PRE ORDER Nothing Special Photo Book w/ Kodak Musette

12/19 Update-  We suck at math…So  a small handful of copies are available as of today and have been added to the online store.  They will ship early January.  All books still include a print, stickers and Kodak musette :)

ONLINE SALES ARE SOLD OUT!

We have a limited number of copies reserved for our 10 Year Anniversary Party on December 3rd!  If you are interested in reserving a copy send me an email to sean@teamdreamteam.com and i’ll put one aside for you if we end up with any remaining…no promises but i’ll try.  Thank you to everyone who purchased a copy!  -Sean

Nothing Special photo book Pre Order will ship early January and was shot by Sean.  Each purchase includes a Kodak co-branded musette, small print, stickers and other knick knacks.  The book is a soft cover 9" x 12" w/ 166 total pages and printed by our friends at Nonstop Printing in Los Angeles.  The first 100 copies will be available on December 3rd at The Cub House for our 10 Year Anniversary Party. 

Check out our official press release!

On December 3rd Los Angeles based cycling brand Team Dream Team will celebrate their 10 Year Anniversary Collection with a kick off party showcasing a large assortment of new products including a limited release photo book titled, “Nothing Special”. The book chronicles the small brand's recent Summer in the Italian Alps highlighting select stages of the 2022 Giro d'Italia. It also gives an inside look into the iconic cycling brands Cinelli and Columbus, while highlighting the country's picturesque landscape and everyday life. The project was photographed entirely on Kodak Film by the company's founder Sean Talkington. The 166 page book will be unveiled in conjunction with a series of large prints produced by The Icon in their store, The Cub House, on the day of the event.  A limited number of surprise gifts from Team Dream and Kodak will be available to the first 100 to purchase the book in-store day of and first 100 online! 

Introduction from Book

In the Spring of 2012 I met a goat farmer in Italy who helped inspire the start of our cycling apparel brand Team Dream. Remo makes THE best goat cheese. When I was on his farm he served it to me on a handmade pizza cooked in a brick oven, which of course he also built himself. He was immensely proud of his product and the passion he had for quality was infectious. So many of the people I met on the trip had a similar hands-on approach and passion for their work. It was especially impactful to me at the time because I had just left a desk job where I was exchanging emails with a manufacturer in China all day. Ready for a change, but not knowing what to do, I had taken work on a project for the Giro d’Italia and spent two incredible months in Italy. When I returned home in late Summer I was unemployed, inspired, and ready to go, but I still had no idea what I was actually going to do. 

I came up with the idea for a fictitious cycling team. To be honest, the goal was never to do this long term. It was just an idea to get the creative juices flowing, the kind of thing to keep me busy until I came up with the real idea. My friend Eric and I had a side business we called Team Dream Designs. The name was inspired by a painting our friend, and talented artist, Timothy Karpinski made. I really loved the name, as you can probably tell by now! So, it seemed like the obvious choice of name for this new bicycle “business” would have to be Team Dream… Bicycling Team.

I roped a few friends in to join the (fake) team and we started making very small batches of cycling products to help pay for our (fake) team camp. Inspired by the Italians I spent the Spring/Summer with, I wanted to be really connected to the products I was creating, which meant looking close to home for manufacturers. My hope was to be as hands-on in the process as possible and truly collaborate with the people making the products. I bought a (ridiculous) URL named teamdreambicyclingteam.com and put up a few products for sale, even though only 6 people in the world knew about the project. The odds of things selling were stacked against us, but then one morning I woke up to a $450 order! I was SO pumped that I texted the entire Team Dream (fake) Team to let them know we had a REAL customer! A few hours later that customer emailed and explained he was drunk when he made the purchase and requested a full refund. 

The online store was just sitting there gathering cyber cobwebs and I needed to pay the bills so I was still working at a bike shop in Silverlake called Golden Saddle Cyclery. Some people would buy stuff directly from me at the shop, but not much. My girlfriend and I lived in a super small studio apartment in Topanga with no garage so all the product had to live in my VW van. I remember staring at the tiny van filled to the roof with water bottles thinking they would probably live in there forever because nobody knew they existed. Until one day literally hundreds of orders came out of nowhere. EVERYTHING had sold out. And no one was asking for a refund! It was wild. After a bit of digging I discovered the bicycle blog Prolly Is Not Probably had posted about Team Dream that morning, and as they say “the rest is history”. But since I am famous for making a short story long, let me continue.

Team Dream was never supposed to be a brand. It was a joke. A fun thing to do until I figured out a “real” job. Except people seemed to like it and I began to love it. I wondered if maybe I could do this and avoid going back to a desk job or bike shop, at least for a few months. To give it a shot, we needed more products. I started out working with friends, and then friends of friends who became friends, and then over time started working with actual vendors (who eventually also became friends). Everything had to be made in the USA. I wanted that same feeling and connection the Italians had with their work so I put 100% into everything. The goal became to work with locals here in Los Angeles as much as possible, while making small batches of limited products. 

Cut to 10 years later, Team Dream is still producing many of our goods in Los Angeles and we have also expanded our range under the euroVACAY branding. There is no denying the love Europe has for cycling. The products that Italy produces in particular continue to push the boundaries of development. Making apparel in Italy (much like the United States) is not the most practical option from a cost perspective, but the genuine connection the people have to cycling makes it a no brainer.   Team Dream has never been primarily motivated by making $$$ and it never will be. It’s about people who love cycling, making things for other people who love cycling. Plus it gives us a great excuse to go ride bicycles in the Alps, hence the name euroVACAY. 

In the summer of 2022 we brought our story full circle and made a return trip to Italy. We spent two months reconnecting to the passion that inspired the birth of our brand and making sure our new manufacturing partners became our friends, too. I brought a few film cameras along and all of the images you’ll see here were shot by me during our trip*. Nothing Special commemorates Team Dream’s 10 year anniversary and celebrates the passion that continues to motivate us, all these years later. This brand is still my obsession. We may be a long way from selling kit out of my old van, but we’re nothing special. We are still some regular ass people flying coach, staying in cheap motels, and living our best lives. We do this 100% out of love. No loans, no parent company, no investors. When you spend your money with Team Dream, or any one of our sister brands (Cub House, Ringtail, Beach Club) you are supporting a small family owned business that is run by friends. To all of you who buy and support these brands I would like you to know one thing…we exist because you allow us to exist and hopefully we make you proud.