this is all true. it was east side wheelmen... i have always maintained that the evoultion of this into the pre '84 7-11 team was one of the worst things happen to amateur cycling in the usa in the last half of the century. to wit, prior to this, abl and uscf clubs were sponsored "if" they were lucky. when 7-11 became the monster that they were, fully underwritten by southland corp for the primary purpose of stacking the l.a. squad with their homegrown riders, it had a rippling effect on every area of the amateur sport. "almost" everybody eventually believed they were worth sponsoring. folks who couldn't get a sponsor for their club or were unhappy with the amount procured would leave for "greener pastures" rather than to work within the club structure to edit out the problems that lead to limited budgets. i'm glossing over quite abit here, but i remember thinking then that the basic unit of amateur racing, the local club, could never compete with the likes of a corporate driven amateur team. (there weren't many pros yet...). it would have been a different story had the 7-11 wannabes lasted as long as the e.s.w. gig did, but few could. it created a mentality among cat 1 and cat 2 riders that "if we can't get sponsored, then there's no use racing...". many great and long rooted amateur teams and clubs went by the wayside in the wake of the 7-11 phenomenom. that's my recollection. e-RICHIE chester, ct
On Thu, 5 Aug 2004 18:45:35 -0700 (PDT) thteach@sonic.net writes: I need to do so more fact finding on this but the date of the 7-11 team goes to a very early time in the 70's.
Take a peak at early photos of the jerseys. You will notice that the letters E.S.W. are printed on them. These letters represent the "Eastside Wheelmen." In the 70's the Eastside Wheelmen were a "paper" club working in close colaboration with Mike Walden of the Wolverine Sports Club out of Detroit. The president of the eastside wheelmen during that era was none other than Fred Cappy (Cappicioni, if I'm spelling it correctly). Fred and Mary(USCF Membership Secretary in the 1970's) lived in Detroit for a long time and promoted the Fred Cappy Trophy Race, a flat as a pancake criterim in Chandler Park. I suppose they held other events but I was never too privy (I lived on the west side of Michigan and was young).
Fred and Mary moved to Colorado around 1978 or 1979. The Schwinn-Wolverine team was morphing into the AMF team in the late 70's and morphed again into the 7-11 team in the Early 80's (details are debateable) probably a year or so after Fred moved to Colorado.
I was on the Wolverine "B" team in 1977 with future Tour De France Stage Winner Jeff Pierce. I stopped racing in 1978. In 1983 I moved out to Colorado. By 1984 I found Fred at a race and talked to him about 7-11. He confirmed that E.S.W. stood for the "Eastside Wheelmen."
Todd Teachout
Hercules, CA