“My favourite piece of John Tomac history is my A2 double sided poster which I got out of a Mountain Biker UK magazine back in the mid 90’s. One side is Tomac in his black latex skinsuit bombing down Mammoth Mountain and the other side is of him back in 94 in an XC race when he raced for Raleigh. But to really see what a committed fan I am, I can tell you that through the early 90’s when I was 11-13 years old my brother and I would make up disc wheels to copy Tomac’s Tioga disc wheel.
My first idea was to use cardboard and for the Kevlar wire I used wool out of mums knitting basket. That idea was pretty cool for burning round Wanganui and hearing the the cardboard rumble away. I remember going to a North Island Cup race in Taupo where it poured with rain and had streams to ride across..by the end of the race I could barely turn the pedals round with the weight of the wheel! So, back to the drawing board: my next idea was to use polythene and kept the idea of the wool to hold the ploythene in place; this setup made a cooler disc wheel noice and turned heads at the races, as at the time Jon Hume (Avanti) and Dave Abbot (GT) were racing on Tioga disc wheels – I thought I was pretty cool too at 12 riding mine. I cant remember how long that craze lasted for but I do remember Dad was abit annoyed with the mess after a race!"
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