"press 2 for intimate inquiries and room service"

That's the second thing I heard when I called about shuttle services in Vegas last night.

Hmmmm...

I'm only going to be able to lightly touch on quite a few topics, so bear with me.

Planning this trip at the last second has thrown everything in a tizzy. The timing could be worse, but not by much. I'll be gone tomorrow through Saturday, and then on Sunday I'll be racing the New Belgium Urban Assault with Josh the Wonderboy.

Yes, he's coming out of retirement to do this event. I had to go looking for a new teammate when I found out the other half of my 2010 pairing had already acquired a new partner. All the pre-race stuff will fall to me (the bonus time quiz on Wednesday and mystery checkpoint puzzle on Thursday) while I'm in Vegas. It's a good thing we're just doing this for fun, as I won't have any time to check my potential routes or really dig into the questions on the quiz. They were difficult last year, to say the least:

New Belgium first offered dental benefits to employees back in 1992. The first person to use the benefits for a cleaning had how many cavities at that appointment?

a) More than the number of rings around Saturn
b) Less than the number of goals scored by the Swedish hockey team at the 1964 Olympic finals
c) {(x, y, z) | 3x + 2y − 21z = 0}
d) 2

Since I'm coming back a little over a week before I leave for my Mancation in Colorado/Utah, I already had to pack my bike up in a box for shipping.

More about that later.

I also recently committed to racing at The Double Dare with Zac as my teammate. It took some family planning to pull it off, but I should be there for another attempt at 24 hours of racing over 36 hours.

Shoot me.

More about that later.

I wanted to say a few things about a couple products I've tried out over the last few weeks, but that will be postponed to a time when I have nothing else to talk about.

While I'm at Interbike, I plan on doing as much as I can fit in. This would include going to Cross Vegas tomorrow night and a Ride for Reading book delivery on Thursday. Dirt Rag will officially be (and is) covering Interbike in an official sense, but I was asked to blog while I'm out there in a very unofficial manner in exchange for food. This is a good thing, as I plan to blow my entire meal budget on this $19 sandwich I've heard so much about. I will try to link up anything I do there while I'm gone here, but no promises. I heard our room has cable TV with lots of adult programming, and I sure do love me some Murder She Wrote.

Angela likes to make it clear from the start that she is not down with DP scenes.