Why Spicoli Wore VANS In "Fast Times At Ridgemont High"
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
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Chris Roberts: linktr.ee/Chri...
I think vans are more iconic than Nikes.
Definitely
Growing up in So Cal Vans are definitely more iconic than in other places
Vans = West Coast, Chucks = East Coast
well duh
I agree. They are both really iconic but vans has been selling the same model for 50 years. Pretty wild
In 1984 I was 14 going into my Freshman year. I walked into a bike shop in Tucson Az. ordered a pair of checker board high tops red black with a green stripe black suede toe and heel. I was in Arizona on summer vacation. When I started school in East Tn with the only pair of imported custom vans…hi tops…I was a style god….damn those were great times.
I’m FROM Tucson and in 1983 we are in the Anaheim area on summer vacation. We happen to pass a Vans shoe store before any existed in Tucson. Dad does a U turn (we were freaking out about the store 😂) My sister buys a pair of pink checkered women’s low-profile sneakers (meaning the soles were flatter), a style non existent among her high school peers. When she returns for the fall semester she’s apparently “The Shit” for having such a cool then unavailable pair of Vans. *I love your story and totally relate to the era back then. I’m a youthful 60 and believe or not, I’m STILL skateboarding often..
@@PauloBerni699 I still have my Orange Skyway bike to this day. Peregrine mags, GT one piece bars…glad I grew up before Hoover boards. I’ve seen many wrecks on them but no jumps or endos.
Also a freshmen in 1984!
Wore vans all during high school, in California!
Night before my first day as a freshmen, my buddy and I went
To see Def Leppard at the Los Angeles forum, and I showed up with my Union Jack / British flag T-shirt and my black and white checkered vans! 😎
( so did 10 other kids who went to the concert ) 🤣
Senior '84 in Austin TX. Here the look was black and white checker Vans, OP t-shirts, Member's Only jackets, parachute pants (the tight slim fit kind NOT the MC Hammer crap 8 years later), and feathered hair. Bonus points if you had a Goody comb handle sticking out of your back pocket.
@@BadAcid999 yea, remember Jams?
I can’t stand it when the interviewer keeps interrupting the guest. I had to stop watching……
Steve was always super generous, on the older warped tours theyd bring out the 18 wheelers full of shoes and give them out. Thousands really.
Vans warped tour '99. Seattle
Steve Caballero saw my older brother and I sitting outside, too poor to afford tickets. He gave us free shoes and passes for entry. What a kind soul.
Steve came to Chico after we had lost everything in the Camp Fire 2018.. And he brought trailers full of shoes and shirts for us.. An Awesome and Generous man
I was in the marine corps with Brian Kaps from Chico. I don't know if Chico is a small town but maybe you know him.
@@74GenX It's got roughly 100,000 residents as well as a State college, so it's a bit of a mixed bag for whether people cross paths.
They did the same in Houston after Hurricane Harvy. Great Company
Facts! dude is salt of the earth
Born in 1961, growing up in So Cal, I wore Vans all the time. I remember the store "House of Van" in Uptown Whittier. We always referred to them as "deck shoes" growing up.
Born in 1958 in Westminster, CA. All thru elementary school . The only "school" shoes I wore were olive drab green Vans. Our House of Vans was near the corner of Westminster Blvd. and Hoover St.
I’m 61 in HB we had a store on Springdale by Marina High. I didn’t have any other shoes. Blue Deck Shoes were my jam. Everyone in Orange County wore those things.
I was born in 61 also, we had 2 vans stores both on Topanga Canyon blvd (remember the old big top tent stores?). The San Fernando Valley was amazing back then but we didn’t know it at the time.
@@REAL_MPSSnice, I was born 1960, HB. Lived right next to Edison High. I remember those stores. I left HB late 70s, moved back late 80s. 16th and Walnut. Left mid 90s. Went back about 10 years ago, what great memories, glad I don’t live there now, too crowded. Used to sneak into Perq’s. That was the best years for HB.
We had the Del Mar fair in San Diego. Went there every year and got new Vans at the Vans booth. $19 a pair. This was early to mid 80's.
“All I need is a cool buzz and some tasty waves.” “THAT’S MY SKULL!”-Jeff Spicolli
@@jons7771stupid and stoned is now way to go through life son
Learnin’ about Cuba, havin’ some food.
I’m wasted 😂
@@hellyeah3871 It’s like I could hear Mr. Hands voice in my head as I read this 😂
"People on ludes should not drive'
I was wearing Vans long before Fast Times came out. Hands down, they were the best skateboard sneakers ever made.
No, you weren't. You're just saying that to look cool. Stop lying.
I wore Vans too reading skateboarder magazine in 1975
I remember checking boxes in the back of Thrasher to get my custom palm tree slip-ons. Good times.
Sean Penn was on Conan a few years back. He actually ran into the guy he based Spicoli off of in 2019. The dude is successful, family man, still living and surfing in Southern California. You can check it out on TH-cam.
Yeah its pretty cool he based it off someone he knew.
Nope he actually went to Indonesia to strain hunt in 19694 and was never heard from again
As a high schooler / college student in Torrance when they were filming Fast Times at Torrance High, the Dunkin Donuts on Sepulveda and Crenshaw and the was it Stop n Shop in Gardena on Normandie and Compton (now called Marine); I wore Vans in Jr High, HS and college. Who knew Vans would be so huge. I just thought they were just a South Bay Area thing. I had wide feet, so I always special ordered my shoes.
Spicoli was the reason I got my 1st pair of checkered black/white slip ones…
Was 16 when Fast times came out. Saw the movie and ran out to find the exact same pair of Vans. We were so cool back then and didn’t know it, lol. I miss the 80’s, so much fun.
Yes it was
I lived in a small southern town and was into BMX in the early 80s. I ordered some checkerboard Vans out of one of those magazines and wore them to school in 9th grade where I was mocked mercilessly for about two weeks. One day, a senior yelled, “Spicoli!” at me. I had no idea what that meant until someone explained it to me.
dude im in a southern town and in the early 80s vans were very popular at my junior high school, and you are right, back then we were into bmx and most of us had vans. id give anything to have some of those old school bmxs now, they would be worth thousands
@@lead5s I’ve got a few old school BMX bikes. The oldest being a ‘78 Mongoose. Got into collecting a few years back.
@@chriswallace9113 im 53 now but id still jump on one just to feel it, i had a early 80's torker that was stolen off my front porch, still hurts me today. would love to have a pk ripper. those old mongooses were the standard, they dont make em like that anymore.
I wanted them because Eddie Fiola wore them.
@@lead5sTorker and PK Ripper, that's a nostalgia overload.
"if you're here and I'm here, doesn't that make it OUR time?". (Just learning about Cuba and having some food...) 🍕
Theres no birthday party In here!!
Spiccoli on Cariuma, "huh huh, THOSE GUYS ARE F46S!"
i skateboarded until i was 12 yrs old then i grew up
I was airbrushing Vans in Las Vegas in 1980.
heavy
I was so off the path back then that I wanted a Spicoli Senior Lopez hoodie more than anything else.
I totally remember back in the 70's as a kid getting a black felt pen and checkering my converse high tops.
Hah!! As a 12 year old I had the black and white checkboard with the "I love girls" on the bottom part of my shoe. I ordered them custom made in a surf shop in Galveston, TX... what a great time we had back then... 1984. So much fun!!
Wild to see Steve Caballero mentioned in the background there.. on a skateboard? Hard to see what that is.. but ya, I had a Lance Mountain, Steve Kendall, and my first board was a Santa Cruz Jammer with Independent trucks. Green Slimeball wheels. Rode ramps and had a great time... probably paying for all that now... the pain is hitting!!! LOL
I've worn checkerboard Vans since I was a kid in the 80's.
I broke my arm racing Motocross when I was 12 and my friend checked my cast to match!
I now have over 20 pairs of checkerboard slip-ons in every color except pastels.
I remember going into the Vans store and ordering shoes....Dang I feel old haha Yep, been wearing Vans that long👍
Yep, we had one in La Canada(in the foothills next to Pasadena) that opened in the mid 1970s. It was a cracker box. The display area couldn't have been more than 200 sq ft. Later on in the '80s I remember buying off the shelf but in the early days you chose your size, shoe style, and colors , then waited a week for your shoes to be made and shipped back to the store.
My mom used to take me to Riverside to get them in the seventies. I had blue hi tops with the wave. Remember when those and the two coloreds was all you could get?
It's always refreshing when the interviewer lets the guest speak without constantly interrupting them. Unfortunately, this was not one of those refreshing interviews. 👎
A little trivia: The outside shot of the mall in Fast Times was Santa Monica Place Mall. It no longer exists, but I used to shop there all the time. Further trivia: Santa Monica Place was on The Santa Monica Promenade... where Pee Wee had his bike stolen.
The interior mall shots were the Sherman Oaks Galleria, which is also IIRC the same Galleria referenced by Moon Zappa in Valley Girl.
@@ryanjones4150 Yes, I've been there.... it looks nothing like that now. I've also been to the All American Burger and the Mi-T-Mart that Brad worked at where the movie ends. Two things: 1. All American Burger had delicious burgers. 2. The guy who played Arnold at All American Burger used to work in the store next to mine in the 90s. It was a book store called Book Soup.
@@ryanjones4150 Yes, I've been there.... it looks nothing like that now. I've also been to the All American Burger and the Mi-T-Mart that Brad worked at where the movie ends. Two things: 1. All American Burger had delicious burgers. 2. The guy who played Arnold at All American Burger used to work in the store next to mine in the 90s. It was a book store called Book Soup. One more thing: Moon currently runs a Yoga Studio near where I live. Where I live is a mile from where Mr. Miyagi and Daniel lived in The Karate Kid.
Wish Vans would bring back the Neapolitans
Still have my OG cardboard shoe box from the 1970’s. Holds all my old photos.
Back then you filled out a paper form to choose your custom colors.
Mine are Full of old baseball cards !
My parents were church friends with Gordie Lee, one of their partners, when I was a kid. One time he saw me at a party and came up and joked with me- Hey you have on my shoes. I had on white slip ons that were all the rage in Huntington Beach at the time. He asked how I liked them and I told him they were great but I keep putting my toe through the front. He told me to keep my toenails clipped real short and they had just modified some to have double canvas in the toe. He asked what size I was and told me he’d give some to my mom for me. A couple days later my mom came home from church and she had a Vans shoebox with her. She said Gordie said to try these out. They were great and it seemed to fix the problem. After that, every couple months my mom would come home with some more shoes from Gordie. Mr Lee was always a kind and considerate man. 😀
So many fabulous people back then. I really miss the times when you felt like you could pretty much trust everyone.. I just don't feel that way anymore. Sucks!!
Thanks for the story!!
Loved this episode so much. Steve seems like a great guy
He is a very kind and approachable dude, he stopped by the Vans Warehouse and while I was working I said hi, he then turned and walked to me and shook my hand and said "Hey I'm Steve, it's nice to meet you" and I said "Oh I know, Mr. Van Doren, It's much nicer to finally meet you!" Then he asked how my day was, how I like working at the warehouse, and then I let him get back to what he was there for. His daughter is also just as sweet. A great family all around.
Haha! I’m wearing black and white checkered slip-on Vans right now!
I so love this. I was going to the Venice location Van store with my older brother ordering costume colors mismatch back when I was 10 years old. I’m gong to be 55 this year. I love Vans.
Vans are poverty shoes 😂😂
In 1980 I was living in Southern California with my parents. I was 15 years old. Of course I had vans. They actually have a picture of me in a suit with checkered vans on. I was at the movie theatre when fast Times Ridgemont high was playing that was actually done after a school in my school district called Fontana high when Spicolli showed up with chequered vans, I took mine off and held them up in the air in the and everybody cheered . Yes you ordered them out of a book shoe store had and you ordered each panel and you could get each panel different if you wanted and you ordered what the rim was they were $20 for a set which was not cheap at the time . I am almost 60 today and I can’t wear them anymore because they are flat on the bottom and they don’t have any arch support so they hurt my feet
…my family was poor, so I had “fake” vans; they looked like Vans, but they were made by K-Mart, or Sears & Robucks.
Keds?
Vans are part of the So Cal uniform of the 80s. I've been wearing them since I was 10, in 1975. If you are a surfer, skater, BMX or Motocross rider, especially in So Cal, you have a long history with Vans. I'm wearing my black/grey set right now, at my white collar, job, because still cool matters.
Why Spicoli Wore VANS In "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" ~~~ Because all the stoners wore them.
I was born (1956) and raised in Anaheim about a mile from the Van's factory. My brother and friends would ride our bikes to the Van's factory to buy our shoes. We grew up waring nothing but Van's shoes. I think that at that time, mid to late 60s they were less than $5 a pair. Was just telling my Grandson about those good old days.
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs in the 80's...I wanted to be in SoCal SOOOO bad. I had my paper route so I could by my first pair of vans, my GT bike and my Vision skateboards. I needed up being a soccer player but "refound" BMX in my 50's, still with Vans and loving the vibe, even if I'm an old man now.
In the 80's vans were the best BMX shoes. I think I had the first pair in Houston.
At first, no one liked them , then a few weeks after I got mine, everyone was wearing them
Been wearing pairs of black and white checked Vans since I was a sophomore in high school thanks to Spicoli. Everyone thought I wore them due to “the drummer of Green Day” and I had to explain Fast Times at Ridgemont High to them. Only the teachers knew what I was talking about. 😂
checker board (black & white symbolic masonic imagery) is why that shoe is filmed.
I remember my dad taking me to see “fast Times at Ridgemont high” and wanting the checkered van shoes when I seen them in the movie. I got them when I was a kid that summer in the 80s. I have a pair now as an adult.
My twenties were a mess because I wanted to be spicoli when i was younger
Spicoli can be acheived in any era of your life.
The guy that Penn based Spicoli off. Some dude from his high school in Santa Monica. He grew up to be a successful business man. Has a family and is still living in SoCal and surfing.
@sirK I heard that!!
I’m turning 62 in a couple of weeks. I keep 2 pair of black and white checked Vans when I wear an aloha shirt with blue jeans. I also have a shirt I love to wear with two checked panels in front that I’ll wear with black jeans and my Vans. I get a lot of compliments on that combo.
The only vans I could buy in my size were lime green and me and my mom drove to a Narragansett surf shop to get them 48 yrs ago!!!!!
In 1976 when I turned 16 & got my driver’s license to freedom my buddies & I would all pile into my ‘65 Corvair and head from Lemon Grove up the 5 to Encinitas Vans store to buy new Shoes and trade our locations to our skateboard hangouts with others who would be willing to share their places to rip . Always enjoyed ordering custom shoes & then getting that call when they arrived to “ Come pick them up at our store”. A truly bygone era in my lifetime full of fun , friends & great times . Thanks Steve Van Doren for all you did & continue to do . At almost 64 ( one more week 😊). I salute you sir !! 😎👍
I was a 70's kid. You knew how time consuming drawing checks on your shoes were. I cannot remember how long it took me to do checks on my Classic Schwinn cruzers white walls.🏁🏁🏁
Stop cutting the guy off and let him speak
Bmx racers were wearing Vans in the early 70’s
They are THE BEST shoes for flat pedals.
God bless America and God bless Vans!!
racers don't run flat pedals anymore, and the best flat pedals have metal pins that will destroy a vans waffle sole in a few hours.
Yeahh ill never buy a pair of vans, north face, dickies, or timberland again after there well give 20% off if you take a hour long class not to be racist thing.
F them.
Say what?
@@trent617tw look it up it's real. They will give you 20% off for white people to take a hour long black ethnicity class.
Lol what?
@@dathotbox look it up North face did it. But all owned by the same company
Great episode! Great Guy!
I always bought my Vans at their store in Chatsworth, CA. It was very unique, built in the style and colors of a small circus tent 🎪 and really stood out as it was separate from other commercial stores that sat at the base of a small hill with large Vans letters signage on top. I was one of those SoCal skater kids that would use a Sharpie to draw up designs on my Vans. Thanks for the memories, good times, good times…🛹
Great episode
This guy is awesome, what a wholesome company model
Loves Dogtown, dads not a sellout, cool af
I went to Australia's Gold Coast in July 1983, and Vans were everywhere. I was an East Coast kid who saw them occasionally, but it seemed every Gold Coast kid had a pair of checkerboards in their closet.
got a couple pair in santa ana, 1984. brought them back to pasadena TEXAS and was laughed at...wore Vans for about 2 or 3 years
Vans made a huuuuge mistake introducing these new styles. Stick to what works. But they’re paying for it now…maybe their learning nobody wanted new styles. Old school is the best school 🏫
Man, in 1984 I had checkerboard Vans...and I grew up in High Point, NC
Years later, my daughter came home wearing a pair. She graduated High School in 2011. When I pulled out my old yearbook and showed her a picture of me wearing mine in High School...that blew her mind.
Vans were already popular in school before the movie came out. All us skaters were wearing them. I should know I was actually alive and there.
we ran to the store and got vans when fast times came out.
I've been wearing vans since 84.
The checkerboard is Freemasonic Symbolism.
Duality
Dude..
@@trent617tw Where's my car?
@@mumbles215 2D kinetic holography.
Freemasonry as you said. The duality of man. Positive and negative. Black and white. Ying and Yang.
I remember in the 80's my sister drew black checkers on her all white vans, because my parents didn't want to come back to pick up the ordered vans 😂
I owned a pair of the original Vans Fast Times shoes in 1984.
Many years ago I was able to purchase another pair my size brand new and it came with a Sean Penn bobble head doll.
D.A.M.E.S: durable, affordable, memorable, engaging, simple
The blueprint of a good product
I recall ordering custom Van's in the 80s from my local bmx shop
Idiocracy and Crocs! The power of PROGRAMMING on consumers!!! I love y'all
I’m 58 and still wear Vans. Currently have 5 pair. Iconic and still comfortable. And I have checkerboard.
52yo been wearing vans since I was a kid, still today when I wear a black suit I wear all black vans with it…
"Hey Stu .......Where'd you get that jacket" ?
I use to order some trick Vans from an OG store off Balboa Blvd, smack in the middle or the Valley. Circa 1976
Stop interrupting the man answering the question that YOU ASKED HIM! Absolutely irritating and I imagine he was too.
❤❤❤2012 to 2020. I worked in jeffersonville indiana , sheperville Kentucky and Louisville Kentucky. I remember everyone who I meet in the south wearing vans, they all were from California. Local folk hated them , more California shtttttt.. 😅😅😅
Interesting shoe back story. I wanted to mention that Sean Penn totally ripped off the Jeff Spicoli character from real life guy Richard LaVon Griffiths. Check out the movie The Beaver Trilogy, directed by Trent Harris, featuring Richard LaVon Griffiths. It's such a blatant ripoff
Early 80's southern Ohio we had to order Van's via snailmail. They came with a three piece carbon copy reorder sheet that you could special design your own next pair with! Also, Spicoli was the reason I started wearing Vans, not sure what kind of role model for me that was!?! I often say "Jeff Spicoli ruined my life!" ... Thanks for all the memories and flat but happy feet!!!
I have heard Sean Penn discuss his Spicoli role before. It is ALL based on a real person; The lingo, the speech, and the look.
Back then, surfers wore vans because the canvas would dry out quickly. Spicoli (and the real Spicoli) were surfers, hence the Vans.
That's the 'why'.
I custom ordered my first pair of Vans in either 84 or 85. Hi-Tops, pink, blue suede, and white strip! Prior to that, I used to see a lot BMX guys wearing Vans (NorCal).
We got all our Vans at a tiny little store in Ontario, CA since 81-82 ? I was getting black, red, blue chex high-tops, blue-gray slip-ons, etc. I was the coolest 3rd-4th grader at my school
Cool neighbors bought me a pair of custom vans (black/white checkerboard) for my 76th birthday!
All the Cali kids that moved to AZ in the late 70s introduced Vans to my crowd. My first pair were the blue high tops....I wore them in a basketball game, and got called for traveling constantly, they didn't work on gym floors..😄
Yo, when Fast Times came out and we ( black fashion geeks in Oakland) all wanted a pair. But I gotta admit, the classic surfer in solid colors has always been a staple in Oakland from thugs to preppy kids. So everyone wore them whether Vans, Sperry Topsider, Kenny, Flag Bros, Mervyns, or Keds to name a few brands. Some skated, most did not.
The checkerboard Vans were invented on the steps of the Huntington Beach High School auditorium during lunch around 1978, or at least that was very close to where they may have been actually invented. I very specifically remember being a Freshman in High School and watching kids mark their Vans up with the checkerboard pattern. In addition to Punk being very popular back then, the Mods and SKA movements were also very popular. We had packs of Vespa riders. That is the subculture that the Vans came from. Also that baja hoodie he wore was a very real part of surf culture back then.
Found out an Easter egg with vans. On a scientific calculator, hit square root that looks like V""""" and the ANS button and equal and it would be 420
Had my black n white checks when I lived in Newport Beach in the 80s. Amazing how things become part of a culture and if you didn't have them you felt like you missed something important.
I (and most of the kids at my school) saw Fast Times at the theater when it first came out. The next day everybody had a new pair of Vans, but my mom noticed the World Cup shoes were almost identical and a lot cheaper so she bought me those even though I wanted Vans. My friends made fun of me for getting World Cup instead of Vans
They are cool lookin' ,however house shoes are more comfortable to me. I always was a Converse person. Even chucks and Purcells are basically house shoes too. LOL. When I got old is when I said "Ouch! Ma feet hurt in these things".
I got my first pair in 1986 age 11 black and turquoise at a Montgomery Wards, they matched my blue bike almost exactly
vans did us size 13 and larger people a disservice not making certain models 13 and larger sizes anymore...ive worn vans exclusively since the mid 90s..but no longer
1985 I had a custom pair made. Different color checks on front and back. I wish I could remember the colors. You could pick all three portions of the shoe with different designs, and then, of course, the bottom rubber. Mine said I ❤️ girls. Hilarious 😂 had to wait a few weeks for them to come in. Shout out Old Town Skate and Surf.
I'm 50 years old. I bought my first pair of Vans (blue and white checks) in Morehead City North Carolina in 1982 or 83. If I remember correctly I got them at Ron Jons or a similar surf shop on the beach there. I wore them to Catholic school, in violation of the universal brown bobo rule, and they brought me to the office and made my Dad come and get me. He was more pissed at them for making him leave work than he was at me for wearing them to school. He said they could have just let me wear them the rest of the day and tell men not to do it again. I knew these were some cool ass shoes then. They had every adult around me freaking out. I've worn them almost exclusively outside of work ever since. I've had hundreds of pairs of Vans. My kid is the same way. It's just what we wear. Vans are universal.
I'm 47 and all I wear is vans still. nothing but authentic and of course classic slip-on checkerboard all day everyday.
Vans were cool. In 1977 lakewood ca you could walk into vans fill out a form and get a pair of Vans in any color combination you wanted. And in a week they were done. They cost like $14,00.
I had a tour of their factory in the 80’s. It was all Mexicans, probably illegals. That is how California manufacturers did business back then. They also showed me a futuristic looking skate park they built next to the factory, before skate parks became more mainstream.
I went to Santa Monica high school with Sean and had history class with him. During that time was the Dogtown era
Best skateboard team in the U. S. The ZBoyz Zephyr surf and skate team from Santa Monica. We all wore Vans. Sean eas not a Zboy but he did lend his voice in the documentary Zboys and Dogtown. There's a movie as well called The Lords of Dogtown.
Vans remind me of that killer Diner or Burger Chain that is cool and weird -- that refuses to modernize "just because" everyone does. That builds Customer loyalty for generation.
Got my first pair in ‘79 at the Alhambra CA store(still there) Red/Blue….I was so happy!!!!
I was riding BMX before Fast Times came out and i remember the riders were already wearing Vans. I do remember the guys taking a Sharpie and making checkers on the rubber. I abused those kicks and was going through a pair once a month. I remember a pair would cost $21 bucks.
Was in a band in highschool in Texas and all four of us wore black and white checkered vans ALWAYS. Imagine my surprise 20 years later as a teacher and the kids are still wearing them. Kids of all races. It was really cool.
Fast Times was filmed at my high school. In fact, the official at the football game scene who shoots the gun, was my teacher. Although exaggerated, films like this and valley girl were not far from what we experienced growing up. Bringing mall culture into the mix and girls saying "like" at the beginning of every sentence...miss those days.
I wore Vans all during high school in the early '80's, one pair was the checkerboard canvas and I remember doing a drawing of them in pencil for my art class. I also had a custom-made pair I ordered from Billy's surf and skate shop in Newhall California, you could pick whatever colors you wanted for each of the 3 panels on each shoe so for some reason I went with yellow-grey-yellow on one and grey-yellow-grey on the other.
I grew up racing bmx, checkerboard flag was at the finish line, so checkerboard meant success, winning.