John Tomac - Mountain Biking

Mountain Biking

In 1986, Tomac made two significant decisions: he relocated to Southern California, and left BMX competition in favour of mountain bike racing. He continued to ride for Mongoose. By the autumn of that year, he had won his first two major mountain bike events: the Ross Fat Tire Stage Race in Massachusetts and the Supercross Mountain Bike Exhibition race held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Mongoose marketed a Tomac Signature Edition model in 1987, which reflected his increasing profile within mountain biking culture. Tomac achieved a few more notable wins during that year, including a second win in the Fat Tire Stage Race and three National XC Series rounds.

In 1987, John Tomac appeared in one of the first instructional mountain biking videos ever produced, entitled "The Great Mountain Biking Video," produced by New & Unique Videos of San Diego, California.

1988 brought Tomac national title-winning success. By achieving the highest combined points total from the National Off-Road Bicycle Association's (NORBA) Cross-country, Downhill and Dual Slalom championships, Tomac won the overall title of NORBA World Champion. He was ranked in first place in the Cross-country and Dual Slalom disciplines. The "World" status was a misnomer, however, as the NORBA championships were held only in the United States. The first true World Championships for XC and DH, sanctioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale, were held in Durango, Colorado, in 1990 where John placed 4th in the downhill. John is well remembered for riding road style drop bars on his Yeti mountainbike at this race which was a noticeable deviation from the other riders. This equipment decision was influenced by his recent experience riding for the 7-11 road cycling team in Europe where he was under contract. Tomac's results and rapid rise to prominence earned recognition from U.S. cycling magazine Velo News, which voted him the world's best all-round rider of 1988.

Tomac retained his overall NORBA title in 1989, and also won the NORBA DH Championship for the first time. In a season in which he competed at the highest level on both sides of the Atlantic, he added the German and European XC titles to his collection. In 1990, he joined Yeti Cycles' factory MTB team and the 7-11 road team, embarking on a busy program of events in Europe and the U.S. To facilitate his road racing career, Tomac based himself in Belgium, and regularly traveled between the two continents to compete in major road and mountain events. Although he failed to win any of the three individual NORBA series, he won the overall NORBA title for the third year in succession.

1991 saw a change of teams: from Yeti to Raleigh and from 7-11 to Motorola. A stronger mountain bike season culminated in UCI World Championship success in Ciocco, Italy, with Gold in XC and Silver in DH. In addition to that, Tomac won two events on his way to the UCI XC World Cup title, and added a second NORBA DH title to his 1989 win. The following year, he finished in fifth place at the DH World Championship held in Bromont, Canada, and had to settle for second place behind Switzerland's Thomas Frischknecht in the XC World Cup rankings (though there were two event wins again). An accident in which Tomac struck an errant spectator in the final event at Mount Snow, Vermont, prevented him from outscoring his rival and retaining the title.

In 1993, Tomac was the runner-up to Germany's Jürgen Beneke in the inaugural UCI Downhill World Cup and lost out to Frischknecht again in the XC rankings. This was to be the last season in which Tomac would finish in the top three in the World Cup, but he continued to achieve notable results in the World Championships. In 1997, five years after his last World Championship medal, he finished second in the downhill event at Château-d'Oex in Switzerland.

Between 1994 and 1997, Tomac would win three more NORBA titles – two in DH and one in XC – as well as some notable individual events such as the Sea Otter Classic and Cactus Cup. He officially announced his retirement from racing at the Sea Otter Classic in 2000, but would later make an occasional return to competition. In 2004, at the age of 37, he won the famous Kamikaze Downhill held at Mammoth Mountain, California. Then, for good measure, he returned in 2005 and won it again.