June 08, 2018 (Rockland County, New York) – Enrique Cubillo, an endurance athlete, became the first man to roller ski up New York’s Bear Mountain on May 25 – all 1,289 feet of it = in 39 minutes and 55 seconds. “Nordic cross-country skiing, for me, it is the sport of Gods,” says Cubillo. “I’m nuts for it and I feel fantastic at 54. Since I began late to all transport sports, I’m just like a 12-year-old every time I arrive at a new one.”

It’s just the latest in a long line of feats Cubillo, a New Yorker with AFib heart disease and Raynaud’s Syndrome, has accomplished. A roller skiing coach in the Lower Hudson Valley working from Kingston to Harlem, Cubillo, who formerly raced USA Cycling category 2, also claims to hold the cycling speed record for Central Park. He is also passionate about spikeboarding, using a single pole and a long skateboard-style contraption to move along with cycling and anything else that combines recreation and transportation.

When asked how difficult it was to push himself straight up a mountain on roller skis, Cubillo was blunt and enthusiastic.

“Difficult is not a mental state I ever engage in,” he says. “The mountain is wanting to put a hurting on you pretty darn bad at the base, she always does and mentally the lower parts of all my summits are the worst. Once you are nearing the top it gets mentally much less challenging. Here is my manta: ‘I did not get this far to choke.’”

Roller skiing has been used as a training tool for cross-country skiers for decades to build both core strength and endurance. Its proponents include recent Olympic gold medalists Jesse Diggins and Kikkan Randall.

Cubillo would like to see more athletes embrace sports such as roller skiing, which is one of the reasons why he attempted the summit climb.

“I wanted to inspire West Point (United States Military Academy) and help spark a nation to begin to understand that if they can hang from rings over mud they might like to summit the tar off our wonderful North American paved roads,” he says.

Cubillo was born in Spain, and raised in St. Louis and moved to New York City when he was 20. He never left. In his younger days, his athletic endeavours took a back seat to drinking and smoking until 1991, when he decided to hop on a mountain bike and start racing. He switched to road in 1993, the same year he also saw roller skiing for the first time in Central Park.

Cubillo began big mountain climbing in 2015 when he summited Mt. Tamalpias in California followed by another in High Point, New Jersey. Locally, he trains on Storm King mountain in New York on both roller skis and a spikeBoard.

“The mountain calls your name, you can hear it, feel it and anyone with half a heart to run the body hard will answer,” says Cubillo. “Nordic skiing is pedaling upside down plus some. If you cycle hard you can ski hard. God gave me core and I intend to use it.”

For him, recreation is also about transportation whether by bicycle, or ski or roller ski. It’s good for the planet, and gangbusters for the cardio.

“I believe 100 per cent in recreation that becomes transportation,” he says.  “We race we commute. We make the planet proud.”

In addition to big mountain feats of endurance, Cubillo can often be found roller skiing the streets of Harlem, which seems a whole lot dangerous, but to him it’s all skiing and it’s all good.

“There is less danger to mitigate skiing in Harlem than short track speed skating at Flushing Meadows. I do both of these,” he says. “I also paddle big open water all over NYC at night. That is also much more dangerous than roller skiing in Harlem. Life was dangerous the day we were born.”