Chris Steffanoni's Page

iphones, birthday cake & things i've missed

Here i am enjoying my last couple of weeks in the states.
I'm enjoying the weather and finally some time off the bike. It has been a long season for me which started in 2007. A few weeks recovery now is what i need before i fire the legs up and get ready for the Tassie and the Tour of Southland in a couple of months.
Having the spare time and all i decided to catch a bus down to Santa Monica yesterday to visit the apple store. I wanted to get one of the new i-phones here as they are so cheap. They are selling for under $300 At home unlocked phones are selling for over $1000. Hmm makes sense.
When i got there it looked like a night club at 1am. Big line of people waiting outside with a bouncer and list at the door. Apparently you have to book an appointment to shop at an Apple Store at the moment and then wait 2 weeks for your i-phone to arrive because they are all sold out. Bummer!

Anyway last post i said i would get a photo of Pete in his new jersey up online. It is so funny to see a US national champ winner wearing his jersey and then speaking in a kiwi accent. It confuses the odd person or two.


on the left of the photo you will see casey fixing his 5th puncture of the day

Also if i get my way, we will have three new team members on the team for next season. Two of them enjoy wearing masks just like me!


I have had a few people disbuting my tastes of America post last week. I have conferred with a Pom, a Kiwi, a Canuck and another Aussie and we all agree that the facts are correct.
The only raised was if the Dill Pickle should be added to the list. With a little research i discovered that Americans consume 26,000,000,000 pickles every year. That is a lot of pickles. Maybe in Australia we should stop flicking our BigMac pickles onto the roof and windows and send them back to the US. The Pickle is on the list.


Dill Pickle Pringles?...at least it stops you from eating the whole tin.

Anyway the question has been asked "What aussie foods would make America a greater place to live?"....so naturally I made a list.

• .
  
  
  
  Meat Pies-(everyone loves a pie at the footy)

Vegemite-(combine with cheese and scroll to make CHEESEYMITE SCROLL!!)

Milo- (make sure you don't mix it too well and always sneak an extra scoop)
Tim Tams-
Tim Tams- (the perfect straw for any beverage)
Fish & Chips-(wrapped in butchers paper and stinking up your car)
Fairy Bread-( despite the name, not only for fairies)
Weet-Bix-(moist but not soggy)

Caramello&Freddo- (My heroes)

Allen's Lollies- (It is surprising how big our lollies isles are compared to the candy sections in american supermarkets


There you have it.
Its my birthday today so thanks to everyone back home for remembering.

STEFFO

"Stars, Stripes & Kiwi Fruit" NATIONAL CRIT CHAMPS RACE REPORT

Hey all. we just finished a big race today. We claimed the teams biggest win ever with Pete Rennie taking out a US National Championship. Bellow is the race report written by the Kiwi. When i get some photos I'll upload them.
STEFFO

RACE: FIAC USA NATIONAL CRITERIUM CHAMPIONSHIPS
TEAM: Casey Weaver, Chris Steffanoni & Peter Rennie
PLACES: Pete 1st. Chris 8th. Casey 10th.

The Race:
with chris and pete only having 3 races left here in the u.s befor we get deported, it was decided that its about time to bring out the A game and win a race for a change.
with a typical four corner crit on a fast road  the game plan was to keep the race aggressive and try to set casey up for a fast finish.  so  first lap and the gas was on ,down under style in the gutter, single file untill pete got bored with that, deciding it was time to find out who else really wanted to win the race, and went off the front just to see who would follow and who would chase.  so after the strong guys in the race were identified, we just started attacking for fun to wear some legs out.  if there was a rider off the front, a now-ms rider was there.  so after a lot of breaks (almost all initiated by pete) one finaly stuck, starring guess who...  with 15 minuits to go pete was in a four man move that was riding well clear of any chase.  After that, things became very easy for Casey and Chris, it was all covering moves and following wheels with the occassional roll through to mess up any organization.  so it came down to a four man sprint, lighting it up with 400m to go pete rocked it up the outside thru the gutter to take a close photo finish.and claming a new jersey with some stars and stripes.  For the bunch kick, Chris came through the final corner 4th wheel, casey in tow, but got caught by a perfectly executed, yet entirely unintentional sweeper by Bearclaw.  We'll take the win and three in the top ten.

Tornados, Earthquakes & Deep Fried Cheese Sticks

Well i am back home in LA now. Should have been here a few days ago but my flight got cancelled out of Chicago. I'm glad they made this decision as i would not have liked to be in the plane when our pilot tried to fly straight through a Tornado. Nature is pretty wild over here. While we were stuck indoors because of a tornado in Chicago, back home in LA they were having an earthquake. I am disappointed that i missed the quake but apparently it was a pretty good one.

Anyway our old mate tornado in Chicago caused a little bit of havoc. The town where we had been racing earlier that day got pounded by the beast apparently. I'm glad we were not racing in the evening because that would have been the second race that they have had to stop due to tornados since we have been here out east.

When we finally arrived back in LA we were greeted by our lovely sponsor Elle in our new team car. I hope that next year our kits will be designed to match this car.

Anyway with not too long to go until we return home to Australia, I am going to try to squeeze in as much stuff to these last 3 weeks as i can. Tomorrow we are going to race the CBR National Criterium Championships down in the O.C. This should be a good race for our team and I''m sure there will be a pretty decent turn out for the race. Although I'm not allowed to win the title, wouldn't it be nice to win the race and give them all the shits.

The following weekend we have our last big race here. The Brentwood Grand Prix. This is basically our home race so we should have a big team there to light it up.

Hey i have just found a photo i want to share with you all. It was from the first week i was in the states after the San Dimas Stage Race. I get heart burn just looking at the photo. And yes i did eat it all, and yes i felt very very very sick.

Whilst on the topic of food glorious food, i also stumble upon this photo i took of the sandwich that we got every day for lunch at the Tour of Pennsylvania. It shows a real American sanga. Check out the ratios there. Meat:Bread:Salad 65:25:1

It is surprising that the sandwich does not have what Pete and I have decided are the 4 flavours of the USA. The 4 tastes that they love more than anyone. In no particular order, they are as follows.

• 
  
• CHEESE (cheese is too America what wheat is to Australia)
• 
  
• CHILLI (Mild American Chilli =Superdooper Hot Aussie Chilli)
• 
  
• PEANUT BUTTER (If you can name a food, there will definitely be a peanut butter flavoured version.)
• 
  
• CINNAMON (They all deny it here, but i have never seen so many Cinnamon flavoured foods and beverages in my life.

STEFFO