Robbie and I left Michigan in style after three weeks at the Olson’s house. We went to one of the best dinners that I’ve ever had in Kalamazoo with Mark at an awesome place called Bistro 120. If you have the chance to go there, take it. Their portions are as big as their food is delicious… that is to say, HUGE and WICKED GOOD! Back home at the Olson’s, packing up that night as we prepared to head home the next day, I was worried that I wouldn’t have the ability to keep up in the Rockford Criterium since I’d eaten what felt like about 8 pounds of food! Between my huge steak, buttery delicious corn on the cob, creamy garlic smashed potatoes, a cup of chili, and an “it’s pretty much like fudge” chocolate cake, I thought I had reason to worry.

Thankfully my metabolism is in high gear with the end of the season in sight, so my going away meal didn’t interfere with the team’s results at Rockford. I’ll spare you the details of the race, but you can check them out here at Robbie’s PH team blog. Long story short, we housed the race, and went 1 thru 6 and 9th… or something like that. Sure, that makes it sound like the easiest race ever, but it was quite the leg-burner and didn’t come easy. Good work boys! Immediately following the race, Robo and I packed up shop and drove 8 hours due east to Rochester, NY where the love of my life Mayo has recently set up residence and patiently awaits my arrival at season’s end. With a quick night’s sleep and a breakfast burrito at a cozy cafe on the cooler than average Park Avenue in Rochester, we set off again for New Hampshire early Sunday morning. On the way out of town, we quickly stopped at Wegmans - the local grocery store/Wal-Mart. In the parking lot we were treated to a nice surprise with a young gentleman who’s WHEEL HAD COME CLEAR OFF HIS CAR as he rounded a corner. The poor kid is seen here on his phone probably saying, “Errr mom, my car just felt apart. Can you come pick me up?” To add insult to injury, it’s the raining and 50 degrees. Nuts.

I guess it’s true what they say, though: Be sure to securely fasten the lug-nuts on your wheel, or else it might roll off at Wegmans and then it might rain, so be sure to have a raincoat and/or umbrella in your car.

Hello Friends,
While I’m flattered that Robbie mentioned in his last blog that my bread pudding was the “Best Ever,” I would be in the wrong if I did not correct him. Correction: Robbie, my latest batch of bread pudding was the best ever. My first batch - the one that received the original title of Best Ever - was a basic bread pudding with chocolate chips and coconut. By default, with these two ingredients alone, it nearly reaches the pinnacle of desserts. Sadly, the recipe I used recommended I use a very large baking dish, which resulted in a short bread pudding (By short, I mean not tall. It was less than 2 inches from top to bottom.) This translated into a relatively dry dessert. Thankfully, Robbie and I have been making no-name-Jello-sugar-free-instant-puddings once or twice every day, so with flavors ranging from pistachio to butterscotch, we’ve complemented the dry bread pudding quite nicely. HOWEVER, the latest batch needs no friends on the plate as a complement. Using some random “Cinnamon Bread Pudding” recipe that I found online, I made the richest, moistest, most delicious bread pudding this world has ever seen. Featuring 4 1/2 cups of creamy milk, lots of tasty raisins, 14 slices of whole wheat bread, and mixed throughout with zesty cinnamon this bad boy is the tops in the dessert world! Yum.

I should point out that this latest version was created yesterday morning (Monday), and therefore was not weighing me down at the Pro Crit National Championships.

Ummm, I don’t have much to say about that race; the only way I’d be happy to write all about it would be if we’d come home decked out in red, white, and blue… which didn’t happen. I suppose the best part is that I thought the race itself was downright easy! The warm up race the day before saw me in an early break, but once we were swallowed up by the peloton, I hardly had enough juice left to keep going. But in Sunday’s featured race, I felt like it was so danged easy that I was pedaling without a chain. So the plan next year is to find it easy and win the thing. That should be easy as pie… err, easy as bread pudding. (Good one, Teddy.)

Best Ever Bread Pudding Recipe
4 1/2 cups milk
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup sugar (1/2 cup if you want to eat more of the end product than you actually should)
whole bunch of raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
dozen or so slices of stale bread - you can dry out the bead in the oven at a low temperature to make your bread “stale.”

Cube the bread and dump it into a greased 9×9 bakind dish with the raisins mixed in. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a big bowl and pour over the bread/raisin stuff. Bake that beast for between 40-60 minutes at 350 degrees. I baked mine in a water basin for the first 40 minutes and not for the next 15 minutes.

Altoona finished with a mixed bag of results. From there, we packed up the Vibe with two King brothers, two Australians, 5 duffle bags, 4 bikes, 8 sets of wheels, food, tons of equipment, and everything else we’d need for the Bank of America criterium. With so much stuff weighing down the car, it was pretty much spewing sparks as we drove 10+ hours from Altoona, PA to Charlotte, NC.
Here we are crusing down the highway with four clowns making faces at the camera - obviously a very candid shot. Note the napkin tucked into my shirt collar; I have this keen ability to accidentally spill coffee on my shirt whenever driving. I’ve already spilled at this point; the napkin is to prevent future mishaps.

Charlotte is an awesome little city. Our hosts Neill and Lori have a townhouse really close to downtown Charlotte where Robbie and Rich stayed, as well as an apartment a few miles away where Tommy and I called home for the week.

Here’s a nice set of peaches. Mid week, Robbie and I drove down to Greenville, SC to scope out the courses that’ll be used for the US Pro road race and time trial courses over Labor Day weekend. Peach stands are a dime a dozen down yonder and after passing about a dozen of these stands, we decided it was high time to pay them a visit. The best part about this trip - besides the amazingly delicious fruit - is that when we asked how much 2 peaches would cost, the fruit stand man said we could have them for free! Booya. Apparently when you sell peaches by the bucketfull, dealing with peaches by the ones and twos isn’t worth his time. It’s also notworthy to point out that Robbie is not trying to blind the camera with his bleach white chest. He’s merely trying to keep cool in the 103 degree, drenching humidity.

On the way back to Charlotte, we saw an RV that had hit the deck pretty hard and caused some serious traffic back up. I think it was about 10 miles or so… Dang.

Lastly, I’d like to tell you about a sweet stunt I pulled while riding here in Michigan recently. I was riding out to Lake Michigan from Delton, which is a nice rolly 100 mile round tripper. I was enjoying a Twizzler when I hit a bump and dropped it. Usually all’s lost in this situation, but in this particular instance, the Twizzler landed on my left shoe as I cruised down the road at 20mph. Instead of panicking at the prospect of losing my Twizzler, I reached down and saved it from it’s hot, black, tarmac demise. Phew.