I’m so excited I can’t stand it.

In case you don’t know that in addition to my passion for cycling, and my job in TV news, we also have a family run company called Carlin Aquarium Systems.  Run by my son Ben, we maintain aquariums in client’s homes and offices.  Our primary gig however, is taking care of the beautiful aquariums in the lobby of Center in the Square.

This will get back to bicycles shortly.  Just stay with me

In order to help Center in the Square offset the cost of maintaining the aquariums, we launched mountaincorals.org a non-profit website that sells pieces of live corals, called “frags” (short for fragments) to hobbyists around the country.  Of course, no self-respecting non-profit coral company can move forward without a cool logo so we designed a cool logo.  (Well — Center staff did.)

Once you have a logo, you have to put it on something.  T-shirts were not enough.  Sooo…  we (Ben is an avid mountain biker) contacted Starlight Bicycles in Roanoke, which makes awesome bike jerseys and they commenced designing.

One logo isn’t enough for a bike jersey (Right?), so we added the Carlin Aquariums logo on the side panels.

Then there’s the “Drink like a fish” logo on one of the back pockets.  This is to promote planned Center aquarium fundraisers at local brew pubs.

I have a small You Tube channel called Fincasters.  Yes, it has a logo, and yes, it’s on the jersey (not pictured but it’s on the left rear pocket).

Stephen Sinnes and Ben Carlin rockin’ the new fish jersey at Carvins Cove.

So think of the jersey essentially as all things related to both Carlin and aquariums.

The initial run of a couple dozen is pretty much spoken for by riders we know in Roanoke and Lynchburg.  But if there is significant interest we may do another run, with proceeds going to Center in the Square.  There is an outside chance they will be available for purchase at Center or perhaps at brew pub events.

Just for grins, which color scheme to you prefer?  There was a hard line between the grey group and the blue group.  We ultimately ordered both.

In the meantime, I can’t wait to go for my first ride with my own, custom jersey. Wow.