JERSEYS OF PRO ROAD RACING
Every issue, Cycling Plus writers take a subject and debate their all-time top five. This month, we mark the arrival of 2020 team jerseys with a look at the best from history...
JOHN WHITNEY: We’re heading into that time of year where pro teams reveal their colours for the new season and it got me thinking about the best-ever jerseys. They’ve changed so much over time, both in their materials and design - simple, clean designs have been consumed by sponsors fighting for supremacy on the jersey, while wool is long gone in favour of super-technical fibres. Are we able to pick a favourite between retro and modern? TREVOR WARD: Retro sports kit – not just cycling, but football and other sports – is a beautiful thing. Yes, it lacks the functionality of today’s drip-dry, highwicking, kitten-friendly, caffeinecompliant, computer-designed textiles, but it looks gorgeous. And surely for us amateurs and dreamers, looking good is just as important as riding fast?
PAUL ROBSON: I actually think there are some pretty cool jerseys around now – I’d happily sign for Quick-Step if they want an ageing amateur well past what passed for his prime – but then I suppose the best ones are modelled on the stylings of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Molteni, St Raphael. Perhaps it was the fact kits didn’t change so much back then that allowed certain ones to become fixed in our minds.
TREVOR: I’m probably showing my age here but one of my favourite kits dates back to the ‘decade that fashion forgot’, the 1980s. It’s the La Vie Claire team jersey worn to victory in the 1985 and 1986 Tours de France by Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond. Apparently, the team originally wanted to stand out by wearing an allblack kit but saw sense when they realised its heat-absorbing qualities. Though I was very much into cycling at the time, I wanted to own the jersey for aesthetic, rather than sporting reasons. There were no such things as ‘replica’ jerseys back then, you had to track down an obscure team kit supplier abroad and send off an international money order. In the end, I settled for just the matching shorts, which I found in a bike shop in London.
PAUL: I’d have picked that one, too, but so would everyone. So I’ll go with CarreraTassoni from 1993. Carrera was a team I followed in my childhood as it went through a series of leaders I loved: Roche, Chiappucci, Pantani – but the thing about the 1993 and 1994 kits was the ‘denim’ shorts. I had this kit and I wore it, though I never got to add the winter jacket for the double-denim look that no-one has pulled off successfully since Shakin’ Stevens. JOHN: Every visitor to my bathroom at home is treated to a massive David Sparshott print of retro cycling jersey drawings - there are 20 of them, including the two you’ve both already mentioned. I’m going to go for the most modern on the print, from Mapei. It’s the only one I can remember seeing in a live bike race and I just think it’s the definitive example of an era of bike racing where colour and character ruled.
PAUL: Speaking of jerseys that stand out, Lampre’s pink jerseys did just that, much like Euskaltel’s orange, and
were a staple of the peloton for so many years, thanks to such solid sponsorship. I think the 2012 jersey was probably the classiest – more pink than blue and before the addition of Merida green (a combination that simply didn’t work).
JOHN: We’ve picked apart ‘The Rules’ of the Velominati here before and we’ll do so again: Rule 17 states that wearing pro team kit is also questionable if you’re not paid to wear it. Discuss...
PAUL: It’s completely acceptable in my eyes, and people who have an issue with it are up themselves. Where’s the harm after all? If it’s not for you, don’t do it, but leave those who do alone.
TREVOR: For me, it’s okay but only on aesthetic grounds, which means it needs to be something retro. I just don’t get the whole deal of ‘supporting’ a cycling team. It’s not like football, where your team has a physical home and spiritual heart. It says a lot that the only pro team jersey I own is from a fictional team in a movie, which brings me to my second favourite jersey, the Magicréme-Todeka kit from the 2001 Belgian-French movie LeVélode GhislainLambert. The story is about an Eddy Merckx-obsessed amateur racer in the 1970s who has all kinds of misadventures whilst wearing some very cool-looking team kit. I’ve got a feeling Magicréme may have been a brand of chamois cream. Todeka sounds like a Japanese breakfast cereal.
1 – La Vie Claire, 1985
“Mapei’s jersey was from an era where character and colour ruled”
2 – Mapei, 1999 3 – Carrera, 1993 4 – Lampre, 2012 5 – Magicréme-Todeka