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| GAANSARI INTERVIEW: | ||
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BIANCHI USA
| Sky Yaeger has done pretty much everything possible in the bike biz, from working at a cool shop in Madison, Wisconsin, racing MTB and cyclo-cross, working for SunTour USA, then making the big leap to designing and sourcing Bianchis for Celesteville in the early 1990s. She’s one of the hardest working folks in the business, and does her job with panache. We caught up with her via email between one of her umpteenth trips to Italy and Taiwan in May. | |||||||||
| We understand
you have a Master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin.
How did a chick like you end up at a place like Bianchi? I actually have two, not that I’m bragging {Go ahead and brag! I barely made it through my undergrad ~ Gary}. With those and $2.50 I can get a cup of coffee. I have a Master of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts – the MFA being the terminal degree in studio arts. I ended up at Bianchi because the planets were aligned in my favor. Honestly, I cannot say I had a career path in mind. I worked in a bike shop and raced, while I was in college, and just kept getting pulled back to bikes, even though I gave it a shot at being an artist. I feel incredibly lucky that I’ve been able to use my arty side and my love of bikes to find my little niche here. What’s the best part of your job at Bianchi USA? Worst? The best part is creative freedom and the fact that I’m doing what I love and that there’s little if any distinction between my “job” and my “life.” The worst part is sitting on airplanes for over 100,000 miles per year. Which Bianchi model are you most fond of and why? You have kids, right? Which one do you love more? I guess my favorites would include the Milano and the single-speed and the Pista and the Pista Concept and the Cross Concept and the Axis and the San Lorenzo and the Giro. I better stop. What’s a typical day like for you this time of year? The number of details and follow-up involved in designing and spec’ing all the models is overwhelming this time of year. I wake up in the middle of the night second-guessing my decisions. I have to put the line to bed, so to speak, before most dealers get a turn on the bikes. Some of our East Coast dealers have just gotten the 2003 bikes, AFTER I have to nail down 2004. The dealer feedback is important but the product cycle is all wacky. I would love if we could sell the model year through the calendar year. Where do you seek inspiration for product development? Absolutely everywhere. A mediocre artist borrows, a great artist steals. I am a magpie for noticing everything and anything. I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker once. One guy is saying to another guy, “It is the curse of the artist, Bob. I see everything.” How come Bianchi doesn’t do more marketing or advertising in the U.S.? We are not spending money we don’t have. You probably have seen some large and small companies with lots of expensive marketing and big show booths etc. Then you hear they went belly up or had to be bailed out by their Asian factory or an investor group. We are on a break-even budget and we pay our bills. There is no glory in that. Let’s say you became Queen of Bianchi; what’s the first thing would you change? I would get an Italian team on Bianchis in the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. Describe your dream ride and with whom. If you are talking about a dream ride that I have been on, it was last summer in the Dolomites over four, 3,000-meter passes that were in the Giro. If you are talking about a ride in the future, probably more of the same in Italy. I live in Marin County, California, so I am spoiled. Almost any ride on Mt. Tam is a dream ride. A ride in Sonoma County is a dream ride. There are many. I’d love to ride with Bob Roll in Italy – he cracks me up with his Italian act. Describe the perfect bike. There are no perfect bikes. There are only perfect rides. What’s on your nightstand these days? New Yorker. Autoweek. Road and Track. And The Life, Times, Cars and Art of Big Daddy Roth. What’s in your garage? Seriously? Right now, 23 bikes, a 1965 Morris Minor wagon, a 1960 Alfa Romeo Guiletta, a 1957 Cooper Formula 3 race car, 3 Triumph motorcycle engines and a Whirlpool washer and dryer. And you better not publish my address. For conversation’s sake, let’s say Bianchi fired you or went belly up (not that we’d want that scenario – just humor us), and you just started a new bike company. Who would you ask to work with you and why? I don’t want to start a new bike company. I want to retire. Sum up the bike industry in one sentence. A great place to work if you have a trust fund. In your opinion, who is/was the best cyclist of all time? |
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