Monday, 16 September 2019

Team PKBanken Postgirot Open 1985

Technically this isn't a Postgirot Open post card, but as you might have noticed I do not only collect Postgirot Open post cards, but other memorabilia too. Like my awesome jersey! To be honest I don't really want to be seen as "someone who collects memorabilia for a long since discontinued bicycle race, but... I guess that's what I do. Good grief, that's sad!

But for all you other sad sods out there who also have a soft spot for 1980's cycling, here is the next part of my series, a post card for the cycling team Team PKBanken, with a picture of what I assume is the team for the 1985 Postgirot Open bicycle race. Below the title are the dates, depart and finishing places (cities) of the stages of the race of 1985. (Yes, and the logos of the Swedish Bicycle Federation and the PKBanken bank.)


There's not much to say about the post card, is there? I haven't been able to find much about the Team PKBanken team, other than evidence that they might have been a "semi-professional" team. Whatever that means. The suits, that is the jerseys and bibs of the riders are pretty dull, and they wear slip-ins... I'm not even going to mention the hair cuts. Obviously they rode Peugeot road bikes. I hope for their sake their components were better than the ones I had on my Peugeot Mont-Blanc. (But they look like Campagnolo, don't they?)

The guys squatting at the ends deserve to be mentioned, though. No, I don't know who they are. And they have obviously simply pulled the track suits over their other, "regular" clothes - you can see that the guy to the left is wearing a shirt and tie under the track top, and they have brown leather shoes and brown boat shoes, respectively. (In the late 1980's all the cool kids in my school class wore a Lacoste polo shirt, bleached Levi's 501 and brown boat shoes. Today I like Levi's jeans and I have my first ever Lacoste polo shirt, but I still hate those boat shoes.) But the track suits are just awesome! That pastel yellow is nailed!

Some things obviously were better in the 1980's. Ride safe!