A few weeks ago I went in to the fancy cafe clothing store to watch one of the last stages of the Giro on the television there. A few of the employees were talking about if the 50 dollar bar tape was still in stock in black ,becuase he wanted to retape his bars. I noticed these guys had full arm tatts to complement their shaved legs, these guys were into to cycling as well as tattoos(i mean working in a shop thinking about 50 bucks for tape?) so I asked them" Hey guys do you have any cycling tattoos?"
No way, I would never...
WHAT GIVES?
I have to seriously consider every tattoo idea I get that DOES NOT include cycling..am I WEIRD? WELL that must be yes..
So I grew up in a bike shop. My first spiked wristband was made from a bicycle chain and some roofing nails around my wrist. The chain stayed long after the nails left, and became a tattoo after some years. But that wasnt my first cycling tattoo.
My first tattoo was a winged wheel campagnolo logo poked on me by Greg Kulz in his room in pacfic heights on Broadway with the gun he had gotten from Ed Hardy the week before. Needless to say the wheel was not round ,but at that time my wheels rarely were round (teenage bike abuse club).
After that every year when I went to the bicycle trade show I would ask anybody I saw with ink if they had any bike tattoos, the seconnd year I ran into a Harley dude from the foothills who had 3 inch high camagnolo in script running up and down each leg.. sorry no photo, the next person had some tire tread surronding a mantis logo. My point is cycling tattoos were not common, in fact if I saw one I took a photo if I could, this is all film era..most of these photos are mid 90's maybe up to 2000.
more to follow as they turn up.. I know there is a great one of slim buicks arm and some others.. but heres some for now...
dianna@mail.postmanllc.net
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