Big news + 4 Nights in Las Vegas

First the big news... Active Athlete Media is now the proud title sponsor of my cycling team, Squadra Ovest! Now known as Active Athlete/Squadra Ovest.This is huge. It's not my affiliation with the team that makes this so exciting for me (though it is definitely part of the excitement), but it's Active Athlete's desire to support a local cycling team that really gets me. My boss approached me a while back, telling me to find a strong team and we'd talk about sponsorship because he values and understands the power of the active lifestyle and community. This really shows that we practice what we preach.

So, that was finalized last Wednesday. It's Monday night now and I'm beat. Per one of my previous posts, I had the opportunity to attend Interbike in Las Vegas this year. I flew down Wednesday night, checked into my hotel and then caught a cab to the Cyclocross Race to meet up with my teammate, Dan, and some of his friends from his days working in the bike industry. We watched a super fast cross race and then hopped back to the Mirage for the Sinclair Party at Jet. Unfortunately, I did not make the dress code (flip flops) because my luggage didn't make it to Vegas until the next SFO - LAS flight later that night. So we just skipped out on the party and had a few beers at a lounge in the casino.

I hit the expo very hard on both Thursday and Friday. I managed to meet many great people in the industry, but still did not quite have enough time to meet everyone I wanted to. The show was huge and some of the key marketing people I wanted to speak with were packed solid with meetings on both days.

Thursday night was the World Criterium Championship race in the Mandalay Bay parking lot. There was a women's race at 7pm, industry race at 8pm and then the pro race at 9pm. The industry was packed with some big names...one of which was Mario Cipollini. Because I never went to any races before his retirement, I thought I would never see him race. He sat right up front in the top 10 the entire race and an unfortunate crash in the final lap ended his race early...he stayed up, but was forced to a stop. It was a shame because I think everyone was excited to see the sprint finish with him in such great position.

Here are some pics from Interbike: (I was a bit starstruck...)

Me and Super Mario

Greg LeMond

Magnus Backstedt

Alberto Contador

Ernesto Colnago

Rock Racing's Bling

Staging the Pro race...in true Vegas form

Teamwork to pull back a threatening breakaway

Tom Boonen's Green SL2

Sub 8lb Bike

I didn't get photos of it, but Tony Cruz and Karl Menzies were playing bartender on Thursday afternoon at the Cytosport booth...they were mixing up some strong Vodka & Cytomax drinks! They were having a great time there.

After Interbike ended on Friday afternoon, I met up with a bunch of friends from home that were in Vegas for the weekend, one of which moved to Vegas about a year ago. It was great to see these guys and we partied like rockstars all weekend long, but that's all you get...