July 4, 2006 (Vancouver, BC) – The first ever IMBA Summit/World Mountain Bike Conference wrapped up in Whistler, British Columbia last week after three days of successful seminars and events. The conference brought together over 400 delegates from seventeen countries around the world including Sri Lanka, Israel and The Netherlands, to talk about mountain bike tourism, trail design, and other topics related to the rapidly evolving sport of mountain biking.

Conference sessions presented by a host of international experts included topics such as Marketing Mountain Biking for Tourism, Managing Trails in Sensitive Ecosystems, Reaching out to Women Riders and Connecting Communities with Trails. To ensure that conference delegates were able to take advantage of the great outdoors, the conference programming integrated events such as the World’s Largest Loonie Race and BBQ sponsored by the Whistler Off-Road Cycling Association (WORCA) that saw nearly 400 riders turn out for a 20-kilometre tour of Whistler’s famous mountain bike trails.

To wrap up, the IMBA Summit/World Mountain Bike Conference presented a thrilling Film & Slideshow Night hosted by event producer Richard Juryn for conference delegates and local mountain bike enthusiasts. Films included the acclaimed “Roam,” and the world premiere of the trailer for “Progression Kranked 6″. Ryan Leech and Kris Holm hosted “Defect,” an extreme unicycle film. Over $10,000 raised at the show and silent auction went to locally based charities Epic Riders and Future Riders that benefit young riders in British Columbia.

“We are thrilled with the outcome of this year’s event,” says Richard Juryn, Event producer for the IMBA Summit/World Mountain Bike Conference. “The IMBA Summit/World Mountain Bike Conference has become the biggest and the best mountain bike information and advocacy conference in the world. We offer a sincere thanks to all the sponsors, international speakers and everyone at our host venue of Whistler for helping make it such a great success.”

The World Mountain Bike Conference and IMBA will be announcing next year’s conference date and venue before the end of this summer.

The IMBA Summit/World Mountain Bike Conference is an annual event jointly hosted by the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, and North Vancouver’s Shore Events. For more information about the conference, visit www.worldmountainbikeconference.com