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Mammoth Is Interesting

Bill Cockroft, the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area executive who has been a longtime champion for road cycling, underwent surgery for injuries he suffered Thanksgiving Day in a cycling accident in Palm Springs, a ski area spokesperson said.

Cockroft, formerly on the board of directors of the U.S. Cycling Federation and a driving force behind Mammoth road cycling, crashed on a corner while cycling in Palm Springs.

"He is recovering in Palm Springs now," said Joani Lynch, the marketing and communications director of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.

"He crashed off his road bike on Thanksgiving Day," she said. "It seems he hit some standing water while cornering.

"He did some pretty good damage to his hip and shoulder. He has had surgery involving plates and pins but is expected to make a full recovery. He is hoping to be back in Mammoth in a week or two."

Cockroft was one of the major instigators of the Whiskey Creek Stage Race in the mid-eighties to the early nineties.

World class road cyclists showed up for five days of racing that turned Mammoth from a sleepy summer mountain town into a two-wheeled festival.

The stage race included a criterium, a circuit race, a time trial and two long stages, one of a hundred miles and the other ninety-two miles. Later, Cockroft’s team added mountain biking, and Mammoth hosted the World Championships in 1987.

In an interview with Mammoth Monthly magazine last summer, Cockroft said he still shares a passion for road cycling, leaving the door open to once more placing Mammoth on the cycling map.

"Rusty Gregory [the ski area’s CEO] puts a bug in my ear every now and then about hosting a criterium around the Village," Cockroft said, "and personally, I'd like to see the Fall Century become one of these classic, gotta-do rides.

"I look at some of the other century rides, and they're really festivals, with some big riderships. I think Solvang is at about five thousand riders, and Palm Springs is huge."

For Cockroft, Palm Springs just became a little less so.