We shot the above photo of Brian Lopes (left) and Greg Minnaar (right) in the dual slalom event at Big Bear, California, in 2001. Lopes was 29, and Minnaar was 19.
The two racers have both been recognized as two of the best mountain bike racers of all time. USA Today once said Lopes was: “Undisputedly the best all around world class cycling athlete.” When Minnaar retired from full-time racing a couple of years ago, he was being called the “GOAT” (Greatest of All Time) of downhill mountain biking, after having set the record for the most Elite Men’s World Cup downhill wins in history.
For those readers who want to know more about Lopes and Minnaar, we copied a few excerpts from their biographies on Wikipedia. We can’t vouch for all of the claims, but they look fairly accurate to us.
Here are some of the things that Wikipedia says about Lopes:
“Brian Thomas Lopes (born September 6, 1971, in Mission Viejo, California) is a professional mountain bike racer who specializes in four-cross. Lopes started riding BMX in his childhood and turned professional at seventeen years old.[1]
“He started mountain biking in 1993 and has since won a total of 18 titles – 9 NORBA National Championships, 6 UCI World Cup wins and 4 UCI World Championship titles.[2] Lopes has also held world records in bunny hopping, in terms of both distance and height.[1]
“He was nominated in 2001 for an ESPY ‘Action sport Athlete of the Year'[3] and won two NEA (World Extreme Sports Award) for ‘Mountain Biker of the Year’ in 2000 & 2001.[4] Lopes has also co-written a book, Mastering Mountain Bike Skills with Lee McCormack. Lopes has also been featured in a videogame; Downhill Domination on the Sony PlayStation 2.”
Here’s some of what Wikipedia says about Minnaar:
“Greg Minnaar (born 13 November 1981) is a retired South African World Champion mountain bike racer competing in downhill cycling. He won four world championships. Minnaar is regarded as one of the most dominant DH racers ever, with a record 22 career victories and 86 podiums in 167 starts[1]. Since retirement, he is the team manager for Norco Race Division.
“Minnaar has won the UCI Downhill World Championship four times – in 2003, 2012, 2013, and 2021. He has finished second four times (2004, 2006, 2009, and 2015) and taken the bronze three times (2001, 2005, and 2010).
“Downhill World Cup
“Minnaar has been crowned Downhill World Cup champion three times (2001, 2005 and 2008) for winning the Mountain Bike World Cup points series. He was also crowned Downhill World Champion in 2003 for winning the season ending event. He has also done well in the Four Cross event, with one win in the 2003 World Cup points series, in Fort William, Scotland, and a fourth-place finish at the 2005 World Championships.
“In the 2008 World Cup, Minnaar podiumed at every one of the seven events in the series, taking the win at Fort William, Mont-Sainte-Anne and Canberra. This gave him a comfortable lead going into the finals at Schladming, Austria, where he placed fifth and clenched his overall lead to take the well-deserved title.
“Minnaar first began getting noticed as a world class downhill racer at the age of 17, in 1999, racing select World Cups (including one in his home country of South Africa, in Stellenbosch) on a local shop team, aboard a Kona Stab Dee-Lux bike with a Marzocchi Monster T. fork. In 2000, he was picked up as a junior by British international team Animal Orange, which used Orange frames (222 for downhill and Ms. Isle for dual slalom) and RockShox suspension. That year Greg podiumed at a World Cup points series race for the first time.
“The following two years Greg rode for the Global Racing team, aboard similar bikes as the previous years, and on this team, at the age of 19, he won the overall World Cup points series in the Elite downhill. In 2003 Greg switched to the Haro Lee Dungarees team, which used Intense designed and built DHR frames for the downhill and their own short travel Werx trail bike frames for Four Cross, with Manitou suspension. It was aboard this team that, at the age of 21, Greg became World Champion of downhill.”
Here’s our coverage of that Big Bear, California, NORBA race in June of 2001, when we shot that photo of Lopes and Minnaar: