Tag Archives: Strava

Marv’s bike log…January 2018…where did 2017 go??

Dear Rouleurs,

As MMT’s age creeps towards the big….5…0….  sigh, he’s noticed that days just keeping slipping by at an increasing rate…boo.  There is so much to do and so many places to ride.  However, summer 2018 style has been a particularly pleasant and January was an excellent month for cycling, with lots of sun, some rain and strangely, quite a bit of humidity. The humidity came care of some heat trough that lodged itself over SE-Australia for a few weeks.  Some mornings, MMT could close his eyes and feel the warm warm moist air and think that he was in Thailand.  Ah…that’s proof that MMT is in desperate need of a holiday 😉

January was significant for a couple of other events.  First, MMT completed the ridiculous flaming, dog poo covered, jumping hoop, obstacle course that was re-applying to work with his current employer.  More on that in March, MMT hopes.  Second, MMT returned back to  the RCC crew and completed a number of speedy south side rides. Finally, MMT completed the 65km course of Cadel Evan’s Peoples Ride on a very muggy Saturday morning down in Geelong.  The last two points contributed to a bumper result for January.   Here’s my monthly graph for Janaury 2018.  Already, MMT is up on monthly target, achieving a very productive 800km even. That’s a pretty good start.

On the back of that work, MMT’s Strava graph is also very consistent.  As stated before the weather has been very good so, riding 21 out of possible 31 days, means really solid workouts on the bike.  This makes MMT very, very happy :-).  MMT’s ride log can be found here.

Before signing off, a digression about this log.  One of the things that MMT was ruminating over during the Christmas holidays was what kind of target, he should set for 2018.  Afterall, whilst MMT was YAFFed many times in 2017, he still managed nearly 8,000km.  Which is not bad for a 48 year old “Clydesdale” with a bad back, who is desperately trying to keep his weight down to something that starts with a ‘9’.  So what to do??  Well, part of the answer lies in doing a few Strava challenges to keep motivated and continuing to ride with RCC.  The final annual MMT decided on was 7500km, or approximately 145km a week.

Whole point of this effort, was three fold:

  1. Cycling is fun and MMT wants to get better at it.
  2. MMT would like to loose about 10 kg this year.
  3. MMT is aiming to complete an “l’eroica” style event in Italy or Spain, to celebrate his 50th Birthday.

So really, the 145Km target is meant to be way of getting to those goals, rather just counting kms. So there it is, why MMT keeps churning Kms and blogs.

Until next blog, ride safe.

Marv

Marv does the Cadel Evans Peoples Ride 2018

Dear Rouleurs,

Last Saturday, yours truly completed the middle distance course (65km) on the Cadel Evans Peoples Ride.  MMT did the 111km version last year, which in hindsight not the smartest of ideas, given he was still recovering from pneumonia.  That experience and the threat (and actual occurrence…) of some truly dreadful weather, scared MMT off this year.  The last 15 km of last year’s ride is something that still lingers in MMT’s mind.  Oh well.

This time MMT drove down on the morning of the event, parked in the back streets and just got to the start line ot 7am.  MMT then had to hang around 30 minutes, before being able to roll across the startline.  There were some 3,500 fellow cyclists there for the event.    Honestly, it looked a lot more than that. This photo has been creatively stolen from the Cadel Evans Road race site. Yep, C’est moi, right up the back.  Next time MMT be there at 6.30 am, to get a better spot.

 

The actual 65km ride is  ride is a pretty straightforward course.  MMT is surprised that its supposed to have 365m of climbing.  The course and profile are provided below.

2018 Course Profile

2018 Course Route

This is what MMT’s Strava account had to say about the ride.

so here’s MMT’s photo gallery.

   Getting ready for the big event…    Waiting at the start line.
   Still waiting at the start line    Crossing the start line…finally after a 30 minute wait.
   Feed zone at the beach.    View along 13th Beach.
   Another view of the feed zone.    On the road to Geelong.
  How cool is this racing trike?   Finish line in sight..hooray 😉
   Main stage in the village.    In the the village, is this Puff’s cousin?
  Team BMC signing autographs.  Looking towards the merchandising tent.

Overall, the 2018 event was really well organised.  The event seems to be growing, year to year, which is a great sign for cycling in Victoria. MMT thinks that short course of 35Km may have attracted larger numbers of recreational cyclists as opposed to Wannbes or MAMILs like MMT ;-).  About the only negative MMT experienced was the event merchandising.  The move to Santini has resulted quite nicely designed kit.  But the fitting was skin tight in the jersey which is a) a bad look on MAMILs and b) became a sweaty plastic bag after 10Km of riding.  MMT was really unimpressed with the $30 price tag of the event’s cotton cap.  MMT even overheard a fellow cyclist complaining about the quality of the cap, whilst in the Merchandising Tent.  Last year’s kit was much better value.

Until next time, ride safe.

MMT

Merry Christmas from MMT

Dear Rouleurs,

November and December have vanished in the blink of an eye, and MMT has not posted anything for over three weeks. MMT is way behind on updating his bike log.  A quick look at MMT’s Strava account reveals a grand total of almost 7,500 Km.  MMT has averaged 5 rides  and 160 Km a week all year.  Damn….thats not bad.  When MMT returns to work next year he’ll have to do the math and see where he ended up.

Santa came early for MMT.  He took delivery of a very cool and fast pair of Aeolus 5 wheels for his beloved Domane.  Whilst his wallet will hurt for a few months, the wheels have been absolutely superb and worth the $4,000 they cost.

The other nifty addition, to MMT’s never ending collection of bike paraphernalia, has been a Topeak bike seat.  This has been installed on Marv’s old Canondale F4, for the specific purpose of doing Sunday morning rides to the park with gorgeous half-pint daughter.  Here she is locked into the seat and enjoying being the centre of attention.

Change of topic, MMT scanned an article on Richie Porte a few months ago.  He’s Tasmania’s (er…Australia’s as well) best chance to win the Tour de France next year.  He had a horrific stack this year breaking his pelvis among other things.  You can see the screen capture of this incident, that I posted a few months ago.  The good news is that he is back training.  Another interesting development was the departure of Simon Gerrans to Porte’s Team BMC Racing.  That could make for a very interesting combination on the road next year.  Anyhow here’s blatant breach of copyright from Herald Sun a few months ago.

So finally, MMT and famil would like to wish any that may have accidently stumbled across this blog, a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2018.

Until next time, ride safe.

Marv

 

 

 

2017 Cadel Evans People’s Ride

Dear Rouleurs,

Life as daddy day care has continued at pace.  So much so that MMT has realised that he’s only got about 4 weeks left before he returns to work… the horror….Nooooo!!!!.  MMT had a long ‘do to’ list that hasn’t quite worked.  One of those items, that has been sadly neglected, has been this blog. Whilst MMT has been on the bike, training with his new club Rapha Cycling Melbourne and doing longer versions of the events he did last year, not much blogging has been occurring.  Another new development for MMT was signing up for Strava for the first time this year. At some point in the not too distant future, MMT will write about what it’s like to be a new member of RCC and his impression’s of Strava.

The subject of this blog is one of those recently completed events, the 2017 Cadel Evan’s Peoples Ride. Team MMT stayed in Geelong three nights to soak up the atmosphere of, what event organisers are hoping will be become, a modern one day classic. Team MMT really enjoyed the ‘buzz’ around Geelong for the race.  The event village, finish/start line and sponsor’s pavilions were ideally located on the foreshore.  Good weather for the People’s Ride, Men’s and Women’s races seemed to draw the crowds out around the course.

MMT’s first attempt of the  111 Km version of the People’s ride was pretty tough experience. A quick look of the course profile can provide some insight into why this so.  The first 50Km or so is easy and very scenic, particularly the segment between Barwon Waters and Torquay.  However the fun starts on the hills just outside of Bells Beach where a vicious ‘W’ shape contains the KOM climb. Looking at Strava, these hills range between 4.5 and 6% on average.  Honestly, they felt much tougher than that and I had to walk some of last two.  Happily MMT made it over the top of the KOM by myself.  After that it’s quite manageable up to the final Aid Station Moriac at kilometre 82.  After that it begins to become quite nasty. There are 6 steep climbs in the backend of the course that I found difficult.

This is not a pretty picture !!

By far the nastiest of these is the very last section, Queens Park Road to Melville St, which if Strava is to be believed, ranges from 5% to a whopping 19%.  That’s a proper Belgian Col and I only saw one guy make it up over the top.  How the pros ride over this hill three times, fast, is a mystery to me. The other sections range in the 5 to 7%, with the hills around Ceres (up to 7%) and Scenic Road (up to 11%) being the toughest. I think I had to walk on least four of them.  I was really underdone coming into this event. Next time I’ll need to add some hills to my training and not get pneumonia.

Opps!! 114km or 111km, printer error.

On the course itself, I have to say that I though the positioning of the aid stations was really off.  The Aid Station in Torquay, should have been after the first climbs, not before it.  The first aid station, intended for the shorter course, I assume, was at kilometre 29 in Barwon Heads.  The Torquay station was less than 20 kms further down the road, on the flat part of the course.  In hindsight I would have stopped there and not Barwon Heads.  Moriac station was about 35km further on.  The finish line was another 29Km after that.

IMHO, the Torquay station should have been a few kilometres after the KOM at kilometre 62.  Similarly the Moriac Station should have been around kilometre 92.  The printed collateral which I’ve re-produced here, also had some errors.  First the long version course was 111km not 114km.  Not sure why there was a screw up measuring the distance.  Also the distance between the stations was completely wrong.  Not sure who has been doing their proof reading.

So here’s my Strava log for the event.  Have to say that a Suffer Score of 136 is not something MMT would hope to repeat anytime soon.

So onto a few photos, some taken by MMT, others by course photographers.  Happily, none of these guys took a photo of me walking up a hill 🙂

On the starting line.

Crap selfie of moi. I’m showing nerves

On the road, near Torquay.

In the hills of the last 25km.

Moriac rest stop. Nice bikes 🙂

Nearly there, a few km from the finish in Geelong

So the big question is will Team MMT try this tough course again next year??

Until next time, ride safe

Marv