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heroes | jersey boy | logistics | ride Jersey Boy* Saturday, October 23, 2010 *Born New Brunswick, NJ, January 1965 
Much of the history of the coveted Fatty cycling jersey is "before my time," so rather than illustrate it's importance, please simply bear with my assertion of same.
My first encounter occurred during the July 2009 Triple Bypass, but I didn't then know its meaning.
For a short stretch during the ride, I found myself in the company of a wearer.
The bold dark orange design caught my eye almost as much as the seemingly incongruous "Fat Cyclist" name it bore, but my attention ended there.
Several months later, upon the suggestion of a friend, I began reading fatcyclist.com. Shortly thereafter, perhaps triggered by a post by Fatty that his Twin Six designed gear for 2010 was ready for delivery to those who had pre-ordered, my memory chose to remind me of the prior sighting and I made the connection. Fast forward to June of 2010. Of the four LiveStrong Challenge rides at which Team Fatty features prominently, Austin in October held promise. I have business reasons to be in that excellent Texas city, and a colleague aware of my cycling addiction asked if I'd like to join the ride. The stars thusly aligned, I promptly agreed. At about the same time, Fatty announced the pre-order window for the 2011 jersey. Won over by his promise of state of the art construction, a design nod back to the original jersey, and shipment in time for the Austin event, I placed my order with instructions to deliver not to my home, but rather to my office address on Berkeley Street in Boston. Alert: foreshadowing. In late September, I received a notice that the jerseys would ship a bit later than expected, on Thursday, October 14. With a departure date of the 23rd, I experienced a bit of concern. I emailed Twin Six to express the importance of my particular jersey. On Monday the 18th, I inquired by phone and received a tracking number for the package now in transit. Throughout the week, I refreshed the FedEx tracking page and watched the slow progress across the country--arrive Willington CT (from St. Paul MN) on the 19th, depart Willington on the 20th, arrive Northborough MA on the 20th, depart Northborough on the 21st. Finally, on Thursday the 21st, after an odd to me but apparently not uncommon handoff from FedEx to the US Postal Service (was there significance as the sponsor of Lance's former team?), it arrived at a postal facility on Clarendon Street in Boston. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of the Back Bay, the cross streets begin with Arlington on the edge of the Boston Public Garden and proceed alphabetically in a westward march towards Massachusetts Avenue: Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, and so on. With only a block separating Berkeley and Clarendon, the prize was practically in hand. A tale won't necessarily stand on exposition and suspense alone--this one's no exception, so obstacle makes an appearance for good measure. Working from home on Thursday, I emailed my company's shipping office to ask them to be on the lookout for the incoming package. In an impressive display of going over and above the job description, and worried about whether the delivery would be expelled by the Postal Service's machinations by Friday, one of our staffers walked over to the postal facility to see if he could pick it up there and then. "I remember that package," the staffer was told, a quote the staffer apologetically relayed to me late Thursday afternoon as I stood watching my son's high school soccer match. "Sorry, Jeff, but I don't have good news." Apparently, one doesn't want a package to be "remembered" by the USPS, as it's the forgettable ones that make it to their destination without fuss. "It wasn't deliverable as addressed, so we returned it to the original sender," the staffer was further informed. Whatever the reputation of our Postal Service, they operated with efficiency that day. Having made it to practically within sight of my office window, I'd been thwarted. Packing Thursday evening, I resignedly pulled my nontheless treasured Triple Bypass jersey from my cycling drawer and placed it in my travel bag. Figuring that there'd be no harm, I dashed off a desparate and hopeless late night email to Twin Six asking about the unlikely chance that they might have on hand a spare jersey--in my size--that hadn't been pre-ordered and shipped. Friday presented a lot of work to wrap up before my trip, then an unanticpated mid-morning announcement of a major corporate organizational alignment affecting (not negatively) both the makeup of my team and the manager to whom I report--my jersey disappointment didn't cross my mind. Mid-afternoon, out of habit and not expectation, I checked my personal email, only to see a message from Twin Six. It's worth a brief digression to say that Twin Six "gets" Team Fatty and Elden Nelson's amazingly successful mission raising funds to support cancer research--they've worked together for years. So overnight shipment to a Team Fatty member's hotel on the outskirts of Austin in advance of the Sunday ride wouldn't be a problem at all--"Would delivery by Saturday noon be satisfactory?" 
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