Category Archives: Urban Cycling

Cermanic Speed is the future of road bike drive trains….WTF??

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT is still grappling with time poverty and sleep deprivation. With Bubba Mark 2, only 3 months away, MMT is beginning to think this will be a tough year. As harbinger of things to come, MMT watched Richmond’s AFL premiership hopes for 2019 nose dive last week. Alex Rance hobbled off the MCG with a season ending ACL injury. So AFL may not be a source of solace for the coming winter either. MMT digresses.

When MMT feels this out of sorts, thinking about buying a new bike always cheers MMT up. In the deep contemplation of road vs commuter vs gravel bikes as alternate replacements for MMT’s Venerable Wilier Laverdo, He re-discovered last years announcement from Ceramic Speed, a Danish bike components company.

Sometime in September 2017, ceramic Speed released a prototype road bike that contained a radical new drive train. This drive train based on a drive shaft rather than a chain meant that its power efficiency could reach 99%. That’s damn impressive and could give a rider a very significant speed advantage over his chain equipped competitors.  According to Ceramic Speed, a standard chain based drive train, like Shimano Durace has a maximum efficiency of 97%.

All of this is achieved by a pinion style drive shaft system. A total of 21 bearings play a crucial role in the functionality and efficiency of Driven. The bearings transfer torque from the front ring through the drive shaft, then onto the 13-speed rear cog.

Engineering aside, it looks amazing, like something out of a science fiction movie. MMT …sooooo… wants a bike that has this. No doubt this will cost big bucks when its eventually productionised and available to mug punters like MMT.

MMT could imagine Dave Brailsford, Manager of the team formerly known as Sky, signing up for this. One wonders how Shimano, Campagnolo and SRAM will respond to this incredible looking piece of engineering. All of this speculation cheered up MMT no end.

Until Next time, Ride safe

MARV

Agile work practices are killing my blog…sob

<whinge mode>

Dear Rouleurs,

It’s been a while, since my last blog. Unfortunately the day to day drama of working in an agile workforce has become a sinkhole of wasted time. Oh well they pay me I turn up. C’est la vie…

Unfortunately, this has meant much less time to work on this blog. It’s also not helping that my adorable half pint daughter is not sleeping through the night…. Sigh. So this means much less available time and energy to do blogs and generally reflect on MMT’s experience of cycling. Happily, MMT’s weekly kilometres ridden has stayed fairly consistent since Christmas.

With the exception of a couple of minor colds and a deeply peculiar skin virus, MMT’s health has been very good. A quick glance at MMT’s Strava account reveals a steady average of 170 Kilometres a week. Hooray, MMT supposes, that for a near 50 year old man this should be cause for celebration.

</Whinge Mode>

Anyhow, enough wingeing and onto the subject of this blog. MMT spied this awesome piece of…. Street art or philosophy on the Gill’s Diner sign last week and thought it was worth putting pen to paper to publicize it.

MMT doesn’t know who chalked this memorable quote but they clearly have a strong grasp of theology. Hopefully MMT will be feeling more chipper and write a less self indulgent blog next time.

Until next time ride safe

MARV

Post-holiday angry rant part 2 – ute driving bogans

Dear Rouleurs,

This blog will be part 2 in a 3 part series in what MMT is now calling his Angry Rant series. MMT was going to write about the theft of hisbeloved black, Sttoke coffee cup. That will now be part 3. However a close encounter with another bogan dickhead in a ute, this morning, left MMT fuming and now a few hours later somewhat amused.

MMT was cruising past Elwood Beach at about 6:45am when some bogan dickhead rolled down the passenger side window of a white flat bed ute to scream “Get off the road!!”. MMT gave the bogan dickhead the middle finger and continued on his way. About 5 minutes later, the bogan dickhead passes me again with the same ridiculous outburst. This time MMT is prepared with an iphone  handy. The bogan dickhead ute has been stopped by traffic lights on St Kilda Road. MMT catches up and starts taking photos.

As you the reader can see, MMT snapped the licence plate, YBM 890, the make of the ute, Mitsubishi Triton and a good close up of this loser covering his face. If that’s not a sign of guilt, then MMT is not sure what else would be more damning. May be video evidence would do the trick.  My guess this bogan may have had a ‘oh shit’ moment, where suddenly something that must have been amusing to him, has suddenly become something with potentially nasty consequences.  MMT wonders if this P-plate driver doesn’t have some ‘form’ or ‘priors’.

Stiil, it Just goes to show the civilising power of a mobile phone with a camera, can level the playing field. If there had been less traffic around MMT would have stopped and taken further photos.   Not so chipper now Mr Bogan Dickhead, are you??  Oh well. So the question is what to do with this ‘smoking gun’ other than naming and shaming in this blog.

Either way I offer a heartfelt ‘Vaffanculo!!!’ with the appropriate hand gesture to this bogan dickhead.

Marv

The snow in Spain has fallen mainly on the plains…brrhhhh!!!

Dear Rouleurs,

Team MMT has journied to San Sebastián via Salamanca and Burgos, since MMT’s last blog.  Up until 72 hours ago the gods of weather had smiled fortuitously. Then a wicked cold front came whistling in off the Atlantic Ocean to bring rain, wind and send the mercury plummeting.  So much so that it snowed down to the 600m level across Spain.  This included Burgos and Avila, places MMT had passed through only days before.  So that has meant zero beach weather in San Sebastián, although the skies and seas around the city have been spectacular to watch.  MMT digresses.

MMT has a number of holiday happy snaps of some pretty interesting bikes he has seen parked on the street in various Spainish cities so far.

Madrid

This old track bike was seen in the back streets of La Latina. Zeus seems like such a grand name for a model of fixie.

Another interesting urban bike, parked near Tirso de Molina metro station. This one is manufactured by Felt Racing.

Salamanca

This is one of the more interesting ‘bikes’ MMT has ever seen. Spotted in the Plaza Mayor, Salamanca, this gentleman was out riding with a bunch of mates on a Sunday morning.

Burgos

This wonderful custom three wheeler was presumably being used by for deliverys for the local tavern it was advertising. Spotted in Burgos.

MMT has taken a few photos of Brompton bikes over the years, but has never seen a kiddie passenger seat added to the frame. Spotted just up the road from Team MMT’s Airbnb apartment, Burgos, Spain.

San Sebastián

This wonderful old hybrid Orbea took pride of place on in the San Telmo Museum, San Sebastián.

This Mate bike was parked outside of Team MMT’s favourite Patisserie in central San Sebastián. Has there ever been more attachments added to folding hybrid e-bike?? It should come as no surprise that this bike is manufacturer in Copenhagen.

So there you have it. Could there be a more different set of bicycles published in a single blog anywhere in the world?? MMT thinks not 😉

Until next time ride safe

MMT