O.C. Bike Firm Crafts Holders to Safeguard Olympic Flame

The closest that the Olympic torch will get to this part of town during its upcoming cross-country journey is the small fabrication shop inside GT Bicycles’ factory, where machinists are scrambling to build devices to hold the flame in place when it’s being carried by bicyclists.

In past torch relays, bikers typically traveled at slow speeds and carried torches by hand. But the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games has pledged to turn the upcoming relay into a 15,000-mile cross-country journey.

Lots of ground has to be covered quickly, so the committee is calling on top-notch cyclists who can pedal at speeds of up to 30 mph. The relay begins Saturday in Los Angeles, and the first cyclist is scheduled to carry the flame Sunday when the torch leaves Dana Point for San Diego County.

“When you’re walking in a parade with a torch, it’s no problem,” said Gary Turner, co-founder and chairman of GT Bicycles. “The torch burns bright and will look great for the television cameras.”

“But when you’re mounting a torch on the front of a bike that will be going 30 miles an hour into the wind outside of Boise, Idaho, you’ve got a problem,” Turner said. “It’s either going to blow out or burn the guy’s hair off.”

GT Bicycles’ machinists are in their own race against time: The final blueprints for the holders designed by the committee didn’t reach Santa Ana until late last week. Designers and fabricators gathered Monday to review the documents and are rushing to complete holders that will be attached to bicycles as well as wheelchairs.

The schedule calls for the first wheelchair leg to take place Saturday in Los Angeles County.

In addition to building the special mounts, GT Bicycles is also donating 25 bikes that riders will use as the torch travels across the country. And even though GT Bicycles isn’t an official Olympic sponsor, some of its bikes will be used by Olympic athletes because the company is an official supplier to USA Cycling, the organization that governs bike racing in the U.S.

As the torch relay date approached, torch designers experimented with a number of options. A clear plastic windshield, which would have protected the flame, was deemed impractical and unsightly.

Designers also considered attaching the flame to the back of the bike. But that could have been a public-relations nightmare. “As the bike comes down the road, all the spectators see is the rider,” said mechanical engineer Sam Shelton, an Atlanta professor who is charged with keeping the flame burning between Los Angeles and Atlanta. “They can’t see the flame until he rides past them.”

Plans now call for cyclists to carry the Olympic flame in an enclosed lantern that won’t blow out when riders hit speeds of up to 30 mph.

Shelton credits GT Bicycles’ fabrication shop with helping to solve what’s been a knotty aesthetic problem.

“It’s like trying to put a round peg in a square hole,” Shelton said. “If you don’t do it carefully, the attachment will look awful. The folks at GT are doing a hell of a job.”

In addition to providing an aesthetically pleasing holder, GT Bicycles is also trying to accommodate the demands of the top-flight cyclists--like Van Nuys resident Thurlow Rogers--who will pedal the torch through lightly populated areas like Camp Pendleton.

“These guys are purists when it comes to their bikes,” Shelton said. “They’re going to be upset if we add 8 pounds to the bike, because they’ll only be able to go 29 mph instead of 30.”

Rogers, who raced in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, plans to move along at a fast clip when it’s his turn to carry the torch. But he plans to savor the moment.

“We were on a training ride in Mission Viejo in 1984 when we came across the torch relay,” Rogers said. “We had our red, white and blue uniforms on, and the crowd went wild cheering and yelling for us. . . . It was something special . . . the first real feeling of ‘Holy cow, we’re really here in the Olympics.’ ”

Despite the tight deadlines and last-minute design changes, Shelton clearly relishes his role in the upcoming Atlanta Games: “It’s the one thing I really enjoy doing--taking a thing from a simple concept through to the actual hardware. That’s what it’s all about.”

But Shelton also acknowledges that Greece, which safeguards the flame between Games, may have a better idea for moving it around.

When the flame left ancient Olympia last month on its way through Greece, runners carried it through towns and villages, “but when they got to the outskirts, they’d jump in a car and drive to the next town,” he said.