More focus on Food

With the first hot days in the lower mainland this year I am doing some more bbq tests before I head away for the Summer of racing. Last night I cooked up and modified that burger recipe I put up last year. This one is new and tasty.

I am calling it a Hawaiian Taco Burger. It will make sense after you make it.

make up the burgers as before
1lb Ground Beef lean
Green onions
Chopped dried cranberries
One egg
3 Garlic Cloves
Roquefort Blue brie Cheese
1 tsp corn starch

now add 2 tbs of teriyaki sauce to the meat as well

this time make the burgers up in a long patty about twice as long as wide.
Cook on medium heat for 12 - 15min
Also once you have flipped the burgers put some fresh sliced pineapple on the grill as well.
Top the burgers with a tsp of cream cheese in the last 2 or 3 minutes of cooking.
Put a basil leaf and a half of a grilled pineapple slice on each patty and serve in a folded over NANN bread (like a taco, this is why the patties are longer instead of round) with what ever other burger condiments you like.

I think you will like.

Willmington and ACT NOW

Well I have been away from the old blog for a while…things are really busy with wedding planning, bike racing, and new global changing sponsors.

Spent the past weekend at the Wilmington GP and Kelly Cup. Both races are sponsored by our tittle Sponsor Kelly Benefits. After winning the Wilmington Race (see photos in my flikr). The team had a benefit dinner put together by John Kelly for our cause, World Bicycle Relief where we raised a lot of money for projects that provide high quality, durable bikes to facilitate transportation for people in 3rd world Africa (more on this in the future the team is just getting started.

Then this week I was home for one day then flew over to Victoria for my training as an athlete ambassador for ACT NOW BC. With this group I will be working at all kinds of schools and events across BC over the next two years promoting Social, Environmental, and Healthy living ideas and lifestyles to people of all ages. I am really excited to be involved with them and hope I can see lots of people getting involved in their great programs. There is something for everyone so check out the site.

I will update more on all this but right now it is heading towards 20 C and sunny in VAN so I wanna get on my BIKE…

Planet Organic YUMM YUMM

So we were down at the planet organic store in Port Coquitlum and picking up some great organic eats and I thought I would mix this with some of the food I tried in Thailand. It turned out so well I thought I would share it with you.

It is call Chicken Soup with Coconut milk. It is a spicy one.

2 cups chicken broth
on can of cocnut milk
3 sticks lemon grass
1 small bulb of Ginger
oyster mushrooms (1 - 2 cups)
chili peppers 3 - 6 depending on taste
2 thin sliced chickn breasts

Boil chicken broth
put in chicken, ginger, lemon grass mushrooms and coconut milk
boil for 5 mins
add peppers to taste and boil 5 more mins

Serve with steamed rice.
Enjoy

Thai

I am finishing off a one month road trip with a little flare. I started, as many of you know with a trip to LA to prep for track worlds. This was only a weeklong prep that was intended just to give me the feel for the track again. From there I went to Poland for the world championships where I got a mixed bag of results from fantastic to not so great…but none were disappointing which is better than worlds has gone for me in the past.

Then it was on to the tour of Thailand. Now there is always a little unknown when heading to a race like this. International racing can always go either way especially at the UCI 2.2 level.

Thailand did not disappoint. The FOOD has been amazing, Thai curries and soups and noodles and spice and nice…MMMM.

The race was well organized, well run, professional and efficient. Epic courses that were well marshaled and safe. And race hotels that were more than adequate.

Now the race is over, we won the prize and we have 3 days to kill before we fly out. What to do? We had to wait for flights because it was almost 4000 bucks cheaper to fly the team later. We are a pro team but that is a whole other stage race. So we wait, Bangkok is in the lock of protests. Jonas suggest we pay a couple hundred and fly to the tropical Thai island of Samui. OK

So we have had 48 hours of beach paradise in the gulf of Thailand. Tomorrow we will fly back to Bangkok and spend a night at an airport hotel before we fly out to our homes. The trip sure has been long. But chilling in a bungalow and contemplating things on the beach toady sure helped soften the stress of a long road trip at the end.

But I am still ready to trade tropical beaches and curry for rain in Vancouver and the breath of my fiancé….

Worlds Medal

I made the podium at worlds this weekend in Poland finally after 4 years of trying. It has been a good year moving forward and I am really starting to race with these guys. Worlds over all went well for me for the first time. Every other year I have crashed or made terrible tactical mistakes that put me out of races before they even began. So to have three races to do and to really get it more or less right on the last one was great. Unfortunately my race bag with my medal and all my cycling stuff, cameras was misplaced or more likely stolen during the massive international pack up and Exodus from the track. So I had my medal for about 10 min before it was gone. What the hell man. I am not sure why I have so much trouble with these UCI medals. The are going to be pissed if they keep having to mail me new ones. (Cali scratch gold came in the mail about a week before I left).

Here is an artical in the Globe on the race
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090329.wsptcdn29/GSStory/GlobeSportsOther/home/

Good News

I know it is mushy and it is not cycling related…but it is big news anyway for any friends I have who have not found out.

I don’t think I need to write anything else…

House cleaning

So after team camp there is always new stuff to deal with. First and foremost the extraction of old team gear from my small 600sqft apartment. The new kit is in. The new TT bike is in. the new team bikes are in. That means the oldies are out. So if anyone is looking for a TT bike it will be cheap. Seriously thought it is always an interesting time moving on to new kit. It is like changing your style. Going from goth to Gap. It is like a new beginning, new potential, new wins ans new races.

But then there is the old kit. With the s team it is sad to see it go. I really feel like I was part of canadian cycling history in the making there and I don’t think the story is over yet. Infact I would say the true impact of the S team is yet to be felt. Heck, Cam and Pinner are already proving how under estimated we seem to have been, each gaining a win in the tour of mexico. With Dwayner and the young man in the pro tour, Will on “the Belly” and 3 of us on kelly I think the S team may pull down more big results this year than ever before. So I will be distributing some of my old kit. But I will be sure to keep on piece of history in my closet for sure. Hoping I can add some sentimental value to the Kelly kit before too long.

Bike Team ASSEMBLE

Team camp …Finally…I have been waiting for this for a while. Warm weather and getting the guys together for some real honest bike riding. The first couple days have been comfortable, warm and sunny. We are still trying to work out the routes around San Antonio but we have found the odd road that has been pretty great. Hopefully soon we will have the routes dialed and we can really start hitting it. The race schedule is also starting to come together and I can’t say much about it but it looks like it is going to be pretty cool. It is pretty nice to be here with a proper team. We have had a police escort/rolling lane closure on our way out of town every day…and people seem to enjoy the pro team parade for the most part. It is about a 30 min ride to the nice roads so this help from the local police is very much appreciated.

Today we are going to drive out of town to see if we can find any different areas…and tomorrow we will do a road race to get everyone thinking about racing again. And so it begins.
SWEEET

2 sweet

The World Cup finished officially this weekend and I ended up in multiples of 2. I was 4th over all on the World cup ranking in both the Points and Scratch (I don’t think I have every gotten more than one or 2 points in this competition before)

And going into worlds it looks like I will have a #2 ranking in the points race on the UCI world ranking. I have been ranked that high on the UCI ranking before but that was before the major races of the year not after. Pretty cool. Ahead of me is Chris Newton from GB. What good company to have at the top. It is great to be mixing it with these guys. It has made the racing this year fun. I have been racing every race and that is with my training focused towards the road season. Things have just been going really well on the training side.

I head to our (Kelly Benefits) first big training camp on Wednesday. Great to be looking forward to more biking…what a great job this is…sorry if you are in an office.

I will hopefully have some updates of the fun down in Texas.

Global Morning News on the same day as OBAMA…