Furnace Creek Ultra-Marathon Gives Cyclists Chance to Test Endurance and Will, but . . . : It’s No Joy Ride

The National Enquirer would have loved this.

While crossing the United States on a nonstop bike ride in 1980, John Marino came upon flashing lights and police cars late one night in a Kansas pasture.

Marino pulled over to investigate.

Farmers said a UFO had crashed, killing four cows.

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Nothing so extraordinary happened over 510 grueling miles of the Furnace Creek 508, an annual 48-hour ultra-marathon bicycle event from Valencia to Twentynine Palms one recent weekend.

Marino, an Irvine general contractor who coaches youth soccer, was not among the 28 men, four women, three tandems and five four-man teams who embarked on this excruciating endurance test.

But he remains their father-figure as the one who first pedaled into the night and simply kept going.

As many as 200 Americans willingly subject themselves to the punishment of ultra-distance cycling, and the Furnace Creek 508 is one of their toughest two-day events.

It is so tough that Rick Heiss, 38, of Bakersfield thought he might never finish it.

He tried and failed six times before the ’94 race.

But they say misery loves company. So Heiss, a physician, enlisted the help of Tom Davies of Chico, a competitive ultra-rider, as his crew chief. Davies has ridden this race six times and has completed it once.

“When you try something that much you get to the point of, ‘Why are you there?’ ” Heiss said.

Why indeed?

That question is pondered in the chill of a quiet morning just off Interstate 5 as race director Chris Kostman counts down the start before riders and their support crews.

It dogs these determined cyclists through the expanse of the desolate Mojave Desert as they inch their way into the coal-black night where, before long, they will be fighting fatigue, numbness, hallucinations, dehydration, sleep deprivation and aches and pains most others don’t know exist.

There are few spoils for the victors: a finishers’ T-shirt, a hand-thrown cereal bowl with name and time engraved on the bottom and a pair of hiking boots.

Hiking, great! Exactly what the riders want to do after this.

There are few spectators. The cyclists rely on their crews, the other competitors and mostly themselves to get through it.

The desert denizens with craggy faces and windblown hair shake their heads as the cycling parade passes their godforsaken backwater haunts such as Johannesberg, Trona, Kelso and Amboy.

Who knows, they just might call the cyclists in as UFO sightings. Unidentified Fatigued Objects.

The cyclists hardly notice life beyond the long, lonely stretch of pavement that snakes to eternity.

They have miles to go before they sleep.

THEY’RE WILTING AWAY IN HEAT OF THE NIGHT

After so much failure, Heiss is not sure why he keeps returning to the race. His fiancee, Tracy Hicks, has no answers, either.

Hicks, after all, has watched him drop out time after time.

“It made her cry,” Heiss says.

He quit last year after Shoshone, Calif., in the eastern Mojave because of fatigue and nausea caused by the broiling sun. In 1992, he developed tendinitis in the heel while pedaling through Death Valley National Monument. His cleats were too far forward in his pedaling position.

One year, Heiss had to drop out when a severe dust storm made it impossible to see and caused electrical problems with the support vehicle. Other times, Heiss suffered nutritional imbalance. This time, leaving nothing to chance, Hicks has charted Heiss’ caloric intake.

But all it takes is one tiny problem and it’s over.

It happened to Steve Born last year during the Race Across America, the ultimate ultra-distance cycling event. Born, 36, of Ketchum, Ida., is something of a folk hero in the sport after finishing three consecutive Races Across America.

But last year he quit, 200 miles into the race, which is like forfeiting the seventh game of the World Series in the first inning.

Born was suffering from who-knows-what in the 120-degree heat in Baker, Calif.

“They peeled me off the pavement,” he recalls.

Born, who won an Academy Award for sound for the film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” almost died in the ordeal.

“My urine was black,” he says. “I felt like I was having convulsions.”

But he did not see a doctor. Instead, he sat in a hotel room and talked it out with his crew until his body began to function normally.

Ultra-athletes do that.

Born notes that the temperature is 54 degrees as he cruises through Baker on his way to victory near the end of the Furnace Creek 508.

He finishes in 31 hours 9 minutes, 31 minutes ahead of the second finisher, Rob Murlock of Brookfield, Conn.

It is a triumph of the mind, Born says after bursting past the makeshift finish line of generic white toilet paper. He is greeted by the polite applause of race officials and his two-member crew.

PERCHED ON THE EDGE AND ENJOYING IT

Speaking of tiny problems. . . .

Three miles after the start, Heiss passes his crew and is thrown for a loop. Davies is bent over the engine of Heiss’ 1970 pink and green VW van.

It has a bad carburetor.

“It’s a pain,” Davies says later, after fixing it. “We went across the whole United States without a breakdown.”

Davies, 55, is referring to his ride in the Race Across America, pedaled each summer from Orange County to Georgia. The Furnace Creek 508 serves as a qualifying event for the Race Across America.

But Furnace Creek is famous within cycling circles because anyone with a bike and a $165 entry fee can try it.

And it is difficult, although some of the Race Across America riders mockingly call it a short jaunt.

The race has been held in sundry forms for 19 years. But the Furnace Creek course has been used since 1989.

In all that time, only one serious accident has occurred. Henry Kingman, who crewed for Eric House of Palo Alto this year, fell in 1991 on the dreaded 10-mile, 4,900-foot Towne Pass that leads into Death Valley. He lost his concentration as a truck passed him at night. He was taken to a Nevada hospital and was determined to be OK.

Kostman, 27, has been to 17 of these events. It has been a natural progression from participant to crewman to race director. For his efforts he earns about $3,000, but he’s not sure of the exact amount.

“I haven’t filed my taxes in two years,” he says.

Kostman, working toward a doctorate in Arabian Gulf archeology from UC Berkeley, could hold the race during winter, when the desert floor stays cool most days, instead of October. But what would be the point?

“I don’t want to make it too easy on them,” he says.

Kostman understands the cyclists’ pain. He once set some ultra records, one from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and another across California. When not organizing cycling events, or off on a Persian Gulf research project, he competes in 100-mile snowshoe races in Alaska, ultra-swims or 24-hour mountain bike rides.

He also is senior editor of a cult magazine called Over the Edge.

It’s a title that fits him.

THE BIG SLEEP IS A DREAM AWAY

At a pre-race dinner where the race rules are loosely discussed, a 48-year-old bug specialist is asked to say a few words.

“My name is Reed Finfrock and I am a wimp,” he starts.

Finfrock, from the Central Valley farming community of Lindsay, explains how he finally finished the race by ordering his crew to not let him in the car, no matter what.

“The only way to get to Twentynine Palms was either riding or walking,” he said.

He rode.

Finfrock, who raises beneficial insects, becomes one of 20 men to complete the race this year. Two women--Emmy Klassen of Ojai and Stephanie Barry of Marina del Rey--and all of the teams also finish. Usually, the attrition rate is 50%, but a cloud cover keeps things cool.

“They scored this year,” Kostman says of the weather.

Finfrock prepared for the ordeal by taking a holiday. He rode from Everett, Wash., to Virginia in an organized tour last summer, averaging 140 miles a day for 24 days. On weekends, he rode from Lindsay to Cedar Grove in Kings Canyon National Park--100 miles up the Sierra Nevada.

If Finfrock, a gray-haired man who wears a ponytail, has learned anything in ultra-cycling it is this:

“Those of us who finish this thing are very rare people.”

Heiss has long wanted to join that group.

But his family practice takes so much of his time.

Hicks, who runs the office, says he puts as much energy into medicine as he does into cycling.

Heiss rode only 750 miles in three months to prepare for Furnace Creek. Most competitors, such as Born, do that in two weeks.

But Finfrock’s philosophy sticks with Heiss as he plugs along, inching up the grades that put the legendary climbs of the Tour de France to shame: Stay on the bike.

But there are obstacles. His snazzy, $2,500 graphite bike suffered a broken spoke. Ordinarily, a broken spoke in a bike wheel is not a serious problem but in this case, the spoke is one of only three wide stainless steel supports for a steel rim. The wheel in this condition is too dangerous to use. Heiss continues on a backup bike as Davies fixes the problem.

“You could do the same thing on a three-speed Huffy if you were tough enough,” Heiss says of riding the backup.

After reaching Furnace Creek, the halfway point, Heiss paces himself through the night. Beyond the camp grounds and inn at Furnace Creek, Death Valley is silent. Heading toward Badwater and the lowest point in the United States, there are specks of light dotting the landscape as the crews illuminate the way for their riders.

After the tortuous, and torturous, Towne Pass to reach Death Valley, there are two equally devastating climbs to get out: Jubilee and Salsberry passes. They have traditionally been Heiss’ Waterloo.

He has reached this area four other times. In fact, he went 460 miles once before his body refused to go another inch. But Heiss knows this is where the race really begins.

He tries not to think about the past and all those failures as the day progresses. He keeps pumping.

Sometime around 7 p.m., under the cover of darkness, he reaches the finish, a hotel parking lot on the main strip in Twentynine Palms. He is eighth. But he has finished. Rick Heiss has finally finished the Furnace Creek 508.

Heiss receives a small greeting from Kostman and other officials, who remain at the finish until 7 the next morning, waiting for stragglers.

Heiss also makes the qualifying time for the Race Across America, but cannot fathom trying that yet.

Instead, he is concerned with returning to Bakersfield. While he was pedaling, three of his patients were admitted to Mercy Hospital.

On Monday, a weathered and beaten Dr. Richard Heiss hobbles through the hospital corridors, checking his patients.

“I don’t think they know the extent of my craziness,” he says later that night.

How could they?

A Long Ride

The Furnace Creek 508, held last month from Valencia to Twentynine Palms, is a 510-mile ultra-distance bicycle race held annually in the Mojave Desert. Twenty-eight men, four women, three tandems and five four-men teams started this year’s race that Steve Born of Ketchum, Ida., won in 31 hours 9 minutes.