Monthly Archives: November 2016

Mathew Hayman…take another bow..err..three actually

Dear Rouleurs,

Alas I’ve become very time poor in the downhill run to Christmas.  So this post is a cut paste of an article from the Cycling Australia website.  Once again, as cycling is such a highly visible sport in the eye in the of the average punter…NOT, they would have missed Cycling Australia’s Gala Awards night held a few weeks ago on the evening of 18th November.

There were many winners on the night..apparently, but the one that stood out for me was Mathew Hayman.

2016-matthayman-aucyclist

This is were the direct <<stolen text>> starts

Canberra’s Mathew Hayman scooped the Jayco 2016 Australian Cyclist of the Year Awards winning three major awards in front of 400 of cycling’s elite at the star studded gala dinner in Melbourne on Friday night.

Hayman was awarded the prestigious Sir Hubert ‘Oppy’ Opperman Medal & Trophy after being named the 2016 Australian Cyclist of the Year.

The 38-year-old Hayman took home the Male Road Cyclist of the Year Award, with his much celebrated victory at the Paris-Roubaix in May also earning him the adoration of thousands of fans as they voted him to the Subaru People’s Choice Award win.

This is were the direct <</stolen text>> ends.  This guy is a complete legend.

Until next time,

Marv

Melbourne…the windy city

Dear Rouleurs,

Last blog, I made a couple of throwaway lines about how f%#king windy Melbourne has been over the last few months.  Of course, copping some serious wind on my first attempt at RTB 2016 100Km version was not fun.  So it was really very, very unsurprising to come across this article, in The Age, a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately the photo of this I took is completely rubbish, so I’ve added a link to the article.

20161119-melbournewind

One paragraph in this article stood out.  Here it is fully plagarised in all its beauty.

In a month which saw 50 severe weather warnings issued and gusts reaching 80-kilometres-an-hour in Melbourne and up to 100-kilometres-an-hour in the state’s north, the wind run data for October easily surpassed the figures for the same month last year.

Tullamarine managed 14,399 kilometres in October 2015, Laverton accumulated 12,155 kilometres and Moorabbin 12,068 kilometres. Enough to comfortably get you to Buenos Aires, Salvador and Santiago respectively.

Bureau of Meteorology climatologist Blair Trewin said these measurements were 20 to 30 per cent up on data from the same month in previous years. The last October with comparable winds was 2007.

All I can say is WTF….50 wind warnings…that’s almost 2 a day and 20 to 30% more than usual.  Now, if you clicked on the link in the ’50 severe weather warnings’ you would have seen an earlier Age article.  This one  had another memorable quote and graph that is just plain horrible to look at, if you are a cyclist.

Here’s the quote:

Senior climatologist Kevin Smith said all this gusty weather comes down to several factors – a perfect storm, if you will.  Mr Smith said there were seven major storm events across Victoria during October. “We normally average about three,” he said.

Again….WTF!!! here’s the Alan Kohler style money shot graph:

20161121-windgraph

May be I need to install a motor or a sail on my bike or move to another city.  I hope summer isn’t this f#%king windy.

Until next time, ride safe…in hopefully still conditions.

Marv

Marv’s October Bike Log

Dear Rouleurs,

If September was a wet and windy month, October wasn’t much better. In fact, I’ll writing up a blog soon on an article that appeared in The Age, about how windy October 2016 was.  So here’s the log and stats for October.

October wasn’t a great month for distance travelled.  I had a few family commitments that meant by weekends and weekdays have less opportunity for cycling.  I feel that 537km was a fairly meager result given that about 20% of the total was achieved in RTB 2016.

20161118-oct-bikeloggph

I don’t have any events organised for November. But I’ll be registering in the Cadel Evans 2017 Peoples Ride shortly.  Hopefully I’ll make it to the actual start line this time, this year a really poorly timed flu put me in bed for a few days.

Until next blog, ride safe.

Marv