Cycling / Tim Brown : Team Ape Often Monkeys Around but Still Takes Its Stature Seriously

First, what Team Ape is not:

Captained by Lancelot Link (secret chimp).

The new anthropoid exhibit at the L. A. Zoo.

A gang of fun-loving primates that hang out in the mist with Sigourney Weaver.

The Detroit Pistons’ frontcourt.

To be confused with the A Team.

The last bunch of guys to see Jimmy Hoffa dry.

So what is Team Ape?

Team Ape is foremost a state of mind. A state of minds , actually. The minds of Eric Scott, David Scott, John Pitsch, John Hard, Tommy Rogers, Nenah Spellman, Roger Nottestad and John Williams. Where that state is, exactly, no one seems sure.

When they are together, which is often, they laugh a lot.

Team Ape, a Valley-based racing team, is the brainchild of Eric Scott. The concept was born several years ago somewhere between the bench press and the locker room at Mapes Gym in Simi Valley. The four original members--the Scott brothers, Hard and Pitsch--became known as Mapes’ Apes and then, simply, Team Ape.

Admission standards are quite lofty: Each member must be at least 6 feet tall.

“The concept of the team is size,” said Pitsch, a part-owner of Granada Hills Schwinn bike shop. “We eat like there’s no tomorrow and we’re walking billboards for our sponsors.”

Here’s the lineup: Eric Scott is 6-6, 230; David Scott (“Not that one,” he says) is 6-5, 200; Pitsch is 6-4, 185; Hard is 6-4, 185; Rogers is 6-4, 180; Williams is 6-6, 200; Nottestad is 6-0, 170; and Spellman, the only lady Ape, is 6-0, 130.

This isn’t a cycling team, it’s a mobile feeding frenzy.

“It’s hard to find members that are that tall and proven,” Nottestad said. “It’s very intimidating at races. When you see very tall guys with faces like apes, it’s very intimidating.”

The Apes compete on- and off-road and one--Nottestad--is primarily a track racer. Hard and Rogers are professionals.

Team jerseys are purely primordial. From the belt line, horizontal slashes start at four feet and continue to six feet at the shoulder. A banana peeks out of the back pocket. The dominant color is, of course, yellow.

The stories they tell are even more colorful.

There’s the one in which Eric Scott, his hands numbed and badly blistered from a previous day’s race and moments away from another, stuffed Fig Newton bars into the palms of his gloves to ease the pain. And the time Scott was thrown from his bike at 40 m. p. h. through a barbed-wire fence and emerged on the other side without a scratch. They were more like deep gouges. Big laughs.

Then there’s the desire to be First Ape. On every ride, training or racing, that’s the goal.

“We think about top five or top 10 finishes, but the goal has always been to be First Ape,” David Scott said.

Kind of a last-one-down-the-hill-is-a-Cro-Magnon-man race.

It’s all part of a regimen that seems to have found the perfect balance between hard training and monkey business.

“The road biking teams are really unfriendly,” Pitsch said. “Maybe that’s the nature of the road biker, where we are more humorous out there, looking for a good time, along with the competitive edge.”

The next stop for the Apes is the National Off-Road Bicycle Assn. Points Series finals Sept. 2-4 in Big Bear, followed by the World Mountain Bike Championships, Sept. 6-10, in Mammoth Lakes.

Also, there is a junior team in the works. It will be known as Team Chimp. Of course.

Junior Nationals: Haldane Morris of Sherman Oaks placed second last Sunday in the men’s age 17-18 three-kilometer pursuit final of the Junior National Track Championships in Colorado Springs, Colo. Morris finished less than a half-second behind winner Brett Reagan of Boulder, Colo.

Also in track racing, Simi Valley’s Katie Beck was seventh in the women’s 16-17 two-kilometer pursuit final and seventh in the sprint final; Ryan Murphy of Van Nuys was eighth in the men’s 15-16 sprint final; and Laurie Ross of Van Nuys was seventh in the women’s 13-15 sprint final.

Sepulveda’s Willie Wood, in the men’s 15-16 division, and Murphy also made strong showings in their respective points races.

In Thursday’s time trial portion of the road racing championships, Quartz Hill’s Shawn Cronkhite was 10th in the men’s 17-18 division and Beck was ninth in the women’s 16-17 division. The competition continues with road races Saturday and criteriums Sunday.

Subaru Classic: The Subaru criterium series continued last Sunday in San Rafael, and in the men’s division Cam Johnson of Westlake was the highest Valley finisher at 17th, followed by Chatsworth’s John Tomac, who was 20th.

In the women’s division, Maureen Manley of Thousand Oaks was 16th.

Tomac and Manley are scheduled to compete in the World Cycling Championships, Aug. 14-27, in Chambery, France.

Add Tomac: Word is that the nation’s top amateur rider might turn professional and race for Team 7-Eleven in the 1990 racing season.

In its August edition, California Bicyclist reported that Tomac, who already has pro status as a mountain-bike racer, would like to enter the European pro circuit. Joining Team 7-Eleven would give him that opportunity.

RAAM tough: The Race Across AMerica starts at noon Sunday from the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. An estimated eight days later, the winners will arrive in New York City. The human-powered-vehicles race will begin Aug. 19.