Riding to Race the Wind : Mountain Bikers Take On a Ski Slope

Once you know that a male competitor was nicknamed “Insane Wayne” and women’s winner Missy (the Missile) Giove wore a dead piranha for luck, you have a flying start on what the first Reebook Dual Kamikaze Eliminator was about.

“She needs to have her cranium checked,” said the men’s winner, Dave Cullinan.

He should talk. Cullinan was bitten by something--Giove’s piranha before it died, perhaps--and climbed out of a sickbed to race his mountain bike at speeds approaching 60 m.p.h. down Mammoth Mountain’s Kamikaze ski run, which drops from 11,083 to 9,000 feet in 3.6 miles.

Mountain bikers have been running a Kamikaze event for several years, but now they are really on the edge. Those were time trials--one at a time against the clock. For the first time last weekend, with a sanction from the National Off-Road Bicycle Assn. (NORBA), 32 men and eight women among the world’s best riders were invited to run two together, with the fastest in two heats advancing to the next round. Organizers thought it might add a little pizazz.

“It adds a lot more than a little,” said Kim Sonier, taking inventory of her cuts and bruises after being launched into space during a first-round race against Christy Synapu.

“The first run down, we were side by side and bumping handlebars. We rubbed wheels on the last straightaway, but I won it by less than a second.

“The second run, coming around the first sharp turn after the off-camber (turn), she hit my back wheel. I heard her go down and I guess she pulled my tire off the rim. All of a sudden, the bike was all over the place and I did this big swan dive off the cliff.”

Sonier, of Flagstaff, Ariz., climbed back to the road, picked up her bike and continued to the midpoint timing trap, where she was told she won by default, since Synapu was unable to continue.

Was is it scary?

“Yeah,” she said.

So how does she stay off the brakes?

“Uh . . . $5,000.”

That was the cut of the $25,000 total purse awarded to both the men’s and women’s winners. With that incentive and the impelling presence of a rival, it is no wonder that speed records were shattered.

But Sonier wouldn’t care to try the Kamikaze on skis.

“That’s dangerous,” she said.

Dave McCoy, who created the Mammoth ski resort, enjoyed being out on his mountain, although there wasn’t a snowflake on it--unusual, even for midsummer. The bikes have made it a year-round challenge.

The top skiers, McCoy estimated, achieve speeds of 70 or 80 m.p.h. on the Kamikaze run, but they can make sharper turns and stop more easily if they have to.

“On skis you have more control,” McCoy said, “and even though it’s faster, you feel a lot more secure. This isn’t really fast for skis.”

But on two wheels, careering down narrow, 27-degree sand-and-gravel slopes, it is virtually impossible to stop, even with the wheels locked up. An added thrill was the presence of spectators along the course.

Men’s favorite Jimmy Deaton, 29, of Penryn, Calif., said: “When I passed Jake (Watson) once, (spectators) were in the way and I had to wait. They were walking down the course with their backs to us.”

Said Sonier: “Our greatest fear is hitting somebody. I was going 47 m.p.h. when I tried to get stopped.”

Before losing to Cullinan in the finals, Bernard Unhassobiscay of Ridgecrest ran the course in 4 minutes 43.44 seconds--an average speed of 45.7 m.p.h., and 11 seconds under Deaton’s time trial record set a week earlier. Some riders were timed electronically through the timing trap well in excess of 50 m.p.h., and Cullinan said: “At one point, I topped out my gear ratio, so I was going almost 60.”

Giove set a women’s record of 5:00.42--an average of 43.1 m.p.h.

The format also invited rough close-quarter tactics that eliminated some favorites, including Deaton and John Tomac, in early rounds. No “pro”-ranked riders, only lower-ranked “experts,” advanced to the semifinals. Deaton, fresh from his third Kamikaze victory, was eliminated by Jake Watson, 19, of Nipomo, Calif., in the quarterfinals.

“He made a couple of dangerous passes,” Deaton said. “We bumped twice in the second run. I was ahead, and he was trying to come inside of me on turns. If I didn’t move over for him, we would have crashed.”

After losing to Unhassobiscay in the semifinals, Watson also took out Jimmy Kight of Durango, Colo., in the race for third place. Kight accepted his fourth-place check for $1,000 with his right hand, his left arm being in a splint and sling, awaiting X-rays.

“I got stuck in the wall and fell just before the speed trap,” Kight said.

Watson’s youthful inexperience did him in against Unhassobiscay, 33. Deaton was one of the few who anticipated that the smarter riders would draft their opponents--letting them lead the way--and save their legs for the sprint at the finish.

“Drafting got to be a big part of it,” said Watson, who won $2,000 for third place. “I didn’t think it would. But as the day went on, the guy in front would be going as hard as he could. The guy behind would be relaxed and then just open it up on the straightaway.”

“Insane” Wayne Croasdale, 29, of Palmdale, a 1990 national champion, thought he was doing well leading Eric Palmquist in both heats.

“But the guy drafted me all the way down. I’m doing all the work pushing the wind out of the way, and then he gets me right at the bottom.”

But Cullinan and Giove didn’t try to draft anyone.

“I thought it was more dangerous being right behind and not being able to see and pick my line,” Giove said.

She beat Cindy Whitehead of Mammoth Lakes by 6.64 seconds in the first heat of the finals, then was content to ride conservatively and merely stay in contact as Whitehead won the second heat by 1.94 seconds, giving Giove a 4.70-second margin overall.

Giove, 19, competes for Team Yeti and is studying kinesiology at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire. The piranha, whose name was Gonzo, was “good karma,” she said.

“This guy gives me energy. He was my pet in college. He jumped out of the tank while I was out at a ski race one day. I came home and he was on the ground. So I punched a hole in him and stuck him on (a necklace). He talks to me.”

Cullinan, 22, rides for the Iron Horse team. He recently moved from Torrance to Durango, Colo., for high-altitude training with other riders.

“I didn’t expect to do well today,” he said. “I was in the hospital last night. Got bit by some poisonous bug. The doctor said to get lots of sleep, drink lots of water. My pulse was at 90 instead of 55, resting. My temperature was about 100. I had a swollen hand, sore throat and developed bronchitis because I have asthma.

“This morning, I felt really bad, but I got out of bed and just hoped I wouldn’t have to run hard the whole mountain . . . set the guy up and sprint at the finish, and that’s basically what I did.”

Unhassobiscay, who won $3,000, beat Cullinan by nine-thousandths of a second--0.009, about a third of a wheel--in their first finals heat but couldn’t hold him off in the second heat, which Cullinan won by 0.38 of a second.

While accustomed to having riders around him from nine years in BMX competition, Cullinan said he would prefer running the Kamikaze alone.

“(An opponent) could crash into you or you could crash into him,” Cullinan said. “I like the time trials better--just you against the clock. I go fast enough pushing myself.”