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

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Origins of Fred Jersey

From Ryan Cady

I just thought I would clarify the Johnny/Axel jersey thing. Since Axel has never won the World Championship it was his official Belgium Team jersey that he wore in that race and I believe he finished a very impressive 4th that year in the jersey that Johnny crashed in. Still a major fred move although I probably would have worn the jersey too as it was pretty cool. I also think we should thank the founder of the UCSD fred jersey and the person most responsible for its transfer to swamis, Henry “Changer” Chang. He also was very involved with Johnny getting this dubios honor. Henry was always the key instigator of cycling fredliness ridicule in the San Diego Cycling community and we dearly miss his shenanigans. He even used to produce a cycling newsletter(if you could call it that) called “Da Fred” that he would distribute at races with all the latest gossip and slander within the racing community. I think his motto was something like “if it’s true print it and if it’s not then print it in bold letters”. Just in case anyone is interested this is what he is up to now check out www.soulinthemachine.com His new stage name is “Stainless H”. Awesome, long live the Changer!

No comments: