March 2, 2005 – This year’s Toronto International Bike Show is beginning to look like the Academy Awards of the bike industry. Brian Lopes, Wade Simmons, Thomas Vanderham, Ryan Leech, Kris Holm and Gary Fisher are among the big mountain bike names attending this year’s show starting Friday at the National Trade Centre. Lopes will be at the show for the first time both to promote his new book, Mastering Mountain Bike Skills and to race in this year’s much improved Mountaincross event. Before leaving Southern California for his trip north, Flyin’ Brian said he was looking forward to visiting the city and getting some early-season racing in.

“The publisher of the book asked me if I would come up to promote it at the bike show,” Lopes said Tuesday before heading out on a R&D ride with the boys from GT Bikes. “I found out there was a race and it made it a bit more enticing for me.” Lopes is clearly favoured to win the Toyota Indoor 4x Mountaincross Championships, which will be run on an indoor dirt course inside the main show hall, but he said he’s mainly out to have some fun.

“I think sometimes there’s a little bit more pressure on these little races just because that’s what everybody is expecting. Personally I haven’t been thinking about the race very much. It’s kind of second priority on this trip, which is funny to say because usually it’s the main priority,” Lopes said. “I’m just going up there to have a good time and race. We’ll see what happens.” Having Lopes in the pro side of the competition is a big boost to this year’s race organizer Brent Smith, a long-time BMX and MTB pro himself who said people can expect a much different event from years past. “I expected with the changes that we made we would generate a lot of excitement. We’re going to have probably the best course you could probably make within the space. I’m a rider who has had lots of experience so I think through my travels I’ve learned a lot about tracks and the way to run races,” he said. Part of the attraction for Lopes may be the record $7,000 purse for the pro division at this year’s 4x race, which is the largest ever held in connection with the Bike Show.

Toyota picked up the title sponsorship, which has allowed the pro MTB and BMX classes to have cash payouts back to eighth place, while the amateur classes will receive medals and some great merchandise prizes. Friday’s schedule will include practice sessions throughout the day and then a Dash for Cash at night that will have the BMX pros racing against the MTB pros. Saturday will have qualifiers and finals for all four divisions (pro/am BMX and pro/am MTB) followed by a Hogtown Dash with the top two riders from all classes. Sunday will be a whole new day of racing with qualifiers and finals again in all four divisions. Mountaincross racing, especially 4x, can be an intimidating discipline for newcomers, but Lopes has some simple advice. “With this race being so short, the starts are going to be the most important,” he said. “It can get physical. I try to stay away from as much contact as possible. My game plan is to try to get the hole shot and say “˜later everybody’.” The show includes the Metro Jam BMX competition, the TOque Unicycle Games, a bicycle film festival, riding demos, giveaways, a test ride area, free bike parking and more.