Stone Investigations (Stone Series Book 4) by Bob Blanton (open ebook txt) 📗

Matthew zoomed in with hisportal to see if he could catch some interesting comments on the competition.

“I felt a wobble in the handlebars,” Travis was saying.

“I checked it out, the bike is perfect,” one of the youngguys said.

“I told you I felt something!”

“Maybe it was nerves,” joked the other guy.

“Billy, if you don’t want to get fired, you’d better wiseup!” Travis said.  “I don’t have nerves, there’s something wrong with thebike.”

“Do you want to try the backup?” the first guy asked.

“I guess I’ll have to since my mechanics can’t figure outwhat’s wrong with the first one!”

With that, Travis grabbed the other bike and headed off tothe bowl to check it out.

“It’s nerves,” Billy said.

“We know. But you can’t say it,” the older guy said.  “He’sgot a lot riding on this competition.  It’s the last one before he turnseighteen and has to go pro.  He needs a big win to get his sponsors excitedenough to up his funding.”

“Well, yelling at us isn’t going to help,” Billy said.

“Just shut up and tune the bike.  Tell him you tightened upthe wheels and lubed the headset.”

“Sure, whatever,” Billy said.

◆ ◆ ◆

Matthew wandered around checking out the other pit areas andcompetitors before meeting back up with Emily.

“Did you get an interview?” Matthew asked Emily.

“Yes, I talked to Annika and to a few of the younger girls whoare doing a demo before today’s competition.”

“What did you think?”

“She’s tough.  It’s a big risk to her ranking to push her wayinto this competition against the boys.”

“I heard she’s fearless,” Matthew said.

“Seems like it.  We should go find our seats; the demo isgoing to start pretty soon.”

“Go ahead, I’ll catch up with you.”  Matthew leaned againstthe wall and zoomed back over to Travis’s pit.

“How is it?” Billy asked.

“Solid,” Travis said.

“I tightened up the wheels and lubed the headset,” Billysaid.

“Told you it wobbled.”

“I know, it was hard to detect,” Billy lied.

◆ ◆ ◆

The demonstration by the young girls was entertaining, theyrode their bikes, riding on one wheel, hopping around on one wheel, makingsmall jumps while riding forward or backward.

“I can’t believe they don’t crash,” Matthew said.

“And hopping the bike up onto that rail and riding along it. I don’t think I could pull that off on my feet much less on two wheels,” Emilyadded.

“They certainly made it all look easy.  Now let’s see whatthe big kids can do.”

The riders were seeded according to their rankings, with thehighest-ranked rider, Travis, going last.  Annika was twentieth which surprisedMatthew given her ranking.  “What’s up with that?”

“Sexism,” Emily said.  “They downgraded her ranking sinceit’s from the girls division.  She said she expected it.  She said it waspunishment for daring to force her way into the competition.”

“Is it a big disadvantage?”

“Yes, the judges save the big scores for the later riderssince they’re expecting them to be the best.  But she just needs to break intothe top twenty, preferably the top ten, with this first ride.”

Five of the first twenty riders crashed.  They knew they hadto do something big to make it into the second round, so they took big risks. Matthew thought that all of them looked rough.  He wondered what Annika wouldlook like compared to them.

“Here she comes!” Emily shouted.

Annika started her routine off with a forward flip of thebike.

“Wow!  That was scary,” Matthew exclaimed as he watched herset up for her first run.  This time she rotated the bike around the frontwheel three times before landing.

“That’s called a triple tail whip,” Emily said.

Next Annika bounced the bike’s front wheel up, then the wholebike was in the air.  While it was in the air, she rotated it once around thefront wheel before landing on both tires.

“Bunny Hop 360,” Emily said.

She did a few other tricks, riding the bike like a pogo stickon its front wheel, then she finished off with a backflip.  The crowd obviouslyloved her and roared their appreciation.

“That certainly made all the previous riders look likepretenders,” Matthew said.

“The judges agree with you,” Emily said, pointing to Annika’sscore which had her in first place by a wide margin.

Annika held her wide lead until the last five riders wereup.  The first of them didn’t pass her but closed the gap considerably.  Thenext one edged her out for first place.

“That’s bull!” Matthew hissed.  “She was better than thatguy.”

“We don’t know enough about the tricks to know what thejudges are looking for, but I tend to agree with you,” Emily said.

The next rider came in behind Annika by a few points, leavingTravis to try to raise the bar.  His routine was similar to Annika’s, and headded a trick where he completely let go of the bike, flaring his arms and legsout into a star before he grabbed the bike and landed.

“I don’t see how they can get their feet back on the pedalswhen they do things like that,” Matthew said.

“Yeah, you’d swear they have a string attached, wouldn’tyou?  Now here comes his score.”

Travis’s score was ten points better than Annika’s puttingher in third place.

“I’m not sure he was that much better,” Matthew said.  “I’mgoing to go ask Carlos what he thinks?”

“Carlos?”

“A groupie I met earlier.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Carlos, what did you think?” Matthew asked after he trackedthe would-be mechanic down.

“Annika got robbed,” Carlos said.  “The judges left too muchroom.  She should be in first place, or at least second.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Definitely.  But it won’t be a problem tomorrow.  If thejudges are fair, she’ll cream Travis.”

“Are you going to be here?”

“You betcha.  I’m still looking to latch onto one of theteams.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“I’m going to see if I can find Annika,” Emily said the nextday when they arrived at the stadium for the final two rounds.

“Sure, I’m going to look for my source and check out theother teams.  See what people are thinking,” Matthew said.  He headed down ontothe field looking for Carlos.  It only took him a couple of minutes to find thewould-be mechanic.

“Carlos, how’s it going?”

“I’m doing fine.  You back to see who wins?” Carlos asked.

“Yeah.  I want to get a read on how the various teams arefeeling.”

“Well, I can tell you Travis is not feeling