Competition Against Time Inspires Fuller : Cycling: Two-time Olympian, two-time world champion will start competing in world championships Aug. 27.

There is no money awaiting the winner, only a three-foot-high cup, a gold medal and the prestige that comes with finishing first among the best bicycle riders in the world who are steeped in middle age, fending off time.

This is what drives Kenny Fuller, 47, the only American to win two Masters World Championships on a picturesque St. Johann, Austria, course, traversing 120 kilometers, about 74 miles, through the countryside that enraptured Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music.”

Come Sunday, Fuller tries to win his third title. This figures to be his year; he won in 1985 and again in 1990.

He won’t stop there, either--he will compete in Manchester, England, at the inaugural Masters World Cycling Track Championships in the 3,000-meter pursuit on his 18-pound, $5,000 aluminum-frame Hooker Elite.

Although Fuller is well-known in cycling circles, his recent absence from the competition in Europe--”to get over to Europe every year is difficult,” he said--is to his favor.

“It’s an advantage because it’s been three years since I’ve been there,” Fuller said before leaving Tuesday. “Sometimes you have the element of surprise by not being over there the past few years.”

Fuller plans to use all his wiliness to win again. A member of the 1972 and 1976 U.S. Olympic Team, he has won 16 national championships in Seniors and Masters competition, and was the first American man to win the World Championship in Austria.

That was an experience he said he will never forget.

“I came in by myself the first time, which is rare, and there’s a big crowd cheering you on so I had time to enjoy it and savor it because I had a three-minute gap on the next group of guys, about 30 of them,” Fuller said. “As you come in and realize you’re going to win, you get chills--you realize all that work, all those hard training rides, are worth it.

“There’s probably never been a bigger thrill than winning that first one. The second one was thrilling too, but you can never duplicate the first one.”

Just thinking about his training could give you a sideache. Fuller rides 300-350 miles a week with the Canyon Velo Bicycle Club, from Anaheim Hills to Lake Mathews in Riverside County and back, about 70-75 miles. Or through Santiago Canyon to Mission Viejo and back, about 60 miles. There is interval training on Tuesdays, hills on Wednesdays and race simulations on Thursday, when 40-50 riders negotiate a 30-mile loop through Orange County that ends on Newport Coast Road.

There are even bigger races on the weekends, with as many as 200 racers. Fuller, one of the oldest, is also one of the first to finish.

“I can still hold my own against the youngsters,” he said, not sounding at all cocky, “but one of these days they’re going to get me, though.”

That day might not be for a while. He is only two pounds over his target weight, 153 pounds on his 5-foot, 10-inch frame. Fuller admits he has been lax in his eating habits, and he recently got in the vending business to supplement his income--he is in real estate--and admitted it is too easy to eat a candy bar while making his rounds.

Performing as a celebrity rider in the recent AXA World Ride to benefit disabled athletes didn’t help. The three-week ride, from Vienna to Moscow, the last week of May and the first two weeks of June, was supposed to help him get in prime racing shape. Instead . . .

“That was in the middle of my training period and every night we had a big party--a big spread, lots of vodka and champagne and fatty foods,” Fuller said. “I thought I was going to lose some weight by riding the bike every day, but we were so slow-moving I couldn’t lose the weight.”

That there were lots of snacks during the day and the wrong kind of training foods didn’t help. He weighed 165 pounds when he got there, 162 when he left, disappointed he didn’t lose more.

Fuller was participating in the World Ride because he was a two-time Olympian in his heyday.

“Walking in the opening ceremonies [in Munich, West Germany], I was 23, it was my first trip to Europe, and it was a childlike excitement, I was almost intimidated by it, just happy to be there,” Fuller recalled. “The feeling was once you made the team, that was it--we were intimidated by the European Peleton [the top-level riders]. We didn’t have good coaching and we listened to the premise that Americans aren’t competitive.

“In a sense, that might have helped me as a Masters rider; I felt I was hungry. I didn’t win medals in the Olympics, and as I got older, I still had that competitive nature, but I started saying, ‘I’m as good as these guys’ and want to make up for not winning in the Olympics. I think guys who did really well as young pros, you don’t see them come back as Masters; once they retire, they’ve done their thing and I think they’re satisfied.”

But Fuller isn’t satisfied. He dreams about putting a little more space between him and the four American men who have won only one Masters World Championship.

“It makes it harder for someone to tie or surpass me,” Fuller said of a possible third victory. “You’re talking about the World Championships.

“You win a large cup that’s about three feet high and a gold medal,” Fuller said. “There’s no money, just the prestige of winning the World Championships, which is enough.”