For love of the bike

Even late in the evening, the heat lay heavy; suffocating and weighty like wearing a wool blanket in a Finnish sauna.

Still, they rode.

The wind whipped up, biting at the eyes with pinpoints of sand and leaving a gritty film across the teeth.

Yet, they rode.

Two days later, the heat finally exhausted, the mosquitos emerged. The sky darkened, warning of a storm it would soon deliver.

Of course, they rode.

They never considered not riding.

They are Faribault’s dedicated riders. And the Faribault BMX Track is their home.

“BMX is one of the best kept secrets that shouldn’t be a secret,” track operator Quint Juvland says.

•••

A boy, maybe 7 years old, crosses the finish line and finally slows his bike. His mom is calling to him. She offers him a water bottle. As he slips his helmet off, his face is redder than the setting sun disappearing on the horizon. She places the back of her hand on his forehead, feeling the heat pulsing through his veins.

“He wouldn’t stop until he passed out,” she says to no one in particular.

•••

Faribault’s Josh Juvland, 19, starts clicking off his injuries like a housewife reading a grocery list. Broken ribs. A broken wrist. Eight concussions, by his own count.

His longtime friend, Jake Olson, nods along, then starts his own litany. Three broken wrists. A broken ankle. Dislocated elbow and shoulder. Broken ribs.

“It’s like an addiction,” Jack says as he straddles his $3,200 mountain bike. “It’s a passion now.”

“It keeps you out of trouble,” Juvland says. But not out of the emergency room.

Josh and Jack, who is from Elysian, met racing in in the Twin Cities years ago. They’ve been inseparable since.

“We were kind of born into it,” Jack says. “It’s the adrenaline. There’s no limits. There a positive vibe.”

They talk from the middle of the Faribault track on the hottest day of the year. The mercury had reached 102 degrees earlier in the day, and even now, at 7:30 in the evening, it’s preposterously hot. Racing was called off for the night, but there’s still about a dozen dedicated devotees circling the track around them.

“I’m more focused on days like today, when I’m riding with my friends,” Josh says. “We do this everyday.”

•••

A girl, 12 years old, rides slowly along the bike path near Willow Street on a May afternoon. Without warning, her lunch box slips into her front spokes and she flies over the handlebars. Her head slams to the pavement. She stumbles up to a bridge and calls her mom. She has fractured her skull; her brain is bleeding. For weeks afterward she can’t read, write or even watch television. Yet, miraculously, two months later she is back at the Faribault BMX Park, racing three times in July before competing in the state championships in August.

“I was so excited to get back out,” she says. “My mom was more worried than I was.”

“I don’t know how to describe her,” says her older brother, who remembers riding in the emergency helicopter with her on his birthday. “She’s fearless.”

•••

Josh and Jake have been racing at Faribault’s BMX Track, tucked in the back of South Alexander Park along Faribault Lake, for a dozen years. The track was created in 1998 through generous contributions and charitable gambling. The effort was started by parents who were sick of toting their children to Mankato and New Ulm to race on one of the state’s other 14 BMX tracks.

“It got to be where they got tired of traveling,” Quint says.

So the City of Faribault leased the land for $1 and the a board was created to oversee its operations. Now, the track attracts upwards of 80 to 100 racers for the biggest races. On Thursday night — the second race of the 2011 season — more than 50 bikers turned out for their chance to speed around the track. Some are as young at 3. Some are in their 30s. They race in categories ranging from novice to expert.

The track used to feature racing just on Thursday nights. Ten dollars would buy you entry and a chance to win a trophy. Starting this year, Tuesday night racing has been added for just $5, with medals or ribbons for all finishers. Racers also earn points as part of the American Bicycle Association and can win Saber Stamps, which can be used at area bike shops to buy parts and gear.

“It’s awesome,” 14-year-old Caitlin Juvland says. “It’s all you, just yourself. It’s a lot of fun going fast.”

Caitlin is one of the dozen or so girls that compete regularly in Faribault, although she is the oldest by a few years. Most girls drop out when they become teenagers. But not Caitlin.

“I raced her before,” Rob Bruce says, “and she’s fast.”

So fast it only took her two months to recover from that devastating head injury.