BIKING SCHOOLS STRESS SAFETY.

Byline: Mike Steere Universal Press Syndicate 

Once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget how, the adage says. This is true - and safe - if you never leave smooth, relatively level riding surfaces.

But off-road, where millions are now venturing on mountain bikes, knowing street cycling and nothing else is the cause of innumerable cases of road rash (biker-ese for scrapes from falls), bruises, cuts and more serious injuries. The simple truth is that technical mountain biking is trickier and scarier than it looks on TV.

Basic cycling skills do not a mountain biker make, and a growing number of riders are getting their off-road skills in organized instruction.

The Mount Snow Mountain Bike School, founded in 1988, is the Harvard of the sport, offering a novel kind of adventuring that melds a bike trip, alpine skiing vacation and summertime escape in the New England mountains.

The physical setup is, basically, a summerized 1,700-foot-tall ski mountain. Bikers and bikes ride to the summit in a chairlift ($28 per day for a lift ticket) and swoop down intermediate and experts-only trails. Others stay off the lift and follow gentler stretches of Mount Snow's 140-mile trail system. ($8 for a trail pass without the lift).

You can open the day with a two-hour group instructional ride ($20) or private lesson ($47 for one person for two hours, $32 apiece for two), then work on what you've learned for the rest of the day.

A couple of Western programs also get high grades from fat-tire experts and sources at the National Off Road Bicycle Association (NORBA), the sanctioning body for competitive mountain biking:

Dirt Camp, based in Boulder, Colo., puts on a six-day Immersion Into Mountain Biking camp in Moab, Utah, in September and October. The camp ($1,050, including hotel room and meals) accommodates near-beginners through expert-level competitors.

Like Mount Snow, California's Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, just east of Yosemite National Park, becomes a bike park in the summer. Mammoth bikers can take private sessions ($40 per hour for one or two) from Cindy Whitehead, a former world and national champion competitor. Unlike place-to-place rides, a one-location experience gives cyclers the chance to focus on cycling.

Most Mount Snow students take an intensive two-day course ($149 per person, $165 with bike rental) that includes 12 hours of in-the-saddle instruction. But the longer, freer-form experience, built around relaxation and recreation, seems to be catching on, according to John Goodell, who coordinates Mount Snow's biking program.

Learning opportunities aside, most mountain bikers who go to Mountain Snow bypass instruction and let the mountain teach them - the hard way - what they don't know.

Goodell regularly sees undereducated riders doing ``endos,'' spectacular rider-and-bike forward somersaults. Those who don't know how to climb steep grades go over backward and end up lying on the ground under their bikes.

Goodell also sees neophytes coasting on trails with one pedal down, a common rest position in recreational riding.

``Next thing, you see them in a walking cast, with a couple of broken toes, because they hit an obstacle,'' he says.

Wise mountain bikers coast with their pedals dead level, with both knees flexed. They keep everything flexed, the better to absorb shocks and maintain balance. The right way often feels scary and weird at first, and it's not much like the sidewalk and street cycling we learned as kids.

But, Goodell says, with a good instructor hammering on the right moves and body positions, ``they'll learn safely and have a much more positive experience.''

On Location For information about Mount Snow mountain bike school and area accommodations, call Mount Snow, Vt.; [phone] or [phone].

For information about other mountain bike schools, call:

Dirt Camp, Boulder, Colo.; [phone].

Cindy Whitehead, Mammoth Lakes, Calif.; [phone].

Women's instructional camps: WOMBATS, Fairfax, Calif.; [phone].

For a free list of mountain bike training camps, write: National Off Road Bicycle Association, One Olympic Plaza, Colorado Springs, Colo. 80909; or call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: Schools teach riders to coast with pedals level to avoid broken toes.

Robert Bossi

Box: On Location (See text)