Tag Archives: Michael Matthews

Tempus Fugit…or how MMT learned to love ZWIFT

Dear Rouleurs

Where does the time go?? August has zipped past and MMT has done almost no work on this blog.  Last blog, MMT was willing Julian Alaphillipe on to win the TDF 2019.  Then a couple of really interesting and unexpected events occurred.  Alaphilippe finally cracked at altitude, many days after the pundits predicted.  He finished a highly credible fifth in the GC.   Geraint Thomas passed the baton of team leader to a hitherto unknown 22 year old Colombian Egan Bernal wrote himself into the history books.  In between there was the landslide on stage 18 that caused the stage to be abandoned and stage 19 to be shortened. MMT is still seeking to source a copy of Procycling to read the event summary.  This race was one for the ages.

MMT has shamelessly stolen the GC and Sprinter’s results from the letour.fr  I’m sure that the UCI and ASO lawyers have better things to do than sue MMT for breach of copyright 😉

Here’s the GC Top 10 rankings

Probably the two biggest disappointments where Richie Porte failing to fire a single shot in the race and seeing the emotional abandonment of Roman Bardet.

Here’s the Sprinter’s Top 10 rankings

Isn’t it great that 2 former Orica/GreenEdge and Aussies, Caleb Ewan and Michael Matthews finished in the top ten.  Caleb Ewan’s 3 stage wins means that Robbie McEwan’s record of 12 is now on notice.

Now the other big thing going on in MMT’s life is ZWIFT….yes that’s right MMT bought a very expensive but really good TACX Neo 2 trainer.  Clearly the ZWIFT advertising in the TDF got to MMT.  MMT has done almost 500 km and 3600m of climbing.  In short, MMT was surprised at how tough some ZWIFT courses were.  Doing a 9km lap round virtual Central Park NY contains about 150m of climbing some which is 12%+.  MMT is knackered after 3 laps.  Similarly London has some nasty punchy hills.  There’s a Strava segment called Tempus Fugit, which consists of boards laid over the top of a stairwell coming up from a tunnel running under the Thames, is 15%.

Doing ZWIFT at night, after the junior members of Team MMT have gone to bed, has been a tough ask.  Nevertheless, MMT has done a minimum of 2 sessions a week and generally enjoyed the experience.  The TACX trainer has all manner of tricks, being able simulate running over rough ground, like cobbles and being able to free wheel down virtual hills.  As it give fairly accurate power readings, MMT was greatly disappointed to discover how few watts he was actually generating.

So that’s it from MMT. It’s time to start listening to la Vuelta podcasts.  Until next, ride safe.

MMT

Take a bow Alberto, you just won the Ronde

Dear Rouleurs,

This week MMT is very,very sleep deprived. A good portion of that sleep debt accrued last Sunday night. SBS, broadcast live, the last 170km of the Ronde van Vlaanderen 2019. MMT made to the 43 km mark before his need for sleep became greater than his need to see who won.

MMT had a quick scan of Eurosports on Monday morning to discover that, a 25 year old Italian Alberto Bettiol from Education First had won. Bettiol executed a perfectly timed attack with 17 km to go, on the Oude Kwaremont and then held off, a bunch containing most of the pre-race favourites.

Bettiol completed the brutual 270km course in Six hours 18 minutes and 49 seconds after setting off from Antwerp. Bettiol dropped down into time trial mode to the finish alone as his rivals hesitated and attacked each other rather chasing him down.

Bettiol claimed his first ever UCI win, whilst the likes of Sagan, Valvarde, Naesen, Pollit, Kristoff, Benoot and a very frustrated Van Avermaet could not work together. Silly boys…..

There were 3 other really notable rides in the race, beside Bettiol. MMT raises his cap and offers a respectful ‘chapeau!’ to:

Dane Kasper Asgreen of Deceuninck-QuickStep, who spent most of the day in the breakaway and still managed a late a late chase to finish 14 seconds down on Bettiol, as a worthy second place. Pity he didn’t receive earlier support form his team. He clearly had the best legs of the star-studded Belgian team.

Mathieu van der Poel of the small Dutch team, Corendon-Circus, who crashed at speed after hitting some street furniture. The Dutchman rode like a demon to catch and pass the peloton and then contest the finish to nab fourth. The irony being that he can’t compete in this weekend’s Paris-Roubaix.

Australia’s own Michael Matthews of Team Sun Web, who finished 6th. Matthews was dropped on the final bergs and had to fight his way back to contest the bunch spirit. This follows on from his 12th in Milano-San Remo. Matthews is developing into a very capable classics rider.

So speaking of the Ronde, MMT is reading an excellent book on the race by Edward Pickering and had intended to finish it before the race started.

https://www.amazon.com/Ronde-Inside-Worlds-Toughest-Bike-ebook/dp/B072N15JFW

There’s one paragraph that MMT, just had to ‘liberate’ and include in this blog, which describes how fluid bike races can be:

This is the story of a bike race. Bike races are simple. Mostly, riders start in one place, finish in another and the first to cross the line wins. Bike races are also complex: tree diagrams of events leading to outcomes leading to more outcomes and so on. They are possibly the best example of chaos theory in sport. Compare the constrictive dimensions of a football field and the prescriptive tactical shape of the teams with the infinite possibilities of 200 riders on a road, out in the real world of weather, landscape and human culture.

Alas the other major factor in his sleep debt, his 3 year old daughter, the ginger ninja, is causing MMT to fall asleep after 3 pages of reading. After reading about some of these famous bergs, MMT is determined to visit Belgium and try riding up some of less ridiculously steep one.

Speaking of ridiculously difficult rides, MMT will add to his sleep debt this weekend with the SBS coverage of the Paris-Roubiax. MMT can’t wait for that race hopefully it will be just as exciting as the Ronde.

Until next time, ride safe,

MMT

MMT does the TDF 2018 – part 1

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT can’t wait for the weekend and the bulk binge of SBS Tour de France (TDF) highlight packages he intend to watch.  Sadly, Michael Matthews has already withdrawn from the TDF with some form of YAFF and will not defend his green jersey from last year.  Mind you it looks like Peter Sagan already has this in the bag, with none of the other sprinters really doing too much.  It looks like the changing of the guard is starting to occur.  Yes I’m looking at you Messrs Kittel, Greipel and Cavendish.

However, MMT is much more interested in the fate of the remaining Australian’s competing this year.  To this end, MMT has put together a General Classification focused graph showing how remaining ten Australian’s are going.  MMT had considered including non-Australian members of the Michelton-Scott team eg Daryl Impey and Adam Yates, but thought better of it.  So here’s the graph.

 What this reveals, is that Australia’s only GC rider, Richie Porte is having a fair crack, being 11th on overall time.  The next best Australian is Simon Clarke in 70th.  Everyone else is outside the first 100, which is consistent with these guys being either team captains eg Simon Gerrans or domestiques eg Luke Durbridge.

MMT will update this graph next week. Hopefully Richie Porte is in the top 5 by then.  MMT is really looking forward to stage 9, which retraces most if the Paris-Roubaix route.  While a GC rider may not win the tour on this stage, they certainly can lose it by either crashing out or losing time on the back of pack splitting the peloton.  Either way MMT can’t wait….woo hoo!!

Until next time, ride safe

MARV

Woo hoo….TDF 2018 starts tomorrow tonight

Dear Rouleurs,

June was a write-off for cycling and blogging.  The whole month just slipped by in the blink of an eye and MMT had all these plans for the 2 R’s of his life.  That would be Riding and wRiting.  Ok that’s a bit of stretch 😉  But MMT is thrilled that the Tour De France starts tomorrow night, that its actually being broadcast on SBS.  The whole streaming thing for the Giro was just too bloody hard, a return to more conventional broadcasting is a good thing.

MMT wishes all the Aussies starting tomorrow in Grand Departee from Noirmoutier-en-Lile, good luck and a zero crash day.  The parcours look to suit the sprinters, as its almost dead flat.  Fingers crossed for Team Sunweb’s Michael Matthews.

Until next time, ride safe.