Hampsten Faces Trial Under Fire : Tour de France: Always strong in the mountains, he must improve in time trials if he is to win race.

Sitting on a veranda overlooking Lake Maggiore, Andy Hampsten, one of America’s best professional cyclists, watched fireworks light up a starless sky in northern Italy. Taking in the surroundings, Hampsten smiled.

Perhaps it was the fresh night air, or the fairy-tale feeling of the Italian resort villa where he was staying last month. Or maybe it was that Hampsten had completed the two most difficult days of the Giro d’Italia, as the Tour of Italy is known, with a modicum of success. Whatever the reason, Hampsten had found inner peace, and his contentment showed.

He did not always feel that way when competing in Europe. For most of Hampsten’s career, in fact, it was the last place he wanted to visit.

“I always escaped from Europe,” he said.

Although bicycle racing is centered in Belgium, France and Italy, Hampsten could not wait to return to Boulder, Colo., after the long season. He missed the Rocky Mountains, where he counted among friends artists, musicians and jugglers.

Hampsten also juggled, not only objects, but his life. He loved racing, but hated being away nine months of the year.

The conflict remained unresolved until this year, when at 30 Hampsten discovered that the prospects of living in Europe year-round sounded exciting.

“The more I get to know Europe, the more comfortable I am,” Motorola’s leading rider said. “The less foreign it is, the better I’d do (in racing).”

Although Hampsten has been racing in Europe since the mid-1980s, he fought cultural assimilation. Whereas Greg LeMond, three-time Tour de France champion, made a concerted effort to speak French fluently, Hampsten resisted.

Now he has learned some French and Italian, and if not exactly becoming a European, he can appreciate the differences.

His new attitude stems from a desire to win the Tour de France. Hampsten has been close. He finished fourth in 1986--the year LeMond won his first--and was eighth last year. He has won the Tour of Switzerland and is the only American to have won the Tour of Italy.

“(But) the Tour de France is something I was worrying about every day,” Hampsten said.

Considered one of the world’s best climbers, Hampsten needed to attack his weakness, time trial racing, to have a serious chance at winning the Tour, which is in the first week of its three-week journey around France and environs.

Hampsten will be able to test his improvement in today’s fourth stage, the tour’s first time trial. The 63-kilometer team time trial will be held at Libourne through the vineyards of the St. Emilion region near Bordeaux. Two important individual time trials will be held July 13 and July 24.

Hampsten is 41st, but in contention. He is 7 minutes 35 seconds behind tour leader Pascal Lino of France, but only 67 seconds behind second-place Miguel Indurain of Spain, the rider many believe will win the Tour. Two Motorola teammates look strong after four stages--Italian Maximillian Sciandri, whose parents own an L.A. restaurant, is 11th and Steve Bauer of Canada is 14th.

Hampsten, who finished fifth in the 1992 Tour of Italy but was criticized for not attacking in the mountain stages, is hoping the emphasis on time trial racing will help.

Hampsten’s training in Boulder was good, but when Massimino Testa, Motorola’s team doctor, suggested training with him last winter, Hampsten agreed. What Testa was gently suggesting was that Hampsten’s problems were mental adjustment, not physical capabilities.

“I knew it all along,” Hampsten said.

Hampsten lives in Vacallo, Switzerland, just across the border from Lake Cuomo in Italy, where Testa put him on a rowing and weightlifting regimen. The rowing motion simulates the explosion needed for time trials, stages in which riders are staggered individually at the start, and pedal against the clock.

A few years ago, time trials were not factors in winning the Tour. But they recently became an integral part of the race because organizers reduced the number of mountain stages where the winner usually was determined. LeMond and other recent winners have used the time trials to their advantage.

With fewer mountain stages to make up time, Hampsten no longer could rely on his climbing skills. He needs to do well enough in the Tour’s time trials to be in position to win the race in the mountains on July 17, 18 and 19.

Testa, who has a general practice in Cuomo but spends as much time as possible with the cyclists, is an avid rower. He was well acquainted with the advantages of such training.

For Hampsten, it beat the monotony of training all winter on a stationary bicycle. He also found the sport invigorating, although most of his days rowing were in a pool on Lake Cuomo.

One Saturday, however, he was persuaded to join a crew of Testa’s friends for a day on the lake. It was the moment he had been awaiting. But he said that when he awoke that Saturday he said to himself, “Andy, don’t go. Something is not right.”

He ignored the feelings and went to the dock. When he met the others, they insisted he join them because they had seven rowers for the eight-person boat. What could he say?

When they embarked, Hampsten’s seat broke and he fumbled around trying to fix it. A barrel-chested man with a beard had to help Hampsten get settled. Testa told Hampsten, “He’s the chief of police here.”

Finally the crew got into a rhythm as the oars skimmed the water--until the cadence was interrupted by Hampsten’s awkward strokes.

“I was splashing them,” he said.

After an hour, Hampsten’s wrists ached from the hand movements. He had not practiced the proper technique for flipping the oars beforehand. Yet, he persevered. After all, he is impervious to pain when climbing Alpine ascents suited for mountain goats.

When the group was ready to finish the day, they stopped about 2,000 meters from Cuomo, the distance of a regulation course.

They told him, “OK, we’re going to race from here.”

Wrists and all, Hampsten said he felt wonderful when the 16 oars struck the water as ifwelded together. But with 500 meters left and Hampsten’s wrists aching, he started getting sloppy.

“I planted my oar and the boat lurched,” he said, showing signs of embarrassment six months later.

The crew had to stop, the imaginary race lost.

But not the experience. It was another European day Hampsten enjoyed.