Buttcrack cycling jersey cracks up fellow riders

A cycling jersey designed by a Seattle area man is the butt of a lot of jokes on long bicycle rides.

Lance Oyler says that's OK with him. He created the CycleButtCrack cycling jersey to lighten the mood among riders as exhaustion or pain begins to set in.

The problem is that some cyclists might not want to be heading out at the crack of dawn behind someone wearing this jersey.

On the recent Ride Around Puget Sound (RAPSody), for instance, a woman told him that she pulled off the road earlier, saying to herself, “I'm not going to ride behind that.” She later realized it really wasn't Lance's ass hanging out of his shorts.

Inspiration

That's kind of how Lance got inspired for the jersey, which he sells at his website CycleButtCrack.com — the “home for cheeky cycling gear.”

After stumbling across an online ad for the jersey and realizing he must be from the Seattle area, I contacted Lance this weekend. The bicycle-loving architectural intern told me how he first hit upon the idea while trying to survive a long bike ride.

He said he was riding his first Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic when he was faced with the rear view of a bicyclist whose shorts were riding a little too low.

“I was really struggling and looking for any distraction. I wasn't coherent. That's when the mind tends to wander where it doesn't normally belong,” he said. The view triggered the idea of a buttcrack cycling jersey, and the thought stuck with him. “I laughed for a good five miles when I thought about this jersey.”

Creating the jersey

That was in 2004. A couple of years later when the recession hit, Lance lost a  job and had some time to take a crack at his cycling jersey idea. He designed the jersey and set about looking for a company to produce it.

Originally he hooked up with a manufacturer that had poor customer relations and couldn't get anything right, wasting about a year.

Then he reached an agreement with Verge Sport, a custom sports clothing maker based in New York. He's been very happy with the results.

Exposure

Lance unveiled the CycleButtCrack cycling jersey at this year's STP. It also has had exposure at RSVP and RAPSody.

The 35-year-old Tukwila resident says he's back to working part-time in his profession, but still has time to sell his cycling jerseys and get in some riding. He has some ideas for other products on the back burner, but he first needs to sell off this first production run.

Maybe Lance will give us a peek at those other ideas at his ButtCrack blog. In the meantime, his CycleButtCrack jerseys are available at his website.