Old Enough to Win

STEVENSON RANCH — Let them say what they want to about the old man out racing bicycles with kids half his age. Turbo says he feels good about it.

Harry “Turbo” Leary, a former champion Bicycle Motocross rider a decade ago, is making a comeback. In a sport populated mostly by 12- and 14-year-olds, Leary is showing up at the local BMX tracks, pumping his pedals, flying over jumps, bumping and elbowing for position with teenagers, just as he did 20 years ago.

At 38, Leary is moving up in the class-A division, the minor leagues of professional bicycle motocross, or BMX, which sees high school boys racing for money. There is no upper age limit in BMX, perhaps because it was never thought one would be needed.

He won two class-A events over one weekend last month in Seattle, and Leary says he needs only $400 more in winnings to move up to class-AA, where the elite riders compete. To race in class-AA, a class-A rider must earn $2,000 in purse money.

The average age in class-AA? All of 24, according to the American Bicycle Assn.

So what if the sport is mostly populated by kids young enough to be his sons? So what if his balding pate and sun-lined skin stand out among the smooth young faces? So what if the naysayers snicker when they see him catapulting his not-so-young body over the the mound-like berms and teeth-rattling “whoop-de-doo” hillocks?

The Stevenson Ranch resident says he loves racing at 38 the same as he did at 14. More important to him than the opinions of others is that he’s competing in a sport he loves, pedaling his very own signature bike, named after him when he dominated the BMX circuit 13 years ago.

And most important, he’s winning. Yes, it’s the winning that immunizes him to the ridicule. It’s the winning that rejuvenates him.

“The other riders don’t laugh at me,” Leary said. “I take my helmet off after a race and these 19-year-olds see that I’m bald, and they want to go home. They can’t believe they lost to some old guy. But I don’t think you can disrespect a person if that person is winning.”

But since it was created in Southern California in the early 1970s--when small boys unable to ride real motorcycles modified their pedal-powered bicycles to look like the powerful machines of professional motocross riders and raced them in vacant lots--BMX has been perceived as a “kids’ sport.”

According to the ABA, the largest age groups involved in BMX are 12- to 14-year-olds.

“BMX does have an image problem,” said Gork Barrette, editor of BMXer Magazine. “There’s a perception that BMX is a little-kids’ sport, but really it has turned into a multimillion-dollar industry.”

Leary rejects the entire kids’ sport notion, saying BMX racing is as a legitimate as professional baseball or football. “Any sport where you get paid is not a kid’s sport,” he declares.

Regardless of how the sport is perceived by the masses, local BMX riders say they respect Leary, at least the ones who have seen him ride.

At BMX tracks in Simi Valley and Canyon Country, some of the riders had not even been born yet in Leary’s heyday, but they recognize his skills on the track and are impressed by his preparation and work ethic.

“It’s nice to see an older guy out there,” said Jeff Dragotto, 12, of Canyon Country. “You mostly see only kids. He helps me see what it takes to become a pro.”

For four hours a day, Leary lifts weights, bikes 25 miles and rides his motorcycle. Motorcycle? Yes, he says handling the heavier weight helps strengthen his upper body. His regimen is strict, Leary says, because strength and endurance are two of the most important factors in BMX racing.

“Harry has the fountain of youth stashed somewhere,” Barrette said. “And he won’t show us where it’s at.”

His friends and some of his former competitors say that Leary’s competitive drive is what pushes him. Even as an 18-year-old, his will to win was always turned up a notch higher than everybody else’s, they say.

Rich Anderson, who met Leary in 1977 and used to compete against him, said that winning wasn’t so much a desire for Leary as a need. “He was so intense, so devoted to racing,” said Anderson, who at 30 competes in the Master’s Class, BMX’s equivalent of golf’s senior tour. “I’m not surprised to see him still racing and competing against guys 20 years younger.”

Leary was among the first BMX professionals. He picked up the sport at 11, in West Covina where he grew up, and says it was lifting off the jumps, propelling his bike into the air, that hooked him. “I’ve always loved that feeling, like I’m flying,” he says.

In 1984, his best year on the professional circuit, he earned $75,000 and was ranked the No. 2 rider in the world. It was during this period that the bicycle manufacturer that sponsored Leary on the pro tour, Diamondback, named a bike after him--the “Harry Leary Turbo.” He still rides a modified version of the bike.

Leary never left the sport. After retiring from racing in 1988, he went to work designing and testing bicycles for manufacturers. Four years ago he married and two years ago he decided to go to work for himself, founding Leary Dirtwerx to make parts for racing bikes. In his spare time he trains young riders.

“He’s been at it so long, he doesn’t want to do anything else,” said Anderson. Not even when the sport’s popularity bottomed out several years ago.

“It lost its cool factor,” Leary said. “For a while, freestyle was in, doing tricks on bikes was the trend. But racing is making a big comeback.”

Although he says he has nothing to apologize for, Leary does acknowledge the ironies of riding a bicycle for a living.

“My mother was kidding me that in 1968, I used to come home with bloody elbows, and 30 years later I still am,” he said.

But Leary has no time for people who think he should act his age.

“What is a 38-year-old supposed to act like?” he asks. “Age is just a reference number. I rode bicycles when I was 12 and 28 and I’m riding them now. I plan to ride them for a lot longer. When I’m 90 I’ll learn how to fish.”