(We Are) The Off-Road Crew

Specialized Bicycle Components ⇒ is a company that produces bicycles, bicycle components, and bicyclist clothing. The company started out as an importer of Italian parts before producing the Touring Tyre. The StuntJumper model of mountain bikes initiated in the 1980s were to prove to have widespread appeal within bicycling circles which in turn lead to the mainstreaming of mountain bike sales. Brand dilution in the 1990s placed Specialized within a few hundred dollars of bankruptcy. Business has since improved.

I have not been able to find documentation of an official Specialized Off-Road Crew beyond this shirt. There is both a sponsored competitive racing team ⇒ and a Trail Crew marketing effort ⇒. Perhaps there was back in the bast, and I am simply missing the documentation.

Another possibility is that anyone willing to get the shirt is a member of the off-road crew. Being an audience cult member just does not have the same flavor to it for the purposes of convincing someone to part with money to fell like they are part of something greater than themselves.

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This shirt indulges in neon colors. As such, This shirt is easily dated to the earliest of the 1990s. That era was the peak of mainstream acceptance of neon colors. If the colors were not enough to place this shirt in time, then the man in hot pink on the sleeve that is supposed to look street should.

There is indeed glitter on the “S” on both the front and back design. The glitter does not display in the photograph on this page as it does in real life. I feel that serves the goals of the Free Shirt Archive well even though justice is not served to the glitter. The glittery part is mostly lavender colored.

The company’s main identity colors outside of the shirt are red, black, and white. The niche targeted by Specialized then and now is the affluent bicyclist with money to burn. That this shirt attempts a cultural appropriation of urban life with an eight-year old’s palette makes this an example of the brand dilution mentioned earlier. Making a shirt like this in the early 90s was not about taking artistic chances. To be fair, few promotional shirts are. It probably would have been a better decision to maintain consistency of visual identity by either not changing to neon colors or stocking with neon colors once the decision was made to produce this shirt.

Dispute

The day of this donation is in dispute. Donor Aunt Barb* told me at a Thanksgiving dinner that she was returning this shirt to me from years past. I told her that I did not remember this shirt at all. No matter if it was a donation or a return, I am thankful to have the shirt.

For the purposes of cataloging within the Free Shirt Archive, I consider this shirt to be a donation. My interpretation wins out over Aunt Barb’s because I am the one that produces this site. She is not a regular consumer of the World Wide Web so I think that it is doubtful that she will start up her own site to counter my interpretation. The reader is welcome to come to their own conclusions with the anecdotal evidence provided.