John Tomac (born November 3, 1967, in Owosso, Michigan) is a retired professional cyclist who competed in multiple disciplines in road racing and mountain biking during a successful senior career that spanned twenty years. He is regarded as a mountain biking icon and was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1991. He is a true all-rounder, having won major national and international titles in four disciplines.

John Tomac first participated in cycle racing at the age of seven. He began to enter BMX events in and around Michigan in 1975 and continued competing in this discipline into his teenage years. By then, he had achieved title winning success at State and Regional level. In 1984, at the age of sixteen, Tomac won the National Cruiser Class title with the factory Mongoose team. He turned professional in 1985 and spent his last year of BMX competition contesting events as a privateer.

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.

Bob Roll (born July 7, 1960, in Oakland, California) is a former American professional cyclist, author, and television sports commentator. He was a member of the 7-Eleven Cycling Team until 1990 and competed for the Motorola Cycling Team in 1991. In 1992 Roll moved to Greg LeMond's Z team and added mountain biking to his racing accomplishments. He continued racing mountain bikes through 1998.

He has written Bobke: A Ride on the Wild Side of Cycling, Bobke II, and two Tour de France Companion volumes. ("Bobke" is Southern Dutch for "Bobby".) He has also had many columns published in VeloNews.

In 1998, Lance Armstrong was recovering from cancer and had dropped out of the Paris–Nice race. Armstrong's coach, Chris Carmichael, asked Roll to go to Boone, North Carolina, to ride with Armstrong for a few days. Armstrong was discouraged by Europe and on the verge of retiring. Carmichael wanted him to do one more training session, with Roll. According to Roll, "Lance had probably never met a bike racer like me...a person who could still find some happiness in such misery. We had eight hours a day for eight days of riding in the pouring rain - rain in Biblical proportions! I think Lance would've turned things around even without that time in the Appalachia[n]s, but it was a pivotal time." Armstrong went on to fourth in the Vuelta a España, and within a year and a half won his first Tour de France. (Roll's tale of the ride is in Bobke II; Armstrong's is in It's Not About the Bike.)

Edmund ("Ned") Overend (born 20 August 1955 in Taipei, Taiwan), the son of a U.S. diplomat, started in mountain biking in the early 1980s. He appeared in "the world's first mountain biking video, aptly named, The Great Mountain Biking Video,", released in 1988 by New & Unique Videos of San Diego, California. Ned also appears in competition sequences of "The Sun Valley Mountain Bike Challenge," a video chronicle of that year's NORBA Championships also released in 1988.

He also appeared in a mountain-bike race video entitled "Battle At Durango: The First-Ever World Mountain Biking Championships" videotaped in Durango, Colorado in 1990, and released by New & Unique Videos in 1991. Overend was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1990 and the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 2001. Even though he retired from Pro Mountain biking in 1996, he continued competing in endurance competitions like the XTERRA Triathlon, and regular road triathlons. While in professional mountain biking, Overend earned the nicknames "Deadly Nedly" and "The Lung", because he was very difficult to beat and for his phenonomenal aerobic endurance at altitude (especially so for a man of his age), respectively. He is the current captain of the Specialized Cross Country Team.

Melissa "Missy" Giove (born 1972) is a former professional downhill mountain biker. Her nickname is The Missile.

Giove was one of mountain-bike racing's first mainstream female superstars, did some ads for Reebok, is the all-time leader in NORBA downhill wins with 14, and is second on the World Cup list with 11. Giove's other accomplishments include three overall NORBA downhill crowns, two World Cup overalls, and the 1994 world championship title. Prior to cycling, Missy was also a nationally ranked downhill skier.

Early in her career, Missy raced for the highly respected boutique Yeti Racing team along with other top downhill racing stars such as Myles Rockwell, Jimmy Deaton, John Tomac, and Johnny O under the management of industry veteran and former owner of Yeti Cycles, John Parker. After establishing herself as the top US women's downhill talent, Missy moved to the larger corporate financed team of Volvo-Cannondale USA cycling team. Together Missy Giove and Myles Rockwell dominated many of the US downhill races under the Cannondale badge in the early 90's. Missy was always known for being colorful and fast talking.

Ruthie Matthes (born November 11, 1965) is an American professional bicycle racer who won the World Cross-Country Mountain Bike Championship in 1991. She is also a road cyclist, having twice finished in 2nd place in the Women's Challenge bicycle stage race. Ruthie is one of a series of professional riders who got their start in cycling through the Red Zinger Mini Classics youth bicycle race series in Colorado.