The downside of trendsetting.

It can be frustrating to be a trend spotter, setter and influencer. Especially when other teams look at your well-designed team uniforms and think to themselves, “man, I wish we looked that good. Maybe we should just copy Team Two Wheel!

Let me illustrate.

Note the clean lines, abundance of negative space and purposeful focus on black and white logos. Except for the red “2” in the logo. It really pops, and stands out in a peloton of 150+ riders.

Evidently, two years after the debut of this jersey, which is pretty much awesome, others latched onto our design. Some might call this “copying.” But I’m sure the ProTour team designers instead would describe their lack of creativity as a “shared design philosophy.”

Team Sky: Just like the underachievers from Team Two Wheel, the underachievers from the UK chose a black and white theme, save for a brilliant band of blue. (When you’re in the UK everything needs to be “brilliant.” That’s just the way it is.) They even kept co-sponsors on the jersey to a minimum. Just like us.

Team Leopard/Team Liger: Yep, more black and white. And to make things worse, we ride Treks too. One of us even has a Benz. Copy-leopards!

And of course, Garmin – Cervelo. Again, black and white with a pop of color. Or colour if you’re in Europe. Of course Garmin’s designers have the gall to include a bunch of co-sponsors in their design.

Then again, they printed “TATA” on their jersey. If you’ve ever been on a Morning Ride you’ll know all too well that one rider who shall not be named (but whose name rhymes with “Non Fozo”) often talks about TATAs.

So, where does this leave us? Between Two Wheel Transit, Garmin, Sky and Team Liger there’s going to be an awful lot of confusion in the bunch this spring.