Racing - Ben Wolfe Interview

No, I don't have a story about Ben other than he lapped us twice the night before he won the pro race in Beverly, MA. Or that he's been winning everything around here. Or that I screamed myself hoarse cheering him on at this year's Nutmeg State Games. Or... yeah, the list goes on.

However I have an affinity for the Jelly Belly Cycling Team and he signed with them!

PezCycling News caught up to him. Here's the interview.

Link to Pinotti Interview

I was browsing the intraweb (surprise!) while munching on some food and drinking coffee, and I found the following interview on CyclingNews. I like the tone of this guy. I first noticed him in some of the DVDs I have, when he raced for T-Mobile, but never really got a feel for what he was like. Hopefully this article represents him properly. If so, I'm impressed.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/marco-pinotti-exclusive-interview-with-italian-cyclings-voice-of-reason

Interbike 2010 - Part 4

Friday.

The last day.

Kevin had lined up only a few spots for me, three hours worth, and let me go free once lunchtime rolled around.

I hit some pretty interesting booths that day. By then he'd had some time to walk around, I'd had time, and I was particularly impressed at one booth's product. Every year there's the genius in a small booth with a great product that no one's heard of before, and I can honestly say only one product I saw fits this description.

Well, even skipping the "small booth" part, I think there's only one product that fits the "Best New Product of Interbike 2011".

I'll let you know later what this is, with some foreshadowing in this post.

I squeezed in an interview sideways in there somewhere, Javier and I working well together. He'd catch some things, I'd catch others, and he felt comfortable giving me direction to get a better shot.

Javier, my second cameraman, with part of Mister Ant+, i.e. one of the co-developers of Ant+

A good team, the two of us. With the cameras set to shut down at noon, we only had a few interviews before our jobs were done.

We sat down for lunch, chatted a bit with the other crew (David and Gabe), and then, with the camera guys supposed to do some "camera guy stuff", I hit out on my own.

Unlike other years, I really had no "goals", no signatures to collect, no books to get signed. I decided that if I came here for InterbikeTV, I'd focus on that. I'd brought just one postcard, one that always makes me grin when I look at it. If I saw a certain someone, I'd ask him to sign it, but other than that, nothing. And since the certain someone's booth was packed up next door, I figured I missed out on my signature opportunity.

My phone's shutter had annoyingly stopped working on the drive down from Colorado, specifically dying when I wanted to take pictures of the smoke jumpers jumping out of the slow, low flying plane. Therefore I was without my camera phone.

Instead, I had my helmet cam and Kevin's older digital camera. The latter, too, died, and I was left just with my helmet cam. Since it has no viewer, all my shots would be blind. I just hoped that things would come out.

(Some did - the shot of Javier above is a still from the ContourHD's footage. Others, due to lack of light, didn't come out quite so nicely.)

I thought of some video I could shoot for a future clip so hurried around, trying to find different vendors, shooting booth shots, and scurrying off to another booth.

At some point I checked my phone.

Kevin, it seemed, had texted me repeatedly. He needed me at the NOW booth, right now.

NOW?

The name triggered something but I couldn't grasp it.

I rushed over. Apparently David, scheduled for this, couldn't make it, so I had to fill in.

I got there... and there was Phil Keoghan.

NOW (No Opportunity Wasted) was his lifestyle brand name.

I had to interview him.

I felt totally unprepared, with no mental "psyching up", no check of teeth for pieces of broccoli (okay, I admit it, I didn't eat broccoli in Vegas), no nothing.

But with Javier, Kevin, and maybe one or two other people there, waiting, I had to make a go of it.

OMG! HUGE piece of broccoli hanging out of my mouth!
Okay, it's me, Phil, Javier to the left, and a Phil person to the right.
And no broccoli.

We finished up the interview, Phil helping me along. Once again I felt... you know, it was like he was the star even though I was the leader. He was the one that was pulling into the headwind, I was the one sitting on. He did the work. I could see thoughts flitting across his eyes, and I'd hear him change tack slightly. He's smart on his feet, could direct himself, and knew the stuff he wanted to cover.

Released again, I did an end run to see if I couldn't finish up my "short clip gathering" mission. I thought I'd seen a Thomson banner even though they didn't have a booth, so I went around looking for it. I wandered for most of the floor, desperately looking for this one banner.

I rounded yet another bend and stopped.

No, it wasn't the banner. Instead, standing kind of on their own, I found my "off chance" signer (signor?).

Greg Lemond.

I walked up to the three there, him and two others. The one closest to me turned once I intruded in their "group space".

Scott Lemond.

Well now.

I asked Greg if he could sign this card I had.

Let me tell you the story. I had this card a long, long time. I bought it because it reminded me of the La Vie Claire helmets (really just aero shells with thin felt pads inside) in the 1985-1986 Tours.

The reality: Lemond and the helmet, 1985, from here.

Hinault, shortly into this clip, wearing that helmet.

Surprisingly I can't find a picture online of Lemond in 1985 in the absolutely killer La Vie Claire Time Trial kit, with the dual disk wheel bike.

Lemond actually remembered the slight difference between the 1985 and 1986 helmet. The 1985 helmet, the one that I was thinking of, and was sort of on the postcard, had a little cutout just over the eyes. The 1986 helmet didn't have that cut out.

But I didn't remember that when I presented him the card.

I said to him, "This postcard reminded me of the 1986 Tour". Lemond, without even thinking of it, murmured a correction while his eyes focused on the card.

"1985, yeah, but wow, that's great! I've never seen this before!"

I guess when you lived each Tour, you remember the slight details, but his casual but accurate observation surprised me, especially since I had to do some research to see exactly what he meant by it.

He really liked the card, to the point that I think he didn't want to desecrate it by signing it. He did the only thing he could to preserve it - take a digital image of it.

He actually took about 10 pictures of it, trying to get the light just right.

Greg and his son Scott, capturing the virgin card for posterity

I'd put a picture of the card, signed, with the details, but, embarrassingly enough, I put it away as soon as I got home and it's in such a safe place that I can't find it. Naturally, when I find it, I'll take a picture of it. It's a really cool card, from 1985 no less, from the Netherlands. Or Holland, as I normally say.

And now it has Greg Lemond's signature on it.

After he signed it I asked if he would take a picture. And, lo and behold, my camera was busted. His son Scott came to the rescue.

How embarrassing! The fan has to borrow a camera from the star's son to get the picture.

Greg Lemond and me. Greg's son Scott took the picture.
Greg, I'm glad to say, still has that cheeky grin, even after 2+ days of Interbike exhaustion.

And yes, Greg made me feel important too.

With that, my Interbike was over. The lights were going out, and by the time we'd vacated the Media Center, most of the chairs and tables and stuff were already getting pulled out.

It always amazes me how quickly this little world springs up and melts away. Only a few hours earlier, the show still glowed brightly, folks dashing around trying to get last minute shots or ideas or information.

Now plastic wrap and packing tape dominated the scene. Sticky double sided tape, having lost their carpet, snagged your shoes. I watched as a bike I walked by countless times turned into a huge bubble wrapped frame, two guys carefully wrapping yet another layer of protection over their pride and joy.

Even though the show wasn't technically done (none of the interviews I'd done had made it up yet), I felt relieved. I'd managed to meet a few people, folks that had a passion for their product, for their ideas, for our sport, passion that matched or even exceeded mine. I could feel their enthusiasm, their belief in their ideas. I got to share some of that, let the world know exactly how they felt. I hoped I got some of that passion on tape.

The stress eased away. What was done was done - nothing more to do here, nothing of interest here. Just concrete now, no rugs, no cases, no eye candy, no free beer, no girls, no bling bling.

Move along now, just move along.

We walked the show floor for the last time, bags and papers and everything slung over our shoulders. We grabbed a couple souvenirs, kind of like the road signs used to mark pro races (I have a couple of those too).

Prolonging the end, we took the long way out, walking out the main doors, not the side ones. I think we all felt reluctant to leave because we didn't say a word, we just walked past the side doors. But we had to leave, before the magic wore off, before Interbike became just another empty concrete hall.

My mind whirled from one thought to another. I started getting anxious about how I did. I regretted not being able to do some stuff. I started thinking of strategies for next year. What if I'd done this? What if I'd done that?

And then, I realized.

I'd grabbed life by the horns and made what I could make of it.

So be it.

Carpe Diem.

Interbike 2010 - Part 3

Thursday was the big push day.

Whenever a trade show spans three days, the second half of the last day is the beginning of the end. Vendors start packing up, so much so that you're lucky to catch folks at their booths.

Therefore, for Interbike, a show spanning Wednesday through Friday, Thursday was the last full day.

The day started full tilt and didn't stop from there. First thing was meeting my new cameraman Javier. A Marine-reserve, young, not intimidated by much of anything, he lent a different air to our two man team. He was a bit more free with filming random shots, and, critically, he insisted on modding his camera to make it easier to handle.

I liked that last bit. Modding things to improve performance... that's good.

My prior night's glasses of wine (and that's all I had, honestly) hadn't really lifted yet by 8 AM, so the first bit of the morning felt a bit hazy. I quickly got back up to speed and the rest of the day flew by.

I actually redid an Outdoor Demo interview, one that I felt wasn't as good as it could have been, especially considering the environment. Also, with my Carpe Diem attitude towards interviewing, I'd feel out broad topics before rolling the film, stop the person from telling the story, then capturing the interviewee's first time answering my specific questions. These interviews felt more smooth, more spontaneous, and more genuine, simply because they were.

I started getting ideas for other shots, other topics, but with just 30 minutes per booth, I had little time to shoot any random things.

Note to self: save those thoughts for next year.

Since I was a seasoned pro by now, Kevin assigned me to some tougher interview spots, talking with (gasp) famous people. I missed one (although I didn't know the person would be there) and I made the other.

The one I made?

Tony Kanaan.

Indycar racer.

And cyclist.

Yep, Tony rides. He focuses on triathlons, and based on what he looks like (Vin Diesel, from this post), he's one tough competitor. Compact and powerful, he exudes an aura of strength and power.

And I got to talk to him.

Polished, cool, he worked the interview for me. He's the one that made things flow, he's the one that put me at ease. For him it was old hat.

And that brings me to a thought I had after dealing with a few "stars".

I noticed over the course of the day that the "stars" are really good at making you feel important. I'm sure that there are stars that almost dismiss the peons around them, but the ones I spoke with all have a similar way of dealing with other people. Since I don't know how they became stars, it's interesting that all the stars I spoke with share this trait. Correlation, I know, not causal, but still, there may be something there. I wonder if part of becoming a star is making others feel more important than you while still remaining the star.

Food for thought.

The nicest thing about Tony?

He signed a publicity card thing for me. I asked if he could put "Happy Birthday" on it. Of course he asked if it was my birthday. It was. And he made me feel important yet again, with everyone saying happy birthday and such.

Tony Kanaan wrote here.
I know, Izod is such a weird name to see on a racer.

As far as Tony Kanaan goes, I felt like he not only made me feel important, he actually helped me out. To go back to the Cat 5 analogy, I figure that I was maybe an advanced Cat 5 by then, but he was definitely a ProTour rider being nice to the Cat 5.

For that I thank him.

And for the star I missed?

Eddy Merckx.

Yeah, I know. What a bummer.

I did get to talk to the guy who works as his composite engineer, Dave (he's European and worked in the aerospace industry). Dave patiently worked with us through two battery changes and a lot of unfortunate background noise. Luckily this was the last interview of the day as we ended up here for something like an hour and change.

After the interview, with the show literally closing down for the night and nothing on my agenda, Dave and I traded stories until the lights shut down. He not only designs the frames, he tests them too. For example he's already won a (Cat 3 level) race on his (and Eddy's) latest pride and joy, the top of the line frame for 2011, the EMX-7.

I told him about my foray into Belgium. He cracked up over and over - I mean, seriously, you really can't expect another reaction. All my misconceptions, underestimations, and my rookie errors, they all added up to "what did he think he was doing?!"

One thing that I appreciate about the Merckx bikes. They actually get test ridden by the master himself. And one of the initial frames Dave made... well, let's put it this way. The master came back and told him to throw the frame away.

Ouch.

So. Moral of the story? If you ride a Merckx, you're riding a bike that Merckx would ride. And, indirectly, actually has ridden.

Wednesday evening we headed out for a screening of "The Ride", a flick about Phil Keoghan's ride across the US. It made for awesome viewing.

The ticket for the show.

I went in not knowing a thing about it - it was like going to watch Predator when it first came out, knowing only that Arnold played a Special Forces soldier. I literally did not know about the alien, thinking instead that the infrared vision guy was a double-crossing CIA agent.

Not being a TV kind of person, I'd heard about Amazing Race but I didn't know much about it.

Apparently this Phil character is the host of the show.

A guy introduced the film, he helped make it. I liked his description of the film - it would either be a good movie or a really expensive home video. His wife apparently did a lot of the editing, and having edited very simple 10 minute helmet cam clips from an hour of raw footage, I can't imagine trying to condense 45 days of footage into an hour or two.

As the film progressed, I thought of the ride, a ride that averages about a century a day for over a month. I started looking at the guy in the movie a bit closer.

There's a guy that lives nearby. His name is Paul, but he also did a cross-country, century-a-day ride. I thought, waitaminute, is Paul really Phil? They're both about the same height, they both ride the same bike, and they both did a century-a-day cross-country ride. Maybe Paul had this other job and just pretended to be retired. A "star" would do that to be modest.

In the end I realized that Paul is Paul and Phil is Phil. They were not the same person. Just similar. I could tell you definitively that Paul returned from his cross-country trip incredibly strong.

Since "Phil" wasn't real to me, it took me most of the movie to realize that the feet that sat directly behind my head (stadium seating in a theater rocks!) belonged to the Phil himself. The tip off came when he got up, walked to the front of the theater, and addressed everyone through a mic.

Again.

Yep, it was Phil at the beginning, introducing the movie.

I'm glad that I didn't make any snarky comments during the movie. The ones like "Oh my God, look at this guy. He can barely ride his bike! How the heck is he gonna get across the country?!"

After it ended we had one of those deals like at a wedding where everyone kind of lined up and said hi and thanks and great movie to Phil. I waited patiently (I had to - I was last in line) but some folks that know him better cornered him, and I to wait a bit more.

When he finally broke free and looked over at me, I realized I had a question for him too. He had set off riding an incredibly aggressive schedule across the US. He knew watts and power and even rode with an SRM. He didn't start off by saying "I never rode a bike in my life until I decided to ride across the US". Instead, he proclaimed that he'd been riding since he could barely reach the pedals.

A cyclist in other words.

I've always wondered how a body would react to the incredible strain of riding 4 to 8 or more hours a day, every day, for over a month. That's what the old time pros did, tons of long steady distance. And they were pros. So I was thinking, man, after a couple days rest at the end of the trip, he must have been flying.

So I asked.

To my disappointment, he told me that his power went down. His TT times increased significantly. His FTP didn't go up. He just got steadier and slower. He prefers the hour to two hour rides, and the four or five or six hour rides weren't his cup of tea.

He spoke in a very engaging manner, looking directly at me, making me feel very important in his world, at that moment.

Sound familiar?

At any rate I felt pretty impressed with his ride. If someone could capture that on screen, he'd be famous.

Oh, wait. Someone did.

My question answered, I asked him if it'd be okay to take a picture with him. He graciously agreed, for the umpteenth time that night.

Phil Keoghan and myself after a screening of "The Ride".
He's got to be exhausted but he rallied for every photo request.

The two brushes with famousness was enough for me. We got back, had some dinner somewhere (the Grand Lux Cafe in the Palazzo? The Missus's favorite joint for Interbike Vegas) and called it a night.

Interbike 2010 - Part 2

Wednesday dawned reasonably bright and early. Kevin had been up for a while, working on our unnamed project, while I'd been in la-la land, trying to recover from the long hours from the previous Saturday till Tuesday.

We headed over to the Media Center, a bit late, with me a bit nervous. I felt like I was at the back of the field with 2 to go. I had faith in myself but I still needed to have a couple things go my way.

We got to the Media Center early enough that the AC hadn't kicked in yet. I started to worry - it seemed awfully warm, and I really didn't feel comfortable wearing my new "dressy" jeans if just sitting made me break a sweat.

Kevin and I had to scramble a bit to finish preparation for the day. Like everything at a temporary little city, which is what a trade show is at some level, things still popped up magically, while we were walking around. Coffee, breakfast, network connections, printers... If I was a character in a Pixar movie, I'd be walking along and all the booths and lights and bikes and stuff would be sprouting as I walked by.

Of course in real life it doesn't work like that. I remember working for a vendor - we went crazy doing set up, even crazier doing breakdown. I remembered that and thanked my lucky stars that my job involved just the show.

I sat at one of the tables, feeling that stunned feeling you get when someone drops you off in a different time zone, in a different place, lacking sleep, and with no reference to the time of day. It could have been 2 AM, 5 AM, or 8 AM.

I felt like I had a lot to do but at the same time I had nothing. My brain started to freeze up.

Then, relief flooded over me.

Or, to be precise, cool air started blanketing the open ceiling media center, wafting in from above.

AC!

And, of course, Kevin finished his all important prep. We were on.

I made my first rookie mistake. I experienced my first lost opportunity - go to the huge crowd waiting to come in and get some ideas on what dealers wanted to see, why they were here.

I learned the hard way that in video media, you can't capture things that already happened. If you want to capture someone breaking a world record bike jump, you can't ask the rider to do it again. I can just imagine the scene.

"Hey, can you jump that 200 feet again? My camera didn't finish booting up when you made the jump."

Likewise, if you see anything, and I mean anything, you have to capture it right then, right now. Carpe Diem ("Seize the day" or "Seize the moment"), as they say. Ironic of course, for me, that I failed to grasp the full meaning of that little phrase. I thought I was doing the "Carpe Diem" thing well enough when I decided to take on the InterbikeTV thing. I realized it went further.

Mental note for next year - don't hesitate.

Instead, with my first appointment at least an hour away and my cameraman gone for a bit, I strolled down to the "Power Seminar". No, this isn't about power like being a king, it was about power like watts power. You know, power meters, and developments in the field.

I listened to the SRM guys talk a bit (I have a minor connection to them since I own a now obsolete SRM wired powermeter), but as they wrapped up, and well after I spotted one Jens Voigt sitting at the "presenters' table", I had to go.

Time to work.

Compared to the somewhat casual Tuesday, for Wednesday the media work really intensified. I had an interview scheduled literally every half hour for pretty much the whole day. Although it may not seem like much, when you combine it with criss-crossing the confusing convention floor (I'm still not fluent in "booth number speak" although I didn't get totally lost), waiting for the right people to break free, clear out people from the desired background areas, well, 30 minutes left almost no room for relaxation.

I rushed back and forth for the day, talking to all sorts of people, covering mainly stuff I could relate to (road and related).

I talked a bit with our two cameramen, Philip and Gabe. The latter, as pointed out earlier, was David's cameraman, and with David's experience and Gabe's savvy, they made a killer team. Philip would be my cameraman for just two days, with Javier stepping in his place for Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately by the time I built a rapport with Philip, he left.

But for Wednesday it was rush, rush, rush.

Initially, based on instructions, I would do a "pre-interview". With very limited time for actual talking, it'd be best for everyone involved - the vendor, me, and you the audience - to focus on what was important.

It's like the whole money thing. If you wanted to cover the topic of "new money from the last year", what would you cover? You'd talk about the new fives or tens or twenties. Who cares about one dollar bills? They haven't changed for eons. It's the quarters and nickels and that weird penny with a shield on it which have changed. Or those new bills mentioned already... you get the idea.

I wanted to talk about new and exciting. Talking to someone about something that's the same isn't exciting.

"Yeah, our cable is the same from last year."

That's kind of boring. Talking about new and cool stuff, that's fun. It gets me amped. And if I'm amped, then hopefully you'll feel amped too.

With the pre-interviews, I found an interesting trend. I'd walk up to the booth, find my contact, and ask them what's cool. Their eyes would light up, they'd start talking, gesturing, grinning, and they'd get amped. I'd get amped.

I'd give word to Philip, he'd start rolling the film (so to speak - he really had two monstrous memory cards in his camera), I'd start the piece...

And the booth person would go kind of dead.

Eyes kind of "caught in headlights" look. Stiff posture. Hands held self-consciously at their sides. Wooden. Stilted.

Boring.

I thought of Ender's Game, a fantastic book by Orson Scott Card. And if you want to read the book and enjoy it fully, scroll down until you see the word HERE in bold all caps again, and try not to read the stuff between here and there.

Okay, so those that have read Ender's Game, you understand how the book goes. And you'll immediately realize what I'm about to say, so I'm not going to say it. Because the "pre-interview" was the key. The "interview" ended up being worse. Once it's official, the person being interviewed suddenly felt self-conscious, started worrying about what to say, and their brains locked up. When it was just a "pre-interview", things went fine. So as to protect folks about to read Ender's Game who can't scroll without accidentally speed reading this paragraph, that's where I'll leave it.

HERE (for those that will read Ender's Game, continue on here.)

If you skipped down to here, don't worry, it's just an analogy that you missed. It's not major and I'll share with you my tactics on interviewing below.

Eventually, I realized that the pre-interviews seemed more engaging than the actual interviews. And although I may not watch a lot of TV, I absolutely hate watching self-conscious people talking to an interviewer.

I started to ask folks pre-interview questions, like how the company got started (i.e. if there was a story there), or what was new for 2011, or what they wanted to talk about.

Then, as they started to answer, I'd cut them off.

"Save it for the camera," I'd tell them.

Most of the folks literally clamped their mouths shut, like a teacher just yelled at them to shut up. They struggled to contain that great story, the great product, the great thing they've wanted to tell the world about by screaming about it from the top of the tallest building in the world. They were dying to tell me about whatever-it-was, the related whatever-it-was-two, and finally the whatever-it-was-three.

And I'd hold my hand up and keep that dam plugged, keep them from releasing all that enthusiasm.

I'd signal to Philip to roll film.

And we'd start the interview.

It's a lot of psychology, a lot of trying to read the person on the other side. I tried to steer them politely but firmly in certain directions. Focus on the question, focus on the concept, focus on the product.

I have to admit I let them go past the allotted time too often.

Like every time.

Okay, I got too much info. I thought it'd be easier to cut long things than to have painfully short interviews where you, the viewer, feels like, "Wow, that guy had nothing to say!"

I have to admit that I had a ton of fun doing this. I mean, yeah, it was really stressful at first. Then I realized that for the interviewee, the person on the other side of the mic, it was worse. They had their business on the line, their livelihood, and a bad interview... well, it'd be bad.

The key was that, for most of my interviews, I felt more at ease than the interviewee.

I'd help calm them down a bit, or try to. The super-pro interviewees helped me feel at ease. It was like one cooperative bike race, where both sides worked their strengths to help the other side. We both wanted a good interview, for different reasons, and cooperation and helpfulness would help us both meet our goals.

You'll have to go to Interbike.tv to see exactly how things turned out.

Alessandro Petacchi, and his Wilier.
He's skinny looking, especially since I think of him as a big, powerful sprinter.

The actual company name is Wilier-Triestina. The first part is pronounced "will-ee-err". Not "will-ee-ay", which would be French. I got Wilier down quickly, but it took me literally something like 5 takes to say Triestina.

"Tree-ess-tina".

I can say it now, of course.

Wednesday I met with a lot of folks. I learned a lot. Heard some cool stories that aren't really video or print fodder. Heard others that you'll be able hear (and see) on Interbike.tv.

At the end of the show day Wednesday we headed down for the Dealer of the Year awards. A certain Eddy Merckx made the presentation. Since everyone and their brother wanted to see Eddy, this meant that the crowds had to be tightly controlled.

Gabe went in to cover the event. Although not a cyclist, he already realized the importance of that Eddy Merckx.

To my surprise one of the cameramen dragged me along with him. Flashing our badges, we stepped into the hall. Once inside he told me to leave the bag I carried in for him behind a screen. And then told me I could get something to eat or something, releasing me.

In other words, he knew I wanted to go inside, and, without any prompting, he got me in the room.

I realized then that he was one of those "good guys". You know those guys. They have empathy, have good judgment, and know when it's okay to give out favors and such.

I should point out that I didn't abuse my presence in the room - I didn't trip Eddy, no hooting and hollering (except when appropriate, like when they introduced Eddy or he presented the award), and I modestly asked for one glass of wine.

Of course, when I ran into an old time friend Rob, we got to talking. He had blown by me on one of the climbs on the Lake Mead ride - a (real) Cat 2, he could climb and time trial in a manner I simply cannot comprehend. We tried to out-modest each other.

"You'd always kick my ass, I can't believe how fast you can time trial."
"No, you'd always kick my ass, I can't believe how hard you can jump."

Then we'd laugh and talk about something else. We caught up on gossip, and...

Suddenly that wine glass gained a couple ounces of weight.

I looked up, surprised.

My new best friend, the bartender, had leaned over and refilled my glass. I looked at him - he gave me a big grin. I could only grin back.

Rob laughed.

Then the King himself walked towards us. I took a picture of Rob with Eddy, who, unlike on the showroom floor, had a wry grin on his face. He seemed to enjoy this better than being cooped up behind a desk while signing countless autographs.

Rob definitely got a shot for the mantlepiece.

Before we left the bartender asked if I wanted my glass topped off.

I looked down at my mostly full glass. Looked at Rob. Looked at the bartender.

"You can go out with the glass, this is Vegas," he said to me.

That cinched it for me.

"Top it off then."

Suffice it to say that the rest of the night went by in a blur. Or haze. Or both. Let's just say it involves eating a burger at a country music themed bar.

Next up? Thursday. Day Two of Interbike inside.

What Would You Ask a Pro Cycling Team Manager?

Pretend you had a chance to sit down with a cycling team manager - you know, the one that all the press interviews if something happens with the team. What would you ask him (or her)?

First let's narrow the field of potential candidates. Focus on ProTour teams - that would reduce the field quite a bit (although it leaves out Slipstream which would be an intriguing interview). Ignore the ones that have racers tied to Fuentes and company.

Maybe select a team that is fighting doping on its own initiative - internal tests and such. Of course if you do that there are only two teams that fit the profile, CSC and T-Mobile. Although on principle I'd have eliminated both in July 2006, one team has significantly changed. The other seems to have stayed their course.

For me, it leaves only one candidate - T-Mobile. The team's manager? Bob Stapleton. Luckily he even speaks English.

If you were able to ask him anything, what would you ask him?

Think of him as a friend's friend. You're not out to slam him, but you can ask pointed questions. You're also not out to try and promote him so you don't have to ask the regular generic questions like the "tell us about T-Mobile's anti-doping program" type things.

Or "Do you like Giant bicycles?"

As opposed to Miniature ones of course.

Aspiring ProTour racers may get to the point and simply send him a resume.

But us mortals who don't have such high cycling aspirations, I think it'd be a bit more of a "what makes this guy tick" type of thing.

Think about it and fire away.