Followers of my Instagram account – @thejerseypocket – may have noticed a recurring feature popping up in recent pictures of me.. I’ve been rather taken by Velocast’s Lego cyclists T-shirts and have been slowly assembling the full set of the old-school racers. Having a couple of young children who are big fans of both cycling and the ubiquitous Danish plastic blocks has made this collection a little easier to explain away but the truth is that the majority of the riders whom Velocast have chosen to re-immortalise are the self-same heroes that I was watching whilst still mucking about with Lego in the first place – so the match-up is very apt.
Tom Simpson in classic black and white Peugeot kit; Eddy Merckx in the brilliant black and orange of Molteni; the young peloton-destroying ‘Professeur’ Fignon in the furiously slanting lines of Renault-Elf; Hinault and Lemond locked together in their famous tussle for control of the Mondrianesque La Vie Claire; and, of course, Robert Millar (complete with ponytail) resplendent in the Z-Vêtements jersey that, for me at least, marked the end of the classic cycling era.
The range goes a bit further with Taylor Phinney and Marianne Vos but it’s the old school guys that really took my fancy. It’s hard to pick a favourite. I like the Hinault/Lemond double because it tells a story but I wear Eddy the most. The slightly smaller-sized figure on the jersey works better I think, and as Eddy won practically everything else it seems right he should win this little battle too.
The T-shirts are available at the velocast.cc shop priced £25.
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