Defining Moments: My First Kit
As children, none of us were given an allowance. Instead, we were taught from a young age that if we wanted to buy something, we had to earn the money in order to do so. To facilitate the model, and possibly to avoid child-labor law infringement, we were paid to do chores around the house in exchange for a cash payment directly proportional but not necessarily related to the amount of time it took us to execute the task. The hourly wage, at it turned out, was at the discretion of the one doing the overseeing and commissioning of the task at hand.
In my view, it worked out very well for us. Coming from a family that was neither wealthy nor poor, it taught us a number of important lessons about life, money, and the important ways the two are separated. It’s one of the fundamental things I’m very glad about regarding my upbringing.
My grandmother, by choice or otherwise, was in on this scheme of leveraging our desire to earn money as a means to achieve her end of having her dog tended to regularly. As grandmothers are wont to do, however, she found ways to be knowingly complicit in circumventing the intended lesson by overpaying us for our labor; she was perhaps too fond of her dog, and I was perhaps too willing to walk it repeatedly and unnecessarily in order to earn my wage.
I don’t remember how old I was, but I was still riding my old Raleigh made of Reynolds 531 tubing and clad in a Weinmann grouppo which I now wish I’d kept; I could have been no more than 10 years old. Nevertheless, I had already made the determination, by studying the pros in the races I watched on scratchy old VHS cassettes, that if I was going to amount to any kind of cyclist, I would require proper cycling kit.
I needed cycling shorts and I needed a cycling jersey; t-shirts and an old pair of lederhosen simply wouldn’t fit the bill. And cycling shorts and cycling jerseys would cost serious money. So off I was, walking my grandmother’s dog fourteen times a day – collecting payment every time – and before very long, I had saved up the money I needed.
I don’t remember the name of the shop, but I do remember on which rack and in which corner of the store it hung. It resembled Laurent Fignon’s System U kit, though I felt a tinge of guilt that it wasn’t as fluorescent as LeMond’s ADR strip. It was nothing compared, however, to the unexpressed guilt I’d felt all year at secretly having hoped Fignon would win the Tour against my countryman.
Riding my trusty Raleigh, I spent the summer of 1989 riding with my left hand on the tops of my handlebars and my right hand on the hoods. I’d spotted a photo in Winning Magazine wherein Laurent Fignon was leading the Giro d’Italia riding in just this position; I summarily emulated him in this regard.
The fact that this was just a moment captured in time as Fignon changed hand position was lost on me; the fact held neither relevance nor value to my view of the world. Fignon rode like this, and so would I. This single photo fueled my desire to ride a bicycle for an entire summer. Up and down the streets I went, imagining myself making history as I left both Fignon and LeMond in my dust and I took off up the road – one hand on the tops, one on the hoods – with Phil Liggett’s voice in my ears as he commended the ferocity of my attacks.
I found daily motivation in riding like Fignon. In rain, in shine; I rode the way the photo I saw showed him riding. Every time I climbed aboard my bike, I wanted to be a better cyclist; I wanted to be more like Fignon. I was nevertheless bound to eventually discover that Fignon didn’t really ride like that; it had been a trick of the camera. By the time I discovered the truth of that photo, I had ridden like that for so long that it felt lop-sided to go back to riding sensibly, with both hands level.
I felt awkward then, riding with both hands in the drops, as I chased my sister down a mountain during a family vacation in New York State. She was in front on her Raleigh with pink handlebars, and I was frantic at the notion that she was ahead of me. There was no alternative but to beat her through the series of sharp corners coming up ahead on the road we had dubbed “Alpe d’Huez” for its steepness and numerous twists and turns.
There was, of course, a very real alternative to beating her through those corners.
As I laid in the emergency room with the doctor scrubbing furiously at my wounds, he posed several theories that might explain the flawed decision tree that placed me in his care. The prominent thought suffocating my mind was that my cherished kit had been torn apart firstly by the crash and secondly by the doctor – and that neither seemed to hold the garments in the same esteem I did. It was destroyed; a summer of over-paid dog-walking lost.
As a matter of comparison, this commercial, aired during this year’s Tour de France, is exactly how I rode as a kid. In fact, I still do today.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BwnuBVUBsQ[/youtube]
A great rite de passage!
Substitute mowing lawns for walking grandma’s dog and you have the story of my first real bike and kit (some obscure Italian team I never heard of). I wonder if the jersey is still boxed up in my parents’ storage locker, along with the System U cycling cap I bought on my first trip to France in the summer of 1988.
Awesome, Frank!
Ha, I too enjoyed that commercial. It’s around 4000x better than that damn Sidi commercial. It was so cool in fact that I called the VMH in to watch it one day. Really, really cool, from the Boonen/kid shots to the voice-over of Uncle Phil.
Haven’t been at it quite as long as you, but I too did odd jobs all weekend long for money from the Olds. Mine went towards flash soccer and lacrosse gear. A bit later I mowed lawns all over town, and even in neighboring towns, to put together enough money to buy a snowboard. Since my brother had Burton catalogues around from 1985 forward, it had to be a Burton. Not cheap. Then again, mowing lawns paid pretty well for a fourteen year old, especially without any taxes!
And thank you for writing “New York State.” It really pisses me off when people say, “Oh, back when I was living in New York…” and I know that “New York” to them is nothing more and nothing less than a small section in Manhattan. As if anyone outside their little realm isn’t also a New Yorker. Jerks.
It’s been awhile since you’ve opened the family photo vault. Your father’s fur was pretty awesome. Any shots of you in this kit?
Reminds me of when I saved enough to order a yellow cycling jersey (it *had* to be yellow) from Bike Nashbar. Back then you had to mail a letter with a check and wait for what felt like half the summer for the item to ship. I had already ridden on the day it arrived, but I had to ride more that day.
I wore that jersey everywhere on the bike. People wondered if I had another shirt — I didn’t, or at least not one as cool as that one. I wish I still had it, but the first kit is definitely special.
Wish that I had the inclination to RACE at an early age.
I absolutely love that commercial.
Nice article, Frank. It reminded me of many things. My grandpa handing me money under the dinner table. The transition from riding a Nishiki 10sp whilst wearing white San Francisco Riding Gear to a Campag Super Record aluminum Guerciotti and my first kit (see below).
A little more than three years ago, my first shop kit was bestowed upon me by my favorite LBS. I wore it with pride the next day on a group ride with none other than Bob Roll himself. I maxed out my gears and heartrate going 30mph on a flat road with Bobke on my wheel. I moved over to let him go by, and Bobke dropped me like a baby grand piano being pushed out of a five story building. I hope he enjoyed the lead-out. Apres-velo, Bobke also signed my vintage 7-Eleven team jersey that I now have framed and hanging on my wall.
My favorite new cycling commercial of this year, BTW. I smile every time I see it.
Firat kit was hand me down generic non-team stuff who’s maker and giver I forget. My first proper kit came after I’d been racing un-attached as a Cat 4, then I was approached by a local chapter of a pretty domestic team after my upgrade to 3.
I wore this kit for some time:
Yep. On the same team (ish) as Malcolm Elliott, Jeff Pierce, Jamie Paolinetti, Steve Hegg among others. Good times, and I still love that kit. Wish I hadn’t given it away when I moved on after the team disbanded.
That is the best! Fignon was a fine person to emulate, hand positions or not. I saw the way he held a bidon when drinking and I’ve done the same ever since. Looking at that Giro photo, I still have that exact pink castelli jersey and it must have been Laurent that made me buy it.
God damn it you are young,
@Duane
I bought the same yellow jersey from Nashbar a year or two later; I even went so far as to cut out white sheets of paper and marker on a 1 on it like on LeMond’s, and pinned them to my pockets. I loved how LeMond’s jersey pockets folded over with the numbers pinned on.
You can’t really see what I’m talking about here, but this was the look I was after.
And here
@Ron
I don’t have a picture of it, but my parents might; I’ll have to do some archaeology when I’m home next.
@Cyclops
That picture never gets old. Still feeding from a bottle, you were already clad in kit. Strong work, though from the looks of you, your mamma might have done better to ween you off that at an earlier age.
@mxlmax
What an awesome photo – those kids have the look worked out, don’t they? Too cool. The kid who’s out of the saddle really has the three point system sorted. Actually, most of them do. So awesome.
The loose-flapping spandex around the legs was something my kit had as well; I was very proud during the summer when the starter pistols got big enough to pull the works taught. That was right before I shredded the kit.
@frank
The kid on the front seems to be channelling De Vlaeminck with his lever position. Respect.
All kinds of Casually Deliberate happening here.
Look Pro, part XXXXIIIVVV:
What’s the story here? Whatever it is, I bet is fucking awesome.
@Cyclops
playboys and winny the pooh. quintessential 1980s americana right there
Ah – my first kit (clamps pipe between teeth and nods off for a moment)
We were poor – partly in cash but mostly in spirit, so although we had no car and the family all rode bikes it was more salvage that concoctions of 531 – although my dad had a black Raleigh “racer” with a three speed Sturmey Archer from the early 1960’s when he’d been something of a blade (well in his own head anyway).
It nearly saw him out only disintegrating with a crack across the head tube (the way of several Raleighs of my acquaintance) a couple of years before he was called to glory.
Me and my siblings were transported in a metal child seat which he left on his machine (he called it the “Flying Stag”) many years after we started shaving. He was also a clockmaker and, with the addition of a waxed cardboard box (“waterproof”) that had been used for shipping whisky, the seat and bike could be used as a platform to deliver horological bits around town and visit the supermarket on the way home.
Unsurprisingly therefore my first kit even after purchase of a Raleigh Shadow five speed with full Weinmann at the age of 14 was the kit I stood up in and remained so until at the age of 21 I took the mudguards off the thing, fitted toe straps and bought a pair of black lycra cycling shorts. When I brought them home and put them on my granny pointed out that I could have saved money by sewing a piece of old leather school bag in to her drawers and achieving the same effect – in hindsight she was probably right.
My complete ensemble was a pair of New Balance running shoes, white ankle socks, the shorts, an American football jersey (yup that’s right “Bengals”), a white hard plastic helmet with styrofoam lining and a pair of early sixties shades of the sort worn by low rent Italian gangsters in forgotten B-Movies. I thought that I looked the bollocks. This was in 1985 and I was not only legally an adult but a serving police officer. Oy – have I come a long way…
My first real kit was PDF team replica and I found it in the Man Cave in a box the other month – but that’s another story.
@frank
these must be local races, as MRC is right up the street from me. they do have some great looking kits.
@frank
It’s British judging by the Commer van in the background and the fashion sense. Most likely our 1964 track team in training.
Happy days.
@the Engine
Fucking GOLD of a post. Chapeau!
@roger
… and shag carpet, and cinder-block shelving. When I was a kid in the 80s I remember my house having both of those for a time.
@roger
I can’t believe there’s not a bong in the picture somewhere.
I met The Boy in the Specialized commercial last Friday evening at the SFO Museum. His name is Marcus Guy, son of Otis, mountain bike pioneer and bad-ass former firefighter. I said to Marcus, as we were both grabbing for some finger food at a reception for the opening of the “Repack to Rwanda: The Origins, Evolution, and Global Reach of the Mountain Bike” display in the international terminal, ‘you’re the kid in the Specialized commercial…’
‘Yup,’ he said, as he took my sandwich and walked away.
@the Engine
That’s almost as beautiful as the photo of young Cyclops with Winnie the Poo Bear in a fucking sailor hat and Playboy swag. Hehehehee, life is beautiful.
“My grandmother, by choice or otherwise, was in on this scheme of leveraging our desire to earn money as a means to achieve her end of having her dog tended to regularly”.
I’m never travelling to the country you come from after reading that sentence.
@frank
holy sh1t! That’s my teammate’s daughter (and my team kit) in the red white and blue Minuteman kit. Very strange and cool to see that on this site.
Nice article Frink.
I still have, and occasionally wear, my first jersey (white Ricardo Cycles, with IRC Tyres cloth badge sewn on the left breast). However, modern laundry detergents do seem to have shrunk it in the waist area. Seen below (on left) on 2011 Welli Roubaix, with @Gino on the right.
First shorts are long gone, as is the Campagnolo cap that I wore for a year with a broken brim, as I couldn’t find another one. I thought it still looked pro…
Cool article! Thanks, Frank
@all thanks for sharing your recollections, it’s always interesting to hear your experiences. One of my favorite parts of this community is simply reveling in the collective strotytelling and experience of you all. Oddly, makes me feel connected en when I’m out solo o the road. Chapeau
My first kit, was wicked lame. As I’ve said previously I’ve only been a devoted cyclist for a year and only recently saw the early hints of enlightment via the rules. Otherwise I’ve spent lots of time dreaming of being a cyclist. One glorious summer 5 or years ago I was loaned a old roadbike that Ithink was generic chinese carbon with old dura ace triple group-san, I wasn’t cool, but I felt awesome. I started in vans sneakers and gymshorts. A friend said I needed kit and had some leftovers he could give me….thusly (and sadly) my first kit was bright blue descente bibs, a red performance bike jersey, specialized mtn bike shoes,and inexplicably a milgram team cap, oy I was scary
Well said Frank, and fond memories!
I still have part of my first kit (circa 79/80) — mouldy Detto Pietros and shapeless wool shorts with real leather chamois. Purchased from Frank’s Sporting Goods, the only place in our small town that sold anything resembling authentic cycling gear. Wish I still had the jersey and cap, somehow the French tricolore rather than Italian, but hand embroidered by Mrs. Frank.
“Francis” was my first cycling sensei, and the shop team (a half dozen adolescent kids) thrilled to his tales of racing in Italy in the 60s and 70s and suffered his disdain for riding Raleighs and Peugeots with non-Campy components.
It was all bullshit, of course — he’d left Italy as a child, sold a bit of cycling stuff in the family business alongside skis and soccer cleats. But he loved cycling and imparted that passion to at least a few of us kids, some of whom are still unlearning his lessons…
Oh my god. Detto Pietros. I think I just felt the brush of a warp/fold/crease in the spacetime continuum.
I still get out a few times with the old kit including the Detto Pietros
@Gary J Boulanger
Which was nice…
@Chipomarc
Deltas + period kit = Pure Class. But you need some Professor specs…
I wish ER doctors would take the time to study all the various cycling shoe retension systems. Nothing worse than being laid out on the hospital bed badly concussed and trying to explain how to release a Sidi buckle just before they take the saw to it.
@chipomarc
I reckon one thing worse than trying to explain the buckle system would be the crash that got you into the ER in the first place. I have had my jersey and knicks cut off me by a paramedic whilst lying on a road (all i could woozily remember thinking was, “Fuck, everyone standing around here just saw my cock and balls”) but at least they had the decency to remove my shoes without cutting them (a pair of the adidas pink and white Telekom specials)!
@all ‘Whatever I wore before the V-Kit is dead to me now. ‘
Fixed all’s ya posts.
@the Engine
It may well be the ’64 track team but it looks like they were taking time out from training to invent BMX.
@Marcus
When I had my kit cut off of me in the ER, I just said to the nurse, “This isn’t exactly how my fantasy was supposed to play out.”
@G’phant With the proviso that if it is a club ride or you are racing then you wear the appropriate kit.
Nothing fucks up the beauty of a smoothly rotating pace-line like one or two people in kit that doesn’t match. Perhaps there should be an amendment to Rule #17
Rule #17 // Team kit is for members of the team.
Wearing Pro team kit is also questionable if you’re not paid to wear it. If you must fly the colors of Pro teams, all garments should match perfectly, i.e no Mapei jersey with Kelme shorts and Telekom socks.
If you are riding with or racing for your club, only club kit should be worn. As much care should be given to ensuring one is looking pro as when wearing V-Kit
@Chris
The builders of the training circuit had only seen pictures of a velodrome in a 1938 copy of Boy’s Own.
The chief architect’s only encounter with Belgian cycling had been during the Great War – mostly at night.
The picture is also noteworthy as a young Drew Peacock (who was later to grow a beard, NHS specs and feature in tricycle sidecar racing with his mother in the early 1970’s) pictured on the left sporting his famous “Number 19” (he had an obsession with prime numbers and 19 was the highest then known in Rutland) had just invented the aero technique of tucking his trousers in to his socks.
This technique was controversial in British Cycling circles although few who saw it can forget the sight of the British Team’s neatly tucked flannel trousers on the boards in Tokyo. From there it was only a short conceptual walk to Chris Boardman and Graeme O’Bree’s efforts of the 80′ and 90’s.
@Chris
Like I said – If they don’t look pro, then you shouldn’t go.
Can I humbly propose this as a Rule? Or is it merely an observation?
@the Engine
You may well have stumbled upon the reason behind length of Wiggo’s stockings, they’re a either a throw back from days when you needed the length to secure your trousers or they herald a new development in aerotweed skins suits being worked by Brailsford’s secret squirrel department to ensure continued domination over the Aussies.
@Chris
You can also see Peacock’s prototype wool skinsuit to best advantage in this shot. You can tell its a prototype as his mother had not knitted either his team name or sponsor logo in to it.
Wiggo would likely cut half the sleeves off his.
I can remember my first road bike – bought with a premium bond win of 50 quid. A Rydal Sportsman, Weinmann centre pulls and 5 speed (suntour I think). That bike lasted me an eternity, and even was used on dirt when friends got into BMX… But more significantly, I do remember my first pair of Knicks, I tried them on in the local halfords, and decided to ride home in them, I remember getting on the bike and just thinking oh my god, why have I never worn these before – I felt 6″ taller and so pro.
Great article brings back so many good memories, and it’s all starting again, my 8 year old informed me he wanted a road bike for his birthday, not a BMX, not a mountain bike, “a proper road bike”, and last week requested a “proper helmet like yours, not a kid’s one”. So proud.
I think that’s a great commercial too. Although, honestly, the first couple of times I saw it I was pretty preoccupied in searching to see if the V-Flag made an appearance. Alas, no such luck!
@ten B
to all: this is golden, exactly right too!
When i had my last crash, I remember trying to explain, with my road rash all up my ass-end to the back of my head with a descent laceration, just how as a ‘bike rider’ this occurs…and being medical, I agree the ER docs just don’t get it.
@roger
And it looks like its a mixed event. Light-years ahead of the current circuit.
from my point of view, my first kit was not so good. My taste has taken some time to come of age. My first was a ‘Post’ Assos jersey and shorts. It was good of course, but the sad part was I really didn’t appreciate who Assos was, and it was simply a kit that was on sale, so i bought it being dirt poor and in college.
Now I know. and I never wear shorts, its bibs only.
And as for the kit, it has to be a meaningful kit to me, not on sale or just a ‘whatever’ kit
that being said, my next kit is ‘Velomanti’, saving my do-ra-me up for that baby
may even go bat-shit-crazy and sign in for a race or two under team ‘Velomantus’ or the ‘keepers of the cog’ team