Graham tells us about the process of his leaving school to his employment as a mechanic in the Schmoo’s shop in Oxford Street, Swansea. He tells about the formation of the Schmoo’s team as a shop based top amateur team in the early days of UK Mountain Biking. He talks about how the kit was chosen and the impact of the yellow and pink colours in the early days of the British National cross country series. With special mention to Keith and the Lusso shorts.
Hello my name is Graeme Rogerson uh one of the first riders for the schmoo team back in the 80s uh we’re at margam Park this afternoon to visit the legendary man’s resting place Schoo otherwise known as Morris levenson this is D Richards hello I’m D Richards you’re off
To pay homage homage to the legend that is and we’re going to ride in this kit all the way to the Cal Park we are like we did back in the 80s yeah so what uh you would you would probably Rider number one yeah probably
One of the first riders in the team uh responsible for this uh kit I think when we got it from uh Keith the lusso shorts representative um we bought it out the back of his van just for a laugh and raced at the first event and it all went
From there and now it’s a legendary kit which we which we are sporting today yeah yeah yeah and after 30 years it still fits well fits me anyway mine doesn’t a bit tight should we go ride go right come on man oh no remember that steam Crossing we did
In the photo shoot yeah so come up with this idea right to do a splashy stream Crossing yeah in a photo shoot I oh this should look great this look this look outstanding so great tell us about the um the early days of smoo well I left
School got a kind of yts and call back in the day like small apprenticeship at Fords and uh we used to work four days a week there one day out on placement and uh I had a placement in a in a pipe refitting company ah it was
All right but as youngsters you want to do other things so uh I managed to get a job in schmoo one day a week as my engineering apprenticeship so it was Loosely based it had tools in the workshop so it was Loosely based around engineering yeah when that course ran
Out back in well that would have been about 85 something like that scho took us on full time in the workshop and uh started working for him so what was the paying I bet he paid you loads oh so well actually got paid the jelly babies there was no cash
Involved um you had a large stock of jelly babies as everyone knows uh yeah the pay wasn’t amazing but uh get to work with nice bikes all the time used to get your bike bits cheaper as well yeah did so when when did you first get a bike become
Sponsor um was that when the team started thank you thank you what work when we when I started working it was about 87 that’s when the mountain bike thing kicked off um so let me gra through there a second did you do that that race in
Marva was that the first race in Wheels was it I think it might have been might have been one of it or maybe we did a few cyclocross races before actual Mountain bik racing kicked off properly yeah but I remember scho was a Maring main dealer one of the
First first in the country to become a Marin importer and Main dealer and uh we had two we had two Maring bikes come in stock and um Sho wanted to sort of obviously show them off so we decided to start a little race team going and we went down to uh dorin to
Ride buddy thank you he’s gone look he’s made a break going dark in yeah we went uh so got the Marin dealership and we had two brand new Marin bikes turn up in a box from America and and uh scho wanted to show off the mountain
Biking thing and the only race that year I think or that sort of Summer was the um the race down at Ding and I don’t know if you remember 87 was the year of that great storm no um oh yes you do yeah yeah it was in the summer wasn’t it
No just before summer spring wasn’t it we went down the ding a week after the main storm of course the south of England took a battering and when we went down there were falling trees here than everywhere anyway I had I had a Marin mountain bike which was quite
Revolutionary down there and uh took it down out of race came back and then we just used to go down in shoo’s Old um Volkswagen Polo for I think it was about 1976 the car was drive all the way down the bike races race them and
Come home no thoughts in setting up a team or anything like that and then uh when we started traveling the country then a little bit further a field we needed a team strip and this is where Keith from loo shorts comes in Now Keith from loose old
Shorts I remember that was uh he was on the road sales representative he used to have a van full of cycling gear and he used to to the bike shops and he used to come down to us once a month or whatever we jump in the back and buy stock for
The short but be there this and we were looking for kit and Keith that is uh quite a l quite a wide brmm accent and uh we used to call him after we bought the shorts Keith lose some shorts that’s my best BR AC and uh we pulled these pink shorts
Out I said wouldn’t it be funny if we wore these just as a bit of a joke and as you can tell he’s stuck still he stuck you hav’t taken him off since haven’t taken him off since as you see I’ll have to peel them off later but
Uh that was that we we just s it sort of just happened accidentally and obviously we needed a jersey we go with the shorts and I’m guessing back in the day it was like to of France yellow Keith out a yellow Jersey and stock in the van
And we just put it together that day pink shorts yellow Jersey and thought really nothing more of it but when we turned up in the first race back in 8 he wearing pink you know it was a bit of a statement wasn’t it but once we’ve done
A few races and a couple Lads out there Shmo realized the value in the colors because you could see us for miles around and everybody knew who those Riders were riding for yeah so whenever he saw pink and yellow it was that’s the Schoo team Schoo shop
In Swansea and uh it just went off from there then so after a few two or 3 years I mean see a few more teams trying to trying to trying to get the old pink and the yellow into the kit isn’t it yeah we had the pedal power yeah which came up
With a bit of a pink and yellow theme as well after this uh by this time we started right riding the national races and uh we were doing okay we were traveling around in uh we moved up Market by this time we’ gone from Schoo Volkswagen Polo a brand new Toyota hi hi
Little ja rocket with a roof rack and all that and we were traveling all around the country pees in Scotland the Yorkshire everywhere let me stop it there stop it people race was that that that was the race you come second wi the national that was the Nationals in you
Were an amazing race well three two one oh that was a good that was a good one that was a good one oh look at