Agreed Upon History?

Mark Lathrop was Co-Owner of Moonlight Bike Shop & Founder of Swamis Cycling Club (est. 1989)

1989 founding members are: Mark Lathrop, Dano Rock, Charlie Meredith, all working at Moonlight Bikes. Dan Jenkins, Adrew Lee (owner of Adams Avenue Bikes ), Pete Tholl, Steve "Zoomer" Zumaras, "Marine Dan", Steve Quartz, Eric Baker (who designed our first jersey) & Steve Hughes . Any others??

Oldest continuing Sponsor
-Furgerson's Garage - supporting Swamis since 1992

Oldest returning Sponsor
Steve Hughes with Crown Circuits ('90) and now Hughes Circuits ('08)

First time "Gurus of Cycling" coined
First Version:
-Swamis first UCSF event was a track event at the SD velodrome in 1989. At that race, Ralph Elliot was providing the Start/Finish. Hearing from Mark that the name of his team was Swamis, Ralph starting commenting about Swamis over the PA. He announced to the crowd that Swamis was the “Gurus of Cycling” and that “they did their winter training at the Taj Mahal.”1989 was the first year of the CA lottery, so primes were lotto tickets, and were announced as “4 Million Dollar Primes”

Second Version:
-Mark Thomas, Dougie Pomeranz, and Hylton Murphy sitting somewhere in Solana Beach. Mark looks around with that big smile on his face and said “You know what we are? We are the gurus of cycling” (1993?)

Charlie Meredith started the now famous Swami Ride. The ride was originally called The Horny Toad Ride. The Horny Toads were a clan of runners, triathletes, cyclist that were strong athletes in the 70s & 80s.

In ???? Swami Henry Chang steals one of UCSD's Fred Jerseys and Swamis starts its own tradition of the famous Fred Jersey and abuses Swamis members ever since.

Swamis First Fred Award

-Many European riders rode with Swamis through the years. Axel Merckx rode a lot with us and was a good friend of John Edwards. After winning at Belgain Championship, Axel gave John his winning jersey. John proud of the gift, road the Saturday Swami ride with the jersey on and on the way back on Del Dios, hit a broom stick went down and ripped Axel’s Jersey.

John’s ripping Axel’s jersey also won him the Fred of the Year award in the next hear. With this John was the first Fred winner and the only Fred to win the award two years in a row.

Jim Durbin has been designing the Swami Jersey since the 1994 McDonald's Jersey

First sighting of Swami Temple on Jersey
-'95 AMC Jersey

First sighting of "Gurus" on a Jersey
- '96 Jane Jersey
- Still need picture documentation

In 1996 Jane Cosmetics (Howard Katkov) becomes the title sponsor and brings Swamis to a new level of competitive cycling with the Women's Team into the next century.

In 1999 Jenny Eyerman, becomes the Collegiate National Criterium Champion.

In 2001 several Swamis branch off to start Island Boy Racing
- They are sad to find out they are still Friends of Swamis (FOS)

In 2001 Jenny Eyerman, racing for Jane Cosmetics/Swamis wins Irvine Pro Cycling Event.

Swamis participates in the first 24 hour RAAM in 2005 and racks up more penalties that any other team in history

Raceplan working with Swamis starts the Del Mar Crit Series in 2006

Marc Yap & Chris Daggs starts the Swamis Developmental Elite Team in 2008

Monday, March 31, 2008

More History from Members

Thanks to all for sending me new pictures and updating info.

John Roesch:
Here's a couple of pictures of the earliest Swamis Jersey I have. It is the year previous to your '93 Jersey.

Also, you asked when Chris Horner was racing for Swamis... I don't know exactly when he started but I definitely remember him racing 1/2s in the McDonalds 94 jersey...

Dave -
This picture in in your History Album and was the 94 Masters team... I'm pretty sure it was taken in Ron Ellis' garage in the La Costa area of Carlsbad.
Back row L-R: Mark Lathrop, Ron Ellis, John Roesch
Front row L-R: Doug Kyle, Danny Tate(?), Tom Kattus

From Chris Daggs:
the photo titled Swami's Men's team 2000 is actually from 98 or 99 (I think 1998). The guys are: Mark Lathrop, Henry Chang, Eric Barber, Sam Dean, Ian Bettinger, and Eric Wochna

I have a 2000 jersey and photos of the 2000 team that i'll post soon.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)