Sweetpea Bicycles

This is my Western Flash t-shirt.  The shirt itself isn’t much to look at anymore - worn thin where my messenger bag rubbed against my shoulder, then frayed around the collar - but it means the world to me.  These handmade shirts were my first real team kit.

I haven’t had many team uniforms in my life.  I played for the Firecrackers soccer team in third grade and a basketball team in middle school, but I have never been a team sports kind of girl.  I was not athletically gifted in any apparent or useful way when I was a kid.  I could pogo stick to one thousand bounces, but when it came to the kinds of skills that could pull a team through in a pinch, I came up a bit short.  And I knew it.  I shied away from sports in which my performance mattered to anyone else.  When I got older, I found my niche in individual sports like running and biking.

Surprisingly, it was through being a bike messenger that I learned what it meant to be on a team.  Like most messengers in Portland, I coveted a spot on the four-person Western Flash crew.  They rode harder, and faster, and earned more money for doing it.  I worked hard, but my company neither required nor rewarded for it.  

One note about how to break into the messenger business in Portland - it’s not the guys at the office that hire you.  It’s the crew on the street.  So when I was offered a spot on the Western Flash crew in my second year of messengering, I was elated.  It meant more to me by far than getting accepted to the college of my choice.  I wasn’t chosen for personal achievements or my SAT score, but because it mattered to the others on the crew how I worked.  I wasn’t the fastest, but I was diligent.  I was unflinching.

Now, for the second time in my life, I have a team kit: The Super Relax Concept.

The Super Relax Concept is about showing up to a cross race literally ready to kick ass.  It’s about challenging other teams to bocce.  And it comes with it’s own manifesto:

LOOK GOOD.

BE NICE.

KEEP DREAMIN’.

It’s snazzy and new and nothing like my beloved Western Flash shirt.  You see, I know that I have grit and tenacity folded up on a shelf for when I need it.  I have seen a bit of glory through suffering, and know that there are other flavors of glory too.  The Super Relax Concept celebrates pure stoke, and I want to wear this jersey out with the glory of two wheels, a big grin, and an open heart.