Banged from knee to elbow and slumped in 100-degree summer heat at the bottom of a hill, a mountain biker on Slickrock Trail may think it's a mirage.
But it's a rider, for sure, offering water, raw carrots, a Power Bar or help with a bent wheel. He, or she, is a member of the Moab Bike Patrol, sponsored by Americorps, the domestic version of the Peace Corps.Some 55 volunteers, expert bikers trained in first aid and bike mechanics, have been patrolling Slickrock Trail for the past 21/2 years. Slickrock, 12.7 miles of Navajo sandstone, is America's most popular extreme mountain bike trail.
Patrollers are on the lookout for any trouble among the 120,000 or so bikers who attempt the trail each year. Most come in the cooler spring and fall months, and many are from Western Europe.
Slickrock is marked with the same double black diamonds used to signal danger on ski runs, but Fred Wilkinson of Moab, who runs the patrol, says his riders don't enforce safety rules. They may make recommendations, though, such as wearing helmets.
Volunteers carry radios to call when they need help. They also give directions and offer water and TLC to bikers with minor injuries. Wilkinson has walked out riders suf-fer-ing from heat or injuries.
"That's why we're here," he said. "A lot of people who come here have never even ridden a bike before."
Slickrock Trail is on U.S. Bureau of Land Management land in Grand County, about two miles east and above the town of Moab.
Sgt. Kent Green of the county sheriff's office said the volunteer patrol has been a big help to search and rescue teams that were becoming overwhelmed by bikers in the area.
Cycling has become a $4.5 billion-a-year industry in the United States. Mountain bike sales account for 65 percent of all bicycles sold since 1990.
The advent of fat tires, which grip rough or slick terrain better, made it possible for mountain bikers to go where only dirt motorbikes, all-terrain vehicles and hikers had gone before.
Like skiing, it is a skill. Even the best riders are not beyond taking a spill. In fact, mishaps are frequent enough to warrant visual descriptions such as crotch splits, flying W's, soil sampling and endos.Grand County's rescue unit is the busiest in Utah, a state that draws millions of tourists annually seeking spectacular scenery and outdoor activities.
Tony Lue, the only BLM enforcement ranger in the county, said, "People don't listen to their bodies."
From 1987 to 1995, there were 164 serious injuries on the main Slickrock trail. In 1993, rescuers had to pull injured people off the trail 67 times. That dropped to 11 in 1995, the first full year of the bike patrol's operation. It rose to 16 last year, still less than one-fourth of pre-patrol days.
Fourteen mountain bikers died from 1987 to 1995 on trails in Grand County. One person died from the heat on Slickrock last year.
The experiences of four very fit New York bikers, in their late 20s and early 30s, illustrate the difficulties one can encounter. Three of the bikers fell, and a fourth bent a front wheel during a trail ride last July.
"I cried for 10 minutes. I stopped because I didn't want to waste the water," Bohdanna Zazulak, a physical therapist from Rochester, N.Y., said.
As if it weren't hot enough, a strong southwest wind seemed to suck water right from the skin.
Zazulak was vacationing with Billy Cizak, who works for an East Aurora, N.Y., architectural firm, and Jeanette and Scott Vitello of Amherst, N.Y. Both Jeanette, a physical therapist, and her husband, a firefighter, are veteran ski patrollers.
But Slickrock was too much for them. Jeanette did an endo, landing on her head, and Scott hurt his left arm in a fall.
"I'm always going to wear a helmet," Jeanette said. "You wouldn't believe how hard I hit."
Zazulak, with bruises on thighs and elbows, witnessed his wife's fall: "She was right in front of a cliff, and I didn't know if she was going to go over."
Scott had seen her go over an edge once before, on the double black diamond Steeplechase run at Aspen Highlands, a favorite Colorado haunt for extreme skiers.
The foursome had spent six months researching and planning their trip. And Cizak said it "met every one of my expectations."
It did more than that for Jeanette. "As far as first aid goes, we had a lot of expertise," she said. "As for bike riding, I'm not so sure."