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Date this photo - Mr. John Tomac...

1K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  ShortTravelMag 
#1 ·
Just picked up my professionally framed poster of John Tomac. Professional framing is ridiculously expensive as I found out.

But anyway, I personally picked this up from the Grip Shift booth back at the Traverse City NORBA national, or World Cup. It had to be between 1991 and 1996, as those are the only years I attended, and the last year they had a race up there.

I can't make out the words under his number on the plate, but based on his outfit, his skinsuit, his Grafton brakes, fork, Full suspension frame, and rear disc, can anyone solve the mystery?

At least the year? I'm not sure anyone could tell where that course was. Flooring Wood flooring Hardwood Laminate flooring Groupset
 
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#3 ·
So that might actually have been a 1994 poster? Traverse City was usually in June, so they couldn't have took the photo that same year and printed them up? One year it was in August. But I'm guessing if the photo was taken in 1993, then it was in 1994 that I picked it up. I don't know if there's any way at all to know where that was. There's no photo credits on there that I saw, and no copyright info either.

Maybe SRAM has some old-timers still around that would know? This was way before SRAM was a brand name, they just went by Grip Shift back then.

Thanks for the info. The frame turned out beautiful. The frame is black leather, and the edging is metal looking like it's rusty. I thought it looked like a bike chain from a distance. And I did the red matte to play off the red dot in the logo. Overall, all it needs is a signature from JT himself to put it over the top.

Those were fun years, 91-96, driving the 7 hours from Chicago every summer. Get my butt kicked, and see all the superstars just walking around the pits.
 
#6 ·
Yeah, I just liked the rusty metal look. I went to Michael's craft store, probably the least favorite place in the world, but between 2 daughters and a wife, I end up in there at least once a week. I thought I'd splurge and have the poster framed for real, expecting $75-100 bucks tops with coupons...I had no idea what professionally framing costs, and man, I'm in the wrong business, that's all I'll say about that.

It took an hour to look at all the options for frames, mattes, and when I saw the black leather frame with that metal edge, it just looked cool. Very man-cave if that is a thing. The poster has been rolled up in my basement for 25 years.

I also have a rare Barracuda bikes poster from the UCI World Cup they had one of those years, but it's more yellow and red and not as cool as Johnny T of course.

I think Mammoth makes the most sense. That place was legendary back then and would allow for killer photos. So I'm going with Mammoth, 1993.
 
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