“Borrowing” from the past: Mountain biking is a sport the Hardys did not engage in during the original canon. They used normal bicycles as transportation in The Flickering Torch Mystery (#22), although that was during World War II, and they were needed to save gasoline. When they competed in the
eponymous Speed Times Five race (#173), one of the components of the competition was mountain biking (along with kayaking, cross-country hiking and climbing, city biking, and a personal watercraft race). Although the race in Racing to Disaster isn’t an X Games competition, it is similar to the type of events Frank and Joe have competed in during Danger in the Extreme (the Max Games in #152) and Extreme Danger (the Big Air Games in Undercover Brothers #1).
In addition to mountain biking, the narration says Joe is a “natural athlete” — no joke — and that he’s “an accomplished wrestler.” (He even uses an unspecified “wrestling” move that involves grabbing an opponent’s upper arm and yanking downward.) That’s a sport the boys aren’t often associated with; Joe’s participation with the BHS wrestling team was mentioned in The Four-Headed Dragon (#68). However, they’re the Hardy Boys; it’s not a martial art unless they can throw some half thought-out version of it at some villain. So Frank and Joe outwrestle thugs in The Hooded Hawk Mystery (#34) and The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge (#45), with Frank using a half-nelson in the latter. Frank also uses some generic wrestling hold in The Clue of the Screeching Owl (#41), and Joe throws a hammerlock on an adversary in The Roaring River Mystery (#80).
The narration claims Frank and Joe are “avid water-skiers.” This is the first I’ve heard of it.
When confronted by a mountain lion, Frank asks, “Has anyone here done any lion taming? … I sure haven’t.” I would have sworn one of the boys had worked with lions during their circus employment, but they hadn't — both brothers performed on the trapeze for “Big Top” Hinchman’s circus in The Clue of the Broken Blade (#21), Joe was a clown for the Big Top Circus in Track of the Zombie (#71), and Frank fed the elephants while Joe worked the snake tent in Blade. They did run into a lion in Zombie, however.
Mountain lions — also known as pumas, cougars, and catamounts — are a bit more common in Hardy Boys stories, though. Their experiences with Puma concolor is covered in Open Season (Casefiles #59), and they also confronted a cougar in while tracking down an ersatz D.B. Cooper in Ghost of a Chance (#169).
You don’t need a degree in biology to open a resort, I guess: The boys were warned about the local wildlife, although in a confusing manner. More than once, Dixon points out signs around the resort that warn competitors about “mountain lions, cougars, and wolves.” Unfortunately, mountain lions and cougars are, as pointed out above, two names for the same animal. Perhaps the double naming was an intensifier, rather than a mistake?
No, wait, it’s definitely a mistake.
Get to know your sport: Joe (and the Wolf Mountain Annihilator competition) breaks mountain biking into three divisions: downhill, hot-rodding, and cross country. Cross country and downhill do exist in modern mountain biking competitions; the former is a distance race that generally encompasses different kinds of terrain, and the latter is, as you might imagine, riding bikes downhill. There is no such thing as “hot-rodding,” a race that incorporates bike tricks, and the name is so distracting it seems obviously false. However, the idea is similar to freeriding, which can include jumps, obstacles, quarter pipes, and different lines through a course that allows for riders to demonstrate their style.
I’m still puzzled by some decisions made by the event organizers. In a mini-cross country heat, Frank and all the racers behind them are diverted by an incorrect sign — the old Merry Melodies trick. Bad luck for them, but the race organizers give them a second chance. However, they make everyone — even those who correctly completed the course — race in a rematch. Why not just allow those who were disadvantaged to re-run the event? Their times could be compared to the times of others, and the winner of the heat would be determined from that.
The organizers also disqualified a racer who had sabotaged his own bike, also banning him from events for a year. Why? He’s only harming himself! No other racers were affected!
In Racing, Wolf Mountain is a ski resort three hours northeast of Los Angeles, with its slopes given over to the Wolf Mountain Annihilator in the fallow summer. Wolf Mountain does not seem to exist; the sites with the closest resemblance to it are White Wolf Mountain, a ski resort near Lake Tahoe, and Wolf Mountain Resort in Utah. Neither offers mountain biking during the summer, and White Wolf seems more notable for its location between two large resorts and its litigation with one of them.
Color blinding the enemy: Joe wears a neon green and yellow helmet. I’m sure those colors aren’t uncommon in competitive racing, but you’ll notice the cover artist chose not to use them.
Middle-aged boy: Frank calls Joe “kiddo,” picks up a salad in the chow line, and keeps his press pass in his wallet. These are things an uncle does, not an 18-year-old boy; actually keeping the press pass in the wallet isn’t really an age thing, but I’ve never seen a press pass small enough to keep in a wallet, in my admittedly limited experience. Usually they get clipped to a pocket or hung on a lanyard, right?
Is this your first case?: Frank and Joe don’t make a great impression with their detection. Frank asks the worst questions in his role as a reporter, a cover story event organizers give him to allow him to investigate. Joe blows that cover ID anyway. The excuse Frank uses to get a look at a piece of evidence — “I just want to see for myself” — is unsubtle at best. Frank does manage to talk his way into a locked area with secret bike technology, but so did a suspect, and the saleswoman clearly didn’t understand the idea of secrecy; her boss told her not to show the bike “to just anyone,” so she shows it to three random kids and a nosy star. The boys also fail to alert anyone in authority after they receive a written threat, and Joe neglects to bring his fingerprinting kit along. (Technically, he thought he didn’t need it at a bike race, but he’s a Hardy — he always needs his detecting gear, and he brought along his lock picks.)
This lack of fingerprinting equipment forces Frank and Joe to send a shell casing (erroneously called a bullet by the narrator) all the way across the country to their police lackey, Con Riley. Evidently they don’t have cops in California — or at least cops who will do the Hardys’ bidding.
Next, on Rescue 911: After a competitor takes a spill, getting thrown from his bike and being knocked unconscious by the impact, the Hardys immediately yank him to his feet. Because they’re always following that first-aid advice, which is … um … never move a … no, wait, almost got it — always move a crash victim as soon as possible. Yes, that’s it.
Part quick thinking, part innovation, but mostly stupid: In the climactic scene, Frank and Joe are in the cross-country race. Frank loses his bike while pursuing the leader, who is also the perp. Rather than leaving Frank and his 155 pounds (for the 6 feet, 1 inch Frank? who has the musculature of a natural athlete?) behind, Frank tells he’ll ride on Joe’s handlebars.
In the middle of a cross country bike race, through the mountains. Sure, why not?
And before you ask, of course they catch up with the leader. Why wouldn’t they?
A bicycle race built for two: I’m even more baffled about why Frank was there. I don’t know why he’s in the race in the first place — they were only going to keep an eye on Moreno, their suspect, and surely only the better cyclist would be needed. Frank is not prepared for a cross country race; Joe has to remind him about how to shift for the downhill race, and Frank himself asks why he wasn’t out training with Joe. (Because he had no idea he’d be entered into a competitive mountain bike race, I’d imagine.) Matching Frank’s pace in the cross-country race would surely slow Joe down.
I’m even more baffled, though, at how such an ill-prepared Frank, on a bike even less suited for the competition than Joe’s, manages to keep up not only with Joe but stay ahead of all the other competitors. Is Dixon saying mountain biking is not that hard? Because it seems plenty hard to me. Of course, the author’s grasp of the sport and equipment may be a bit lacking; one passage refers to Joe’s bike’s back wheels.
That’s a weird relationship: After the culprit has been caught and confessed to his crimes, his sponsor reacts in a way no human would react to working with an attempted murderer: “exasperated” and “amazed.” OK, “amazed” makes some sense, but “exasperated”? Is it because it’s only attempted murder? Or is it because it’s multiple attempted murders, and he’s exasperated by the compulsive behavior?
Quit while you’re ahead: So Joe, who comes to the Annihilator as an amateur, qualifies with a good enough time to compete against the professionals. He does well in the downhill, has some bad luck in the “hot-rodding,” and is extremely impressive in the cross country section of the race, as mentioned above. He does this with a single bike and off-the-shelf equipment, which is not even close to the quality the other competitors have. But at the end, Joe declines to pursue mountain biking competitions any further. Good heavens, he’s outstanding at it, and he gives it up because it’s “too much work”! Which, since he gives up on the sport in favor of detective work, makes me believe he’s putting a minimal amount of work into detecting, as I always suspected he did.
Opinions: I’m not sure Dixon knows much about the topic of mountain bike racing. Or about the human body, as Frank and Joe, gifted athletes that they are, show no fatigue between races, despite the high level of competition and the grueling nature of some of the races. He also doesn’t know cougars and mountain lions are the same thing or that teenage boys don’t often eat salads without prodding or how to describe a realistic wrestling move or … everything’s a big mess, and that’s after you get past the idea that Joe has somehow become almost professional-level good at mountain bike racing. It’s all preposterous.
The mystery’s not so great either, but the horrible racing action covers up that shortcoming.
Grade: D+
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