After Obscure Beginning, Cronkhite Has Become One of Cycling’s Wheels

Like just about everybody, Shawn Cronkhite started riding at an early age. The machines changed, of course, as he grew older.

He worked his way up, from the tricycle in the driveway to the Big Wheel on the sidewalk to two-wheelers on surface streets.

It was similar to a climb through the credit-card pecking order. Regular plastic, gold card, platinum card. . . . His first three-wheeler has become a $3,000 titanium racing model.

It was a gradual process. At age 12 he entered his first sanctioned race, took a look around and realized that he was traveling in some fast company. It was an open event and he was the only guy in the field who wasn’t shaving every morning.

Hey I’m racing!

So was his pulse.

“I remember being in the pack and being scared to death,” Cronkhite said. “So I dropped way off and stayed about 20 meters behind the pack the whole race, all by myself.

“It was then I realized that I was strong enough to stay with them.”

Cronkhite, 22, now ranks among the sport’s front-runners and will ride today for the West team in the U.S. Olympic Festival at San Antonio, Tex.

Cronkhite, a 1989 Chatsworth High graduate who rides for the Miller Lite Cycling Team, will compete in the team time trial today, men’s criterium Saturday and men’s road race Sunday.

Cronkhite has come darn far, dang fast. The world is now an open road, and bikes don’t have rear-view mirrors.

“I think he’s a great prospect,” said Thurlow Rogers of Van Nuys, a former Olympian and professional who rides on Cronkhite’s amateur team. “He’s really come a long way just this year alone.”

Last year was, well, a disaster. Cronkhite (5-foot-10, 165 pounds) had rolled up some impressive credentials as a junior cyclist and hoped to someday pedal his wares on the European professional circuit, where cycling is front-page news and considerably more lucrative. He was headed in the right direction.

Yet his performance in 1992 raised no eyebrows except his own. He was working part-time busing tables and serving as a bouncer at a Northridge watering hole, and couldn’t dedicate enough time to training.

Bicycles don’t have a reverse gear, but Cronkhite clearly regressed.

“This year has just been exceptional,” he said. “Last year was just terrible.”

Being named to the Miller Lite team, which was formed this year, solved most of his problems.

“You don’t have to worry about anything,” Cronkhite said. “No entry fees, they handle the expenses. I just train. It’s a complete turnaround.”

Ditto his results.

All summer, Cronkhite has ranked among the national leaders in the Korbel Champagne Cup points standings, on which the Festival selections were based. Through eight of 12 Cup events, he is ranked 15th nationally.

His best effort in a Cup event was a fifth-place finish in the 89er Stage Race last month in Oklahoma City. The team already has ridden in far-flung events ranging from Arizona to Ohio, Wisconsin to Colorado.

Though Cronkhite’s competition has usually been under his wheels, success hasn’t turned his head.

“When you’re young, it’s easy to get sidetracked, but it hasn’t bothered him,” said Rogers, 32. “You win a race or two and forget what got you there. You forget why you won in the first place.”

First place, second place, third place, there have been plenty of fantastic finishes. Rogers said that one of Cronkhite’s best racing attributes is his finishing kick. In cycling, a lead pack often distances itself from the main body of racers, and stays together until a final, frenetic sprint to the tape.

“He’s got a fast, quick finish,” Rogers said. “Which is good, because it’s almost impossible to run out in front by yourself.”

On the NASCAR circuit, this running-with-the-pack process is called drafting. Cars line up behind one another to take advantage of a suction effect created by the aerodynamics, thus lessening the workload on their engines and saving fuel.

Cyclists do the same thing, and some call it “sucking wheel.” Cronkhite has spent plenty of time on Rogers’ heels, on the course and off.

“Thurlow has been a big help,” Cronkhite said. “He’s done everything that any cyclist has wanted to do. He’s been to the Olympics, he’s gone to Europe and raced on the biggest pro team there is.

“He’s so experienced and so instinctive.”

There was the time last spring when Rogers, after eyeing the competition, leaned over to Cronkhite a few moments before the start of a race and accurately predicted that a breakaway would begin almost immediately. Stay near the front or they’ll bury you, Rogers cautioned.

“The day I stop learning is the day I stop doing well,” Cronkhite said. “To read a race like that, it just takes years. You have to know everybody’s strengths and weaknesses. I have plenty left to learn.”

The rudimentary tools are there. As a junior, Cronkhite was one of the best. In 1985, a year after he began racing, he won the state age-group championship. In 1986 and 1987, he finished second at the nationals in the 14-15 age group.

In 1989, Cronkhite rode in the Festival--it was limited then to junior riders--and won the gold medal. He also placed second in the national junior criterium championships that year.

Now, the next level.

“It’s been a real learning experience for him,” Rogers said. “This is an opportunity for him to get in some good races and do well.”

There’s the rub. Cronkhite is participating against national-caliber competition in high-profile events. Now that he has arrived, there’s pressure to succeed.

“He’s gotten past the Catch-22,” Rogers said.

Catch the 22-year-old?

Easier said than done.