Thanks to Lisa Rothemund, Ryan Cady, Steve Cahill for updating info below
Met with Mark at Pannikin yesterday. It was good to talk to him about Swami History. As usual, new insight occurred …..
First there are corrections or different versions to Swami History.
Swamis was started in 1989 not 1986. This was also emailed to me on Saturday, by Steve Hughes. It must be correct for I had a phone call from Mark and an email from Steve within 30 minutes of the other.
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”
Founding Members of Swamis
Mark Lathrop, Dano Rock, Charlie Meredith, Dan Jenkins, Adrew Lee, Pete Tholl, Steve “Zoomer” Zoumaras, “Marine Dan”, Steve Quartz, Steve Hughes
The only Team member that had raced before forming Swamis was Charlie Meredith. From what I here, Charlie was the original “Bike Nazi” of Swamis, making sure that the team road 2X2 and taught the rest how to race bikes.
The first Swami to become a contender was Pete Tholl. He went from a Cat 4 (there were no Cat 5 back then) to a Cat 2 in a little more than 1 year. Swamis first podium place was 3rd in the Cat 4 Boulevard race in 1989
Rich Meaker and a 19 year old Chris Horner (who was a Cat 3 at the time) joined Swamis in 1991 and it started to become clear to the other clubs on the West Coast that Swamis was becoming a contender. In later interviews, Chris Horner was quoted as saying that “He learned bike racing, riding with Swamis”.
Rich Meeker soon became the heart & soul of the Cat 2 team. Along with driving the team to a 3rd team place at Redland in 1992, Rich taught the team be friendly and give back to the general Swami membership.
All of the Swami racers, Elite & Masters, started hanging out together at races, watching and cheering each other on.
Lance Armstrong’s first ride with Swamis
Lance was on the Jr Olympic Team when he came out to Encinitas to train. Lance showed up in his Stars & Stripes Olympic Jersey. Riding up a long hill, Lance and Charlie M were in the front riding 2X2 with Lance 1/2 wheeling Charlie. After a while, Charlie could not take it any more and launched an attack with all his effort. Just as Charlie exhausted all his energy, Lance came flying by. Charlie & a strong master racer, Art Spar tried to catch lance rotating the front, but it was clear that the young Lance was toying with them. Lance showed Swamis, what a great cyclist he would become.
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 Belgian 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.
Thanks Mark for the info.
Dave Callender