Leopard Trek launch gallery + bonus bike testing on the pave video

Leopard Trek may be a super team but it's good to know that no matter how big an outfit the essential nature of the team launch still asserts itself as these pictures by Geoff Waugh, Trek's official photographer at the Leopard launch show. Geoff's pictures document the team's big day and with his usual superb eye for detail he they give a real flavour of what it's like to be at a big team launch.

Team launches are pretty weird affairs usually alternating between the dull and the bizarre with any awkward moments smoothed over with plenty of food and wine and there are plenty of opportunities for awkwardness given that cycling teams are drawn from many different nations and cycling journos are essentially fans with pens and cameras.

The essential ingredients are a press conference where the team management and the star riders are wheeled out to face questions - technical sponsors might also be on hand to answer any kit and bike related queries. Of course the team have always chosen their equipment for its technical excellence etc and all the riders if questioned think it's the best. The other essential element is the actual presentation itself: the team on stage in team kit, usually the lucky lads (and sometimes lasses) will have to endure some fairly gentle questioning from the compere (there's always a compere, sometimes two) - the majority will look like they'd rather be riding up the Ventoux carrying a lead filled back pack during this particular ordeal.

At some point there will be sparkling wine and euro nibbles. Some teams combine this in one big smorgasbord of lycra and vol au vents and some times it will be split up. Leopard Trek got the business bit out of the way first meeting the press in suits and scarves some hours before the presentation (and the mind games starting early daring them not to comment on the neckwear) and then proceeding to dominate prime time Luxembourg TV with the launch itself with some man in a hoop dressed as a zebra-type action.

If you can get away with that you surely mean business would seem to be the message here a fact underlined in this Trek video of the team testing their new bikes on the pave of the Arenberg Forest.