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Driving down Day Hill on Route 9 and trying to stay on the road and in control can be a perilous, harrowing experience in an ice storm or driving snow. But flying down the steep incline on your back just a few inches from the asphalt is the ultimate ride.
That is if you are Zero Sanity, a band of four crazy souls, who recently took to Day Hill in the far-flung Washington County town of Wesley for a hair-raising, heart-thumping plunge on wheel-mounted luges. Mike Pelletier, Rob Gaudet, David Johnson and Tom Richendollar – all best friends – rode their “rails,” using their bodies to turn, down the steep incline.
The word luge typically conjures up images of the white mountainous slopes and daredevils, shooting down slick, ice-covered chutes. Popular in Switzerland and a Winter Olympics sport, lugeing involves a racing sled on which the rider lies face up.
In recent years, ice lugeing has been adapted to the street where enthusiasts ride sleds mounted on skateboard wheels. Street lugers, who can reach speeds more than 70 mph, practice the extreme sport in parking lots, business parks and other places where there is a sufficient expanse of asphalt.
Lugers maneuver the boards with their bodies. Think of a motorcycle. You lean left and you turn left. The sharpness of the turn is controlled by how hard you lean. Your brakes are your shoes. But unlike an easy rider on a motorized bike, lugers are only about 2 inches off the pavement. And it is an unforgiving sport if you wipe out.
For Zero Sanity, Day Hill, with its long, sloping incline and much-improved surface, has proved an ideal course as long as the lugers take to the section of Route 9 at a time of day when traffic is nil. The team has a tracking vehicle that follows behind the riders to ensure that vehicles don’t collide with the low-riding luges.
It all began at 4:30 a.m. one recent Sunday. Six alarm clocks later, the lugers and the media had converged at the Irving Big Stop in Baileyville. Over strong coffee and bacon and eggs, it was time for reminiscing about past thrills and spills.
During the week, Zero Sanity’s members lead normal lives. Baileyville resident and team captain Mike Pelletier is a father of two children and works as a driver for UPS. Calais resident Tom Richendollar is single and works for the U.S. Postal Service. David Johnson lives in Calais, is single, and drives a delivery truck for Dead River Co. Alexander resident Robert Gaudet is married and works as assistant manager at the VIP Discount Auto Center.
Baileyville resident John Clark works for Downeast Glass. His role is to track the riders in a pickup truck, but lately the speed bug has bitten him too, and he has been doing some luge runs.
The men concede they are adrenaline junkies.
“It’s all about the rush,” Gaudet summed up.
Pelletier, who first learned about the sport while living in Island Falls, has the most experience. He has been lugeing for eight years.
“I saw it on TV and I thought, ‘wow this is a lot of fun,'” he said. “So I went out and found a channel, found a skateboard, mounted the skateboard on top of the channel and mounted the running gear.”
A thrill seeker, Pelletier said he loves the chase. After he moved to Washington County, he got to know Johnson and persuaded him to join him for a ride. Then there was a ripple effect. Johnson convinced Richendollar who persuaded Gaudet to join in.
“It takes a little bit for you to get onto them,” Pelletier said. “But once you get on and start riding it’s not so bad, once you get that initial hump over with.”
Gaudet recalled how fellow luger David Johnson “wiped out on a 55-mph run” last week.
“He went into a high-speed wobble, he’d forgotten to tighten his trucks up,” the luger explained, referring to the under-board wheel mechanism that the rider depends upon. “The board started to dance … and he wiped out. He’s the ditch digger.”
The joke aside, they were relieved that no one was hurt. They take their safety seriously and wear helmets and protective clothing including pants, gloves and leather jackets.
Breakfast over, they head for their pickups. Gaudet has a wheel vibration on his brightly painted red-and-white luge, and the problem has to be fixed before they tackle Day Hill. Each guy has decorated his luge in distinctive colors: yellow and vibrant greens. The first stop is Pelletier’s garage in Baileyville where Gaudet’s wheels are exchanged for another pair.
The boards are made of aluminum and built to specifications. They look like modified arrows with a wide shaft. The seat is formed to fit an individual’s size. The square seat extends to a square pipe called the rail or channel. At the end of the pipe are two aluminum pegs where the rider rests his feet. A small bump in the metal rises up behind the back of the head. The base of the neck rests against it. The head is up in order for visibility of the road ahead. The entire riding area is padded with the same material that dive suits are made of.
It was a short 10 miles to Day Hill, one of the highest points in Washington County, and situated on one of the most traveled roads. Some drivers on Route 9 take the posted 55 mph speed limit to mean it is the slowest they can go.
The men parked near an abandoned fire tower overlooking blueberry fields. They slip into their leather suits, tighten their gloves and buckle their helmets. Lining up in their luges on the side of the road, they plan to head east toward Calais. They wait and watch for a break in the traffic. Clark pulls onto the road behind them, his emergency flashers blinking off and on like the rhythmic blip on a heart machine.
The men use their arms to push off. Then they lay back and focus their minds on the road. The boards rumble and the wheels chatter. Within seconds, they are gaining speed fast. In a matter of seconds, as they hit the hill’s bottom, they are traveling more than 80 mph. They had traveled the last nine-tenths of a mile in 10 seconds.
“Wahoo!” Pelletier bellowed as the lugers slowed to a stop more than two miles from the start.
High fives all around.
“I’m pumped,” Gaudet yelled. “I’m just shaking.”
“You’re laying down there, it feels like you’ve got no control, once you get over the control factor, it’s great,” Richendollar said, wiping sweat from his forehead. “You realize it’s a different kind of control.”
Most oncoming motorists craned their necks to watch the lugers but didn’t slow down. Two drivers made U-turns and stopped to watch.
“I think that’s kind of fantastic,” Suzanne Reynolds of Etna said as the men shot past her.
“We saw those rigs … it looked like a skateboard so we had to come back and check that out,” added Carrie Willey, also of Etna. Asked if they wanted to try a run, Willey said she’d only do it on a bunny slope.
As the traffic picked up, the men abandoned Day Hill.
“We had four awesome runs,” Pelletier said.
The next stop was Independence Avenue and Bunker Hill in Baileyville. Three homes sit along the side of the cul-de- sac.
Pelletier’s children, Carly, 10, and Tanner, 8, wanted to go for a ride.
The Pelletier children each have their own luges. Equipped with helmets and elbow pads, they hunkered down on their boards. They’ve been riding with their dad for about five years, first on his chest, later on their own boards.
Finally, it was time for the media to chase the thrill.
The hill does not have the high slope of Route 9, but at the bottom there’s a 90-degree turn, then a straight stretch to Route 1. Helmet in place, we push off. I begin to sweat. Is it the stress of the run or the heat of the sun beating on my face? The curve is just a few feet away. I lean left, the luge shifts. Too far, two wheels head for the side of the road and gravel. Lean right, just enough to correct. Elbow down, feel that sting as the hot asphalt pulls a layer of skin away. Stay straight, the run is smooth. Speed, 30 mph. Route 1, just ahead, feet down, human brakes.
“Oh yeah!” Pelletier’s kids exclaimed.
Editor’s note: For more information about construction or costs, e-mail rgaudet27@hotmail.com or call 427-3890.
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