Yes that is me in the purple helmet

Yes that is me in the purple helmet
Originally uploaded by chrissteffanoni

MTB Podiums & New Zealand Snowstorms

I think the last blog post that i wrote was wheni was still in the USA.
I have been home to Australia for about a couple of months now. It was good to get back and see the missus, friends and family.
I have had a solid break from racing due to some health issues which have been giving me some grief this season. I am now on a fancypants new diet and i think it is fixing the problems. No more gluten or dairy for me so my diet now consists primarily of meat and grass. Just like a caveman.

'rounding the final corner...cramping'

Anyway along with my stopping training, i also had to pull my name off the entry lists of a few big tours around the place. The one good thing to come out of this is that i was able to enter the MittaMitta-Mt Beauty MTB race. This is a race i have wanted to return to for a few years and try to win. I competed in it a few years ago when it was part of the UCI MTB Marathon World Cup.

This year it did not have the UCI points so i went up there seeking the win. My sponsor FELT had supplied me with an awesome race machine to ride so i new i would have no excuses if i got smashed.

On the very first climb of the day i managed to put some pressure down and split the main bunch. 10k into the race there was only three of us in the leading group. Fellow FELT rider and local rider Neil Vanderploeg, and the bloke who won last years race...I cant remember his name.

'post-race with my bro jonno'

We raced the race hard up the climbs, a few little attacks here and there but nothing that stuck. The race winning move was made by Neil on the final descent. we just could not hold his wheel on the super fast descent. He probably put 1 minute in to us.

The final 10k was basicaly a time trial, something which i'm not renowned for. I brought back half the gap before the finish line to come in second. My old man checked the times and my finishing time was ranked 7th of all time, so i was pretty pleased with that.

I will return next year to go one spot better.

STEFFO

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

Elk Grove Report (partly scrambled version)

Steffo's Racing Blog Full Post View List View
G'day, my name is Steffo. I am an Australian road cyclist, currently racing for NOW MS-Society in Califoria USA
Tour of Elk Grove Report

RACE: The Tour of Elk Grove, Illinois WHO: Kiwi (P.Rennie), Yankee (N.Martinez), Aussie (C.Steffanoni) FINAL G.C.: Yankee 32nd, Aussie 33rd, Kiwi 35th
At this point, i'm sure you are all thinking, "were those hubbards handlebars all tied together or something?"...fair question, but the truth is that the race organizers use the term 'criterium very loosley over here in Illinois. Our tour consisted of one 70km criterium on saturday and another 80km criterium 24hours later, on the exact same course. In the end basically everyone finished on the same time.
An Elk in the Grove
Stage 1. The course for stage 1 was one of my favourite variety. Back at home we would call it a 'hotdog crit' because it has tight hairpin turns in it. Actually the course was more of a bent hotdog crit, or maybe even an 'L' shaped crit as it had an extra turn in it. Either way it was much funner and more technical than your stock standard four corner block crit. We came into the race with a plan. With our sprint ace Yankee looking like he had some form, the Kiwi and Aussie would try to hold the race together so it would come down to a bunch sprint for our big legged Septic Tank (Yank) to take out. It was not too far into the race when we suffered a bit of a blow i saw the Yankee decide to exfoliate his backside, arms and palms by sliding accross the stinkin hot ashphalt on a corner. I had almost got the smell of burning flesch out of my sinus' from Superweek. Oh how we all love that smell dont we. Anyway, with both his wheels tacoed Mexican style, Nick got some fancy new ZIPP wheels from SRAM and re-entered the race. With adreanalin still pumping through his veins Nick was now ready to contest some of the big money intermediate sprint primes. Kiwi and I did our best to get the Yank into position at the pointy end of the field on these sprint laps. That bloke certainly has a nice jump on him, but unfortunatelly got rocked by one or two other big sprinters. He still managed to pick up some money though which was nice.
At various stages in the race the Kiwi and went off the front of the bunch with a number of groups, none of whichpeloton
In the last few laps of the race a couple of riders got away from the peloton and bad pelotonning prevented us from pegging them back. With no teams taking control of the peloton the last 3 laps became what can only be described as a $H!T-Fight. We just couldn't get close enough to the front (without hopping up onto the footpath/sidewalk) Still we got some cash and the race commentators were grrring about us all race...even if they did think we mmme all called Peter Rennie...grrr Then we rode home and i ate two bloody steaks mmm.
STAGE 2. It was convenient having our new sognieur Molly along for the weekend. She could chauffeur our wounded warrior Nick to the start of the race, whilst the Kiwi and I rode down to the race start. It became apparent along the way that both of our legs are pretty cooked at the moment. My legs are starting to feel the effects of 2 months 'On Tour' with lots of races and also coming off a week crook. It is a great feeling when you cant get your legs to put out any power. They just seem to be stuck on weak autopilot mode the whole time. I call this feeling 'DISNEYLAND LEGS' ...and it is not a good feeling.
This race seemed to be a bit more aggressive than the previous day. Probably because the Kiwi went blocks from the gun which is always interesting to watch. He was all fired up to be the most talkedprimét man for the second day running, and obviously was trying to catch some sprint primé money. I also tried to smack it off the front. Although it didn't take long for Mickey and Minnie to start eating at those Disneyland legs. Those two are even worse than old mateshivveringtate when he makes an appearance in your legs. I spent the next 20 laps shivvering cold with goosebumps at the back of the field in 95degree weather. In the mean time, Kiwi and Yank were contesting the big mid-ndce sprint. The Kiwi brought the Yank to the front of the pack safely and they ran 2nd and 3rd indthe sprint.thucks that you got half a grand for 1st over the line but nothing for 2nd, 3rd or 79th. A few laps later there was another sprint. I drilled it up the gutter with the big-legged sprinter on my wheel and positioned him for the sprinballancesime he pulled it ofYAYdestroying all his opittytion and increasing our bank ballances at the same time. YAY go team! It's a pitty that we couldn't replicate the sprint again for the final lap. Instead, we all just through elbows, headbutts and shot gaps to finish a few places back in the field.
All in all we came away with a bunch of positives from tWoohoo grove tour. We all STEFFOack to LA now to knock up the local scene.
Woohoo Good Horse!
STEFFO
Please note that any information i have just writwrittingbe completely and utterly incorrect. If pete is the case, pledefinitylain in writting to Peter Rennie.
pete says would have most definity won if he had just been faster

Oooo look steffo has a new blog

Ooo look Steffo has a new blog.

Alright then "So Chris, what have you been up to?"
In The last blog entry that i wrote, i was kickin back, being a bum and racing in Chicago. Currently I am in Chicago being a bum, racing lots and kickin back.
The last few weeks have been interesting. There were many days when i thought that i must have been back home in the land of Oz...not because of all the munchkins and tin men, but because i have been racing against a whole bunch of Aussies in the Superweek International Cycling Classic. It was interesting racing. 100km criteriums every day for two and a half weeks. The best way to describe these races is, just like the Bay Criteriums, but twice as long, all at night-time and not nearly as many crashes...and maybe a few more Aussies. My plan to win a whole bunch of these races by lapping the fields didn't seem to work. Instead i only got in the money on one occasion, as did two of my team mates. With our team not winning, it was good to see another Aussie take out the overall title.
Jonno Cantwell of the Jittery Joe's pro team managed to beat all the other Aussies, Yanks, Columbians etc. to take home the yellow jersey. The Ausralian Virgin Blue team also had a good race with Bernie Sulzberger getting a whole bunch of podiums but unfortunately no wins. When Superweek headed to Milwaukee, our team stayed at a pretty cool host house/mansion Bellow, i will place some interesting photos of our house.


As you can see, the strict dress code was adhered to...and it was a whole bunch of fun.
We did get some interesting looks from the locals when we went for recovery rides to the coffee shop though.

Oh this is a funny video that my team mates filmed one night. I believe that they intended to come up to my bedroom an try to scare me. Unfortunately for them, i don't think it worked out as planned.

yfla.wrap("This multimedia content requires Flash version 9 and above.", "Upgrade Now.", "http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash", "");

Function VBGetSwfVer(i)
on error resume next
Dim swControl, swVersion
swVersion = 0
set swControl = CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash." + CStr(i))
if (IsObject(swControl)) then
swVersion = swControl.GetVariable("$version")
end if
VBGetSwfVer = swVersion
End Function
Anyway as i mentioned earlier, we are now back in Chicago. with a small team which includes the masked kiwi crusader, Nick 'sprints fast'Martinez, our new sognieur Molly and me.(also known as 'that hairy guy with mask, cape, bad tan-lines and small jocks'. We are racing the Tour of Elk Grove. Today i appeared to have Disneyland Legs so we were just trying to get our sprinter Nick to win the stage. Instead of winning though, he decided to leave half his bum on the road, which sucks for him, but was a little bit funny for the rest of the team. He did still manage to re-mount his trusty steed and get some cashola in a big money prime. Good on-ya mate. When i get a photo of his skinless rear end, i will make sure i blog it for all to see.
Hopefully tomorrow we will ride our bikes faster than all our opposition riders and will win enough money to pay for our flights back to Los Angeles. otherwise it will just have to motor-pace the whole way back behind some hillbillies.
Not too long now till we head back down under...but I'll make sure i blog yas all well before then.
Cheers big ears.
STEFFO