Pulling on pieces of cycling history

When my good friend Dr. Paul Kulbersh recently showed me a box of vintage cycling jerseys that an acquaintance of his had collected during a long riding career, I’d hoped to pull out a couple that were worth purchasing. It quickly became obvious, however, that the problem was going to be exactly the opposite, limiting myself to a reasonable number. In all, there were some 25 or 30 European-racing-style jerseys to choose from, including one from Motorola, the first pro team of Lance Armstrong, and a couple that were connected to Nestor Gurney, a Savannah cycling legend. Finally, after considering and trying on perhaps a dozen of them, I settled on four. The easiest choice, because of its dramatic black-yellow-red color scheme, was from Domo-Farm Frites, a star-studded Belgian team that was a potent professional force in 2001-2002. The artfully-hued Tulip Computer jersey was likewise worn by a Belgian team, this one in the early 1990s. The Quality Bike Shop jersey was also too good to pass up. Over the past 10 years I’ve bought road, mountain and hybrid bikes from the staff at QBS, and I’ve come to appreciate their advice and value their friendship. The jersey that really made my heart beat faster, however, was from 7-Eleven, the iconic and iconoclastic American team that exploded into the European peloton in the early 1980s. With a roster than included Eric Heiden, Davis Phinney, Chris Carmichael and Bob Roll, 7-Eleven won stages in the Tour de France and forever buried the supposition that Americans could not compete with on the highest professional level. Who knows, maybe I’ll even be a little faster with some cycling history on my shoulders.