Fritts Is the Hottest Thing on Wheels : Cycling: The South Torrance High junior is a U.S. National champion. He wants to compete in the 1996 Olympics.

It began 10 years ago on the streets of Rancho Palos Verdes.

Tom Fritts would come home from work, place his 7-year-old son Kenny on the back of their tandem bicycle and go for a ride.

Hours later they would return home. But Kenny Fritts wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to ride longer and faster. And soon he wanted the front seat.

So Fritts, a bicycle enthusiast, bought his son a mountain bike.

“He had a feeling he wanted to race,” said Fritts, 47. “So he started with BMX (Bicycle Motor Cross) on a dirt track.”

At age 10, Kenny entered the BMX National Championship. He won. The next year he defended his title.

At 13, Kenny began track racing in the Youth Cycling Program, free classes sponsored by the Amateur Athletic Foundation. The sessions took place at the Olympic Velodrome at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Kenny quickly excelled. Now 17-years-old, he has already won six medals at the U.S. Junior National Championships, including two golds.

But the South Torrance High junior is not satisfied.

“My major goal is the ’96 Olympics,” he said. “That’s what I’m training for.”

The 5-foot-10, 178-pound member of the U.S. Junior National Team says he rides between 350-450 miles a week, usually four hours a day, except on Saturdays. That’s when he rides six to seven hours a day, including occasional rides to San Diego. On Tuesdays and Fridays, he works with a weight trainer in Newport Beach.

This hectic pace lasts eight months a year, coming to a halt during the winter.

It’s a schedule that leaves little time to socialize.

“In the wintertime I can hang out with my friends,” Kenny said. “But they pretty much understand what I’m doing. They come out and watch me every once in a while. Otherwise, it’s pretty much just my racing friends.”

Twice a week, Kenny joins about 40 riders at the velodrome to work out. They start with a warm-up of 50 laps, each lap being 333 1/3 meters on the 33 1/2-degree banked track. Then they practice the five Olympic events: one kilometer, individual pursuit, match sprint, team pursuit and point race.

Eight of the riders, including Kenny, are coached by Mark Whitehead. Whitehead, 32, raced in the 1984 Olympics. He retired four years ago from competition and became an electrician.

In March of 1992, Whitehead began training some riders at the velodrome. Kenny’s father took notice.

“Tom called me one day and asked what I thought of his son,” Whitehead said. “I said I thought he had a lot of potential. He asked if I would work with him and I said I would love to.”

Fritts, who produces the weekly Saturday night races at the velodrome, says he doesn’t pay any money for Whitehead’s services. But coaching Kenny, the No. 1 rider in the United States for 17- and 18 year-olds, is great exposure.

Kenny says Whitehead has been instrumental in his success, including helping him to second-place finishes at the 1992 national meet in the 1-K and team pursuit. Although he was 16 at the time, Kenny raced in the 17- and 18-year-old bracket on the recommendation of Whitehead, the first time that has been allowed. If Kenny had won, he would have earned a berth in the World Championships in Athens, Greece.

“You’ve got to have a guy who knows you really close,” Kenny said. “He’s taught me tactics, pushed me, told me gears to use, about lifting weights, diet, everything.”

Said Whitehead: “He works hard and he listens to what he’s told. He’s very low key and that’s real important.”

Other riders at the velodrome try to pattern themselves after Kenny, who in the past month raced in Cuba and Trinidad for the Junior National Team.

“I really look at how he rides,” said Amber Holt, a 16-year-old sophomore at Torrance High. “I like his style. He’s really tough. When he’s on his bike he’s like a whole different person. He’s like a machine.”

Still, Kenny is a high school student, and homework can’t be done on a bicycle going 45 miles per hour. He has maintained a 3.0 grade-point average and has already been offered a bicycling scholarship to Marymore College in Indianapolis.

“It’s tough,” he said. “I have a zero period where I go in before school starts and then I get out fourth period because I have a physical education independent study and that’s the bicycle racing. At lunchtime I go home and change.”

Kenny is training for the national meet in August in Trixeltown, Pa. If he wins the 1-K competition, he will go to Perth, Australia, in October for the World Championships.

Training at least four hours a day, attending classes and doing homework. Does it ever get to be too much?

“There are always highs and lows where you’re not feeling good, you’re tired, you’re burned out,” Kenny said. But, at those times, “I just push myself harder.”