Their road thrill puts them flat on their backs
FRANKLIN, N.H. -- On an abandoned road near Hersey Mountain, eight racers in leather are making smoke with their feet. Leaning back on street luge boards and gravity bikes, the riders at the top of Manual Road, a half-mile-long hill, peer down at Turn One. It's a subtle bend. But in 15 seconds, when the riders hit Turn Three doing a heady 50 miles per hour, the tire treads glued to the bottom of their sneakers had better meet the pavement -- and quickly -- or they could find themselves twisting in a hay bale.
"I take a lot of anti-fear drugs," jokes Roland Morrison of Deerfield, N.J., through his scarred black helmet. At 43, he's the oldest in the pack; the youngest is 15.
It's July, and the fourth in a series of six gravity games is taking place in Franklin (population 8,405), a town a half-hour north of Concord. Competitors from across New England, Virginia, and New Jersey arrive well before the noon start with their $50 entrance fee. On trailers and in the back of pickup trucks sit four-wheel speed decks with alloy bars and Kryptonics wheels.
Riders strap on their protective suits for a day of racing in 90-degree weather.
Three years ago, the organizer of the event, Tim Cayer, 40, of Loudon, placed a newspaper ad offering $100 for information leading to an empty road with a challenging grade.
Manual Road was once an access route for trucks heading to the town's water treatment plant. But the steep incline (a nearly 11 percent grade) proved hard on the heavy rigs, and the road was shut down. Soon, the oak, maple, and pine trees lining the pavement took over. Then in 2001, town officials agreed to let Cayer use the road for luging. He and a small crew of workers spent the entire summer clearing the debris.
"When we got here you couldn't even see the road," says Cayer, a former motorcycle racer who started Gravity Sports International in 2000, hoping to introduce to the area an alternative to other gravity sports such as snowboarding. He believes street luging will eventually become an international sport.
"I see gravity sports as the next big thing," Cayer says, standing at the bottom of the hill over a long table covered with luncheon meats and a tub of macaroni for racers to fuel up on before the first heat.
In a full blue leather suit, Jared Carr, 22, from Cornish, Maine, waits nearby for the battered rack truck to bring him to the starting line. Carr learned of street luging watching the X-treme Games on ESPN. "I wasn't very interested until me and a buddy decided to build a luge ourselves," said Carr, a student at the University of Maine at Orono.
Many of the boards, made from aluminum alloy, are nearly eight feet long and 16 inches wide. They can cost anywhere from $20 to $2,000.
Lugers -- be they on ice or snow or on a street -- lie flat on their backs on their boards. Laboring to keep their bodies tight, the riders, with their heads slightly elevated against head boards, look past the tips of their sneakers for direction. If they fail to stabilize their bodies, they'll end up picking hay from their teeth.
"Speed wobbles will kill the aerodynamics," says Morrison, an Internet developer who's been street luging since 1999.
After filling up on Gatorade and sandwiches, Tom Whalen, 15, of Brownfield, Maine, wipes his mouth and zips his white and green leather suit. He then grabs his 2 1/2-foot-tall gravity bike and makes his way to the top. It's a dangerous looking contraption with turned-down handlebars, no seat, and three five-pound circular weights hanging from the frame.
Some racers ride the luge while others compete in separate heats on gravity bikes. Competitors like Whalen and Morrison race both.
Standing near Morrison, the person to beat in the points standings, Whalen remembers his first days riding a street luge. "I built my first luge from a 2-by-6 and some old skateboard trucks," Whalen says. "I rode it till I couldn't push it any harder."
The ride down is hard and fast. One guy has already found himself digging out of the hay after a solid crash.
"You have to keep your legs out and hands in when you hit the hay," shouts Morrison, watching his fellow racer dig himself out of the straw.
Next Morrison and Whalen take the course. Soon a scraping sound comes from out of Turn Three. Whalen's trailing, but not by much.
It's a drafting race to the checkered stripe. Both riders rub the treads on their sneaker-boots against the ground, fighting to hold on, making smoke.
Whalen soon passes his elder for the third time today, winning in the heat.
The victor, but still trailing Morrison in the standings, Whalen sums up street luging: "You can't go 50 miles per hour playing soccer."
Rob Azevedo is a freelance writer who lives in Manchester, N.H.
