhoff is her legs. What a pair of gams. But the 16-year-old is no lanky poster girl. She’s built more like Bo Diaz than Bo Derek.

The junior U.S. cycling champion has the young, freckled countenance of a Girl Scout. You’d never guess she had the leg muscles of a linebacker.

In slightly more than one year of racing, Eickhoff has become the fastest-rising and perhaps the best young female cyclist in the country. Many observers point to the teen-ager’s power and say, for lack of a better explanation, that she’s a natural.

“She’s very good, especially for her age,” said Eddy Borysewicz, coaching director for the U.S. Cycling Federation. “She has a lot of natural talent.”

Larry Hoffman, a former columnist for a cycling publication, was more to the point. “She’s blowing everyone away on the track. There are girls who work for years--they get a little better each year--but this girl, she dominates the track. To have someone that good so soon is rare. She’s starting from such a high plateau, she’s like a prodigy.”

Two years ago, Eickhoff went with her father, George, to watch the Far West Track championships at the Olympic Velodrome at Cal State Dominguez Hills. She liked what she saw, so she talked her dad into getting her a track bike. In November, 1984, Eickhoff showed up at the Encino Velodrome looking for someone to teach her how to ride.

Paul Shecter, director of the velodrome, and Rick Denman, a racer at the track, began coaching Eickhoff. Said Shecter: “She showed a lot of strength from the beginning. She could handle a bike and she developed quickly. She was beating the boys who were two years older and who had two years more experience.”

Initially, Eickhoff raced in the junior division at Encino and at a track in San Diego, but because nobody could stay with her, she raced against the senior women. Even then, she dominated races.

The whole thing, she said with a giggle, was “getting to be a lot of fun.”

The little 15-year-old girl with the split-personality and body--half Shirley Temple, half Temple of Doom--qualified for the national track championships last August at Indianapolis in the 14- and 15-year-old division.

The national championship comprised three races--the one-kilometer event, the 2K and the 4K. Whoever had the most points after the three races would win the title.

Eickhoff, as it turned out, placed second in the 1K, she won the 2K and finished third in the 4K. When she won the championship, she surprised even herself. “First-year racers,” she said, “aren’t supposed to do that.”

Said Ron Skarin, who, by virtue of 10 national championships in track events from 1971 to 1981 is considered by some to be the king of American cycling: “I was very surprised. For her first season on the track, she was phenomenal. She has a real good shot at the ’88 Olympics if she continues to improve and if she doesn’t burn out.”

To avoid burnout, Eickhoff stayed off her bike during the winter months and took up a sport that continued to build her legs and her stamina--speed skating.

From November to April, she competed in Southern California Speed Skating Assn. races. “She never lost a meet,” said Barbara Smith, former president of the racing organization. “This was the first time she skated. Her strength is amazing. If she dropped cycling, she could be one of the top skaters in the United States. It’s rare that she could come along so fast. It’s unusual in skating. You don’t see someone who could rise to the top in two or three years.”

But that probably won’t happen with Eickhoff, who skates at the Pickwick Ice Arena in Burbank. She plans to concentrate on cycling and skate only to keep in shape.

In April, after winning the SCSSA state skating championship in the novice division, Eickhoff went back to the track. On April 27, she went to Colorado Springs, Colo., to compete against the best women cyclists in the country. She caught the attention of U.S. Cycling Federation coaches when she placed third in the 1K.

“She has the talent,” Borysewicz said. “For this age, she is wonderful. She’s off to a good start. We’ll just have to wait and see. Sometimes riders don’t reach their potential. Many things can happen--one bad crash and that can be the end.”

Eickhoff has already survived two crashes--one on the track and one on the road. Last July, during a race at the San Diego Velodrome, she slammed into a photographer who was positioning himself on the track’s apron. “It bent the fork on my bicycle and the photographer kind of lost a couple of his teeth,” Eickhoff said. “I had some scrapes.”

That same week, Eickhoff crashed during a road race. While maneuvering in the back of the pack, she reached for her water bottle. Suddenly, the traffic ahead slowed to a crawl and she slammed on her brakes to avoid a collision. She flipped over her handlebars and landed on the road. “I had what we call road rash--abrasions on my shoulders, elbows and face,” Eickhoff said. “I also had a slight concussion.

“It was weird because I thought, ‘This can’t be happening.’ I could feel my face hitting against the pavement. It felt like it was happening in slow motion.”

Eickhoff was taken off the course on a stretcher and taken to a hospital by ambulance.

Despite the accidents, the young racer seems unaffected by the sport’s danger. “Racing doesn’t take a lot of courage,” she said. “It looks scarier than it is. When you look at the track, you think, ‘There’s no way anybody could ride on that.’ But it’s not sooo bad.”

Isn’t it?

A velodrome looks like the inside of a drained swimming pool. Tracks are banked to keep racers from flying off the riding surface, but the steep banking enables cyclists to reach speeds exceeding 40 m.p.h. At times, the track becomes crowded and, as one racer put it, “downright dangerous.”

When Eickhoff first told her father that she wanted to race on the track, he wasn’t thrilled. George Eickhoff raced bicycles when he was younger. He then switched to racing cars--he was a Sports Car Club of America national champion in 1972. Now, he’s on the U.S. Pistol Shooting team.

“I knew bike racing was dangerous,” he said. “You’re aware of what can happen, but what was I supposed to do, tell her ‘no’ and then go back to pistol shooting?

“We all know about the danger, but it’s something you just put out of your head.”

Eickhoff doesn’t race like she’s scared. Since the Saturday night season started in April, she is undefeated at the Encino track. She also races Friday nights at the velodrome in San Diego, where she has lost once.

Eickhoff’s off-the-track demeanor falls in line with her Little Bo Peep looks. She’s a kid who likes double hamburgers, collects shells, watches plenty of TV, and uses expressions like “jeepers” and “yipes.”

She acts as if she’s genuinely surprised by her racing success. After she won the junior national championships last year, Eickhoff asked Denman, “Is this really happening?”

“The pressure built up as the nationals came closer last year,” said Jane’s mother, Janet. “But after she won it, you could see her confidence grow. That was a turning point.”

Recently at San Diego, Eickhoff qualified for this year’s national championships, which will be in Seattle next month. Her times were good enough to qualify her for the junior division and the senior division.

She wanted to race as a senior in the 1K, but rules prevent her from jumping two age groups to the 18-and-over competition. Even though Eickhoff said she is content to defend her junior title, clearly she’s aiming at the senior women--and the 1988 and ’92 Olympics.

Eickhoff will get a chance to race against the senior women at the U.S. Olympic Festival in Houston later this month. She was among eight sprinters selected for the competition, which will run from July 25 to Aug. 3.

Because cyclists normally hit their prime in their mid-20s and because Eickhoff just turned 16, many racing experts expect her eventually to make a splash internationally.

“She’s got the speed, stamina and ability to handle the bike,” Skarin said. “Whether she makes it to the top, it’ll depend on her inner drive.”

Said Denman: “She has a tendency to react, instead of acting. In a way, she may be too nice for this sport. Most of the top cyclists are self-centered. They’re not sociable.

“She’s just a sweet little girl.”

With legs as thick as Bo Jackson’s.