One of the coolest things I own...

This is a super rare Japanese National Champion Mapei jersey. It was given to me by a friend who stayed at my house in Boston in the winter of 98 for a while who was apparently friends with this dude and had one of his jerseys. I didn't know too much about cycling, but I still kept it because I thought that I could sell it to some of these dudes who would frequent the rave scene.

Since he didn't care at all about cycling and wasn't about to wear this thing around town, but only to the disco, he left it at my house. It was still dirty from the last race it was worn in. What makes this jersey so cool is that it is from one of the most powerful teams ever assembled (Musseuw, VDB, Tafi, the list goes on and on) The rider is Yoshiyuki Abe, and is a pretty accomplished rider in his own right. He was on the 1997 Mapei GB team...



Check out his palmares...
http://www.dewielersite.net/db2/wielersite/ploegfiche.php?id=9738

The first real jerseys Ben, Chris, Al and I designed for Team Hopkins were loosely based on this jersey I believe.

Another reason I love this jersey so much is that1997 was the year I started cycling. I can still vividly remember being in my apartment at the Broadview in Baltimore and watching the Tour for the first time in my life. As customary during those summer months, tehre was a heavy downpour and I could hardly hearthe commentaries due to the frequent thunderstorms. Strangely there are no thunderstorms in Boston...

They actually had thrilling riders back then, like Cipollini, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, Jalabert, Pantani, VDB, guys who could literally drop a gernade into the peloton at a moments notice, or headbutt their way to victory. Racing seemed very different back then. I had so much more passion for pro road racing. I thought the red Saeco train was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I still have a framed Campagnolo poster of Der Kaiser. My favorite bike of all time is from that era and is a MBK world leader edition ridden by Belgium's prodigal child.

After watching one race, I went to ATA cycles while I was home on vacation here in MA and bought my first road bike. It was a KHS Aero Turbo and the dude there assured me that it was the "best bike ever built"(We all know who this is). It was designed by Leonard Zinn, and had this curvy seat tube. It had something like shimano 105 or something like that. Unfortunately that bike got crushed by UPS on its way down to Baltimore. It was when they were on strike and they did not give two shits what happened to my bike. With the insurance money I ended up buying a Bianchi Trofeo with Campagnolo Mirage and Miche components. I truly loved that bike.