Going for the Cycle : Foster Reaches New Heights on His Bike in 49 States, but 50th Is a Tall Order

Bicycling along the Great Wall of China made Kevin Foster the big wheel he always wanted to be. But he soon realized an encore was necessary. Fame is fleeting and sponsors demand results.

The Great Wall could be eclipsed only by great heights, Foster figured. So the pony-tailed, 34-year-old with the intrepid, child-like spirit of Forrest Gump spent the last year biking and hiking to the highest natural points of 49 states, an endeavor he calls “American Summits.”

Decked out in stars and stripes and calling himself Captain America, Foster racked up 30,000 miles on a customized Econoline van. He crisscrossed the country chewing Tootsie Pops and Gummy Bears, dodging pesky park rangers in search of one peak experience after another.

From July 3, 1993, to Aug. 22 of this year he cycled to 34 summits and reached 14 by hiking with his 26-pound, $11,000 bike strapped to his back. As long as both reached the top together, victory was claimed. At each summit, Foster and the bike were photographed, a bolt of red, white and blue waving in the wind.

Foster, a former actor who has never cycled competitively, lives for encores, each more ambitious than the next.

“My mom said to me, ‘All you have to do is ask and the worst anybody will do is say no.’ ” he said. “But she never knew I would ask for such outrageous things.”

Foster overcame red tape and the Red Army to reach the Great Wall in 1990 after five years of trying; he braved 120-degree Gobi Desert heat and something called “Nine Dragon-Gate Pass” to complete the 1,174-mile trek in 50 days.

Problems ranging from a head injury sustained when he was hit by a truck to the student protests and massacre outside Tian An Men Square caused Foster to postpone the trip four times. When he finally pulled it off, he earned a Cyclist of the Year Award from Bicycling magazine. The Great Wall ride was itself an encore. Foster holds a Guinness world record set in 1989 for riding the entire New York subway system in the shortest time--26 hours 21 minutes 8 seconds.

Athletic feats or publicity stunts? Foster is an enigma, at once a tenacious achiever and tireless self-promoter who has endeared himself to a cycling industry sorely in need of a marquee name other than Greg LeMond.

Foster’s 20-plus sponsors gladly financed the Great Wall ride and American Summits tour.

“People admire him for what he is doing,” said Phyllis McCullough, marketing director for Klein mountain bicycles. “He’s a great adventurer. The Great Wall ride gave him credibility. When he says he will do something, he does it.”

Next year Foster plans to cycle across Cuba “in the name of peace and goodwill.”

Then, he says, he will shoot for the moon, a vision formed on a clear night in Mongolia outside the Great Wall. “The moon was so huge it seemed I could walk over and step aboard,” he said. “I’d like to take a bike up there and do fantastic wheelies on the Sea of Tranquillity.”

Foster claims a shocking experience at age 8 is responsible for his eccentric nature. To be exact, 65,000 volts and 30 amps worth of shock after he grabbed a high-tension wire while climbing a tree. He fell 30 feet and spent four years in a wheelchair.

“The electricity erased the first eight years of my life, wiped it clean,” he said. “I had to relearn everything. I’m Peter Pan. I don’t want to slow down. I appreciate things others take for granted.”

As for his lunar plan, Foster pitched it to NASA without a second thought. “What makes it funny is that it was serious,” he said. “They thought I was a nut, but I was a nut who had cycled the Great Wall of China. I met with a couple of engineers and asked, ‘What’s it gonna take to get me and my bike on the moon?’ ”

Answer: $5 billion, three years of training as an astronaut and a 180-pound bicycle to compensate for diminished gravity.

A more realistic goal is reaching the 20,320-foot peak of Mt. McKinley to complete American Summits. The mountain is climbed rather routinely, but hikers fail to reach the peak routinely as well--sometimes losing their lives.

Eleven people died climbing Mt. McKinley in 1993, including nine in May, according to the National Park Service. About half of the 2,000 or so who try the climb annually make it.

McKinley is more unforgiving than the highest peaks Foster has scaled--Mt. Whitney, Mt. Elbert and Mt. Rainier, each of which tops out at a little more than 14,000 feet.

Foster, who blames his divorce last year on his obsession with American Summits, will head for the hill of hills sometime next summer. “I’m not saying exactly when because I don’t want rangers to stop me,” he said.

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Some observers believe Foster is his own worst enemy. His doubters include Wendy Campbell, a free-lance photographer who accompanied him on the first eight climbs in July, 1993. They parted after a disagreement.

“Kevin has no sense for the landscape and he doesn’t pay attention,” she said. “He could get lost in a paper bag.”

Campbell and Willie Treese, a 16-year-old who helped carry supplies, were angered when Foster led them to the wrong peak in Utah. “We got to the top and I pointed to the next mountain and said, ‘I think that one’s higher,’ ” said Campbell, who added that they climbed down, then trekked up King’s Peak, the proper summit at an elevation of 13,528 feet.

Foster admits to the gaffe, and points out that the integrity of the project was preserved by climbing to King’s Peak.

Foster also made a wrong turn descending Humphreys Peak in Arizona, the first summit they scaled, and a search-and-rescue team found him huddled under a fallen tree at 3 a.m.

“That’s where my troubles started,” said Campbell, who nevertheless has kept in contact with Foster and applauds his doggedness.

Even those who dismiss the American Summits effort as a mountain-sized ego boost acknowledge that Foster is focusing attention on a political struggle between mountain bikers and hikers.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 stipulates that “no form of mechanical transport” be allowed in National wilderness areas, which include several state high points.

Mountain bike enthusiasts say the law is outdated. The Sierra Club recently met with the International Mountain Bike Assn. and agreed for the first time that mountain biking is a legitimate form of trail usage.

“Some things Kevin has done have helped (the plight of mountain bike riders),” said Bill Strickland, managing editor of Bicycling magazine.

Strickland pointed out Foster’s ordeal reaching Brasstown Bald, the high point of Georgia. Foster was prohibited by rangers from riding his bike the last half-mile, despite the fact the road was paved and buses were transporting tourists to the summit.

“This was so embarrassing,” Foster said. “I slung an assembled bike over my shoulder and was hiking up a paved road, with a bus full of tourists passing me.”

The walk back down was worse.

“A thunderstorm hit. I could have been back in two seconds if I’d have hopped on the bike, but I had given my word, so I walked down,” he said. “I was soaked to the skin, and there goes the bus of tourists passing me, bone dry.”

At Mt. Rainier in Washington on Aug. 19, 1993, Foster was less amenable. He and two companions were met at the base of the mountain by three rangers, who said they had received a fax from the National Park Service barring Foster from making the climb with a bicycle--even strapped to his back.

A rancorous exchange finally ended with Foster leaving the bike wheels behind. “The photos (at the summit) look ridiculous, me sitting on a frame,” he said.

Despite his difficulties, Foster believes that in seeking each high point he has found America.

* In Kempton, Okla., near the Black Mesa summit, Foster signed autographs for the entire town, population 23. “Somebody’s aunt was visiting from Arkansas, so I actually signed 24,” Foster said.

* Reaching the summit of Granite Peak, Mont., required scaling a sheer 500-foot cliff. Foster hired a mountain climbing guide from nearby Jackson Hole, Wyo., and made the top moments before a terrifying thunderstorm hit. The guide, Steve Walker, pointed out that the bike attracted lightening and quickly had Foster rappel down the cliff.

“The Lord loves and blesses fools and little children, so I am doubly blessed,” Foster said.

* Moments after being photographed on the peak of Mt. Arvon, Mich., reached following a perilous drive on logging roads in thick mud, Foster was startled by a blue Cadillac whipping into the turnout. “Who else would be crazy enough to do this?” Foster thought.

Out of the car stepped an Elvis Presley impersonator.

“Captain America meets Elvis on Mt. Arvon!” Foster said. “He was showing his girlfriend the high point of Michigan. He said he came up there all the time.

“Hey, that’s the tour. That’s America. That’s what makes it.”

Foster’s definition of patriotism comes down to this: freedom to pursue his dreams, however bizarre they may be.

His dreams are financed by corporate America, and that is key to the definition. “What he’s doing is amazing, and that’s why we sponsor him,” said Don Davis of Bell Helmets, who provided Foster with his van. “I actually thought that somewhere along the line he would get disillusioned and quit, but he is kind of obsessed.”

Home in Kaweah, Ca., where he moved last year after living for several years in Ojai, Foster is plotting his next move. He admits that getting rich--which has not yet occurred--is part of his plan.

He casually tosses around ideas for expeditions that would make most people’s knees weak: Cycling Mt. Fuji, or Mt. Kilimanjaro, or the Grand Canyon, or the Appalachian Trail.

“He is not a competitive cyclist, yet he is doing things an ordinary person wouldn’t think of doing,” said Strickland, editor of Bicycling magazine. “Some of his rides are strenuous, but certainly it’s not like winning the Tour de France.

“That’s part of what makes what he does appealing. Anybody could do these things if they got off the couch and put their mind to it, but only Kevin has done them.”

Foster’s latest obsession will not end until Mt. McKinley is scaled.

“I had a talk with the Lord and said, ‘Don’t let me do 49 states and hold back one,’ ” Foster said. “I will get McKinley.”