Chechu Rubiera

I'm just about finished uploading all of my ATOC 2010 photos to my Flickr page. Today I posted a few photos of Chechu Rubiera, one of the nicest guys in the peloton. I had the privelege of meeting him when he was on the US Postal team way back in 2005. He'd been left behind by his team while out on a training ride. He was sick and had to pull into El Capitan State Beach campground to find a phone. I was not following the Tour at the time so I was not familiar with him, but I sure recognized his bike and US Postal kit. I remember asking him if he was on the team and he said "yes, the team with Lance Armstrong". I asked him his specialty and he said "climber". I feel like such a dope that I didn't know who he was!
He ended up walking back to our campsite with us to use our cell phone to call his trainers in Solvang. If this happened to me now I would have insisted on driving him back to his hotel myself. I wouldn't care if I got sick.
He gave me a Trek/US Postal water bottle and rode up to the main highway to wait for his ride. Bye Chechu!

Here's video of his most recent interview with Versus: