It’s that time of year again. Cyclo-cross season is well and truly over so what else is there to do than lust over hot bikes?

Sacha White of Vanilla Bicycles fame produces some of the most lust worthy bikes out there. Unfortunately for most, with a multi-year waiting list they are for the most part just something to desire rather than actually own and ride. However at 8am on April 1st Sacha will be opening up the waiting list for 30 production frames under the SpeedVagen name which will be built in time for the 07/08 cyclo-cross season.

Sacha’s personal SpeedVagen was on display at the NAHMBS and the production models will be similar. With an emphasis on ultra simplicity, light-weight and ultra stiff braking system the framesets will be offered in single or multispeed versions. One interesting point is the integrated seatpost which uses Thomson guts and offers 10mm of adjustablity as well as housing a stainless tube that the rear brake cable is routed though.

Whatever your thoughts on the integrated seatpost’s practicality, Sacha continues to integrate subtle refinements into a traditionally constructed and aesthetically beautiful bicycle. I wonder how long it will take the 30 of these to be snatched up?

For more details see Bike Portland’s blog and the SpeedVagen website.

So sometimes I get home from work and can’t bring myself even to figure out what to make for dinner, let alone make it. Other times I spend from 6-10pm cooking, eating and cleaning up the mess. Last Thursday was one of the latter occasions. I decided to make some kind of Dim Sum. I ended up adapting this recipe to make char siu bao. I didn’t have all of the ingredients and it was kind of a spur of the moment decision so I made the following substitutions:

• I used firm tofu instead of pork, to make it vegan, duh! i was gonna use frozen but i remembered when i no longer had time to thaw it. I cubed it before marinating and fried it for longer than the recipe said. I also added green onions into the filling.
• It was hard to tell what consistency the dough was meant to end up as I hand mixed it. I ended up using about 1/2cup +2Tbs water in the dough instead of 3/4cup. It worked fine.
• Sunflower instead of sesame oil
• Cranberry juice instead of pomegranate
• Agave instead of molasses
• 1Tbsp white wine + 1Tbsp mirin instead of sake

Here are the results: