Dear Rouleurs,

Where does the time go?? It’s been quite a few weeks since MMT managed to knock out a post on this blog. Christmas chaos aside, MMT completed his second ever Festive 500. Woo hoo. In the 2018 version, MMT managed 520 km and ranked 11,525 out of a possible 55,645, which is not bad for 100Kg Clydesdale nearing the big 5-0 (…sigh…were does the time go…). Incidentally, that was 20km more than last year. If my venerable Garmin 510 hadn’t messed up on way point mapping it would have been 531km. Which might have bumped MMT, up the leader board, a few places. MMT digresses.

MMT has done some initial analysis on his 2017 and 2018 efforts.   MMT was surprised that there wasn’t actually that much difference.  2018 was slightly quicker in overall elapsed time but took one more ride.  MMT varied his ride strategy by doing laps around Albert Park Lake for active recovery. This has had the unexpected benefit of increasing his stamina. That particular course only has one traffic light, which meant chunks of 5km or 10 km being ridden without break at 25 -30 km/h. Its also quite mentally, therapeutic, particularly if you can lap behind someone doing roughly the same speed. Its possible to tune out and ‘feel’ the bike on the road. That’s entirely too much zen… 😉

So here’s some pretty stats. The first is a summary table comparing 2017 to 2018.

The second set of stats is this graph which compares the daily accumulated kilometres ridden for both events.

This time round, the best day MMT had on the bike, was the 27/12. MMt managed 104km at an average speed was 28Km/h. MMT’s worst day was the 29/12, when it rained quite heavily after a number of warm days. With in 20 minutes of leaving home MMT had to fix 2 flat tires. Both were on the front. The second was a result of his own stupidity, failing to check the tire, which still had a very large piece of glass in it.

The photo below was taken outside the Seaman’s Mission in Docklands. Its a good thing, that this wasn’t a selfie, MMT wasn’t a happy camper at the time.

Since the Festive 500, MMT has made an effort to re-connect with RCC and the Laps with Chats ride on Friday morning and has ridden the 2019 Cadel Evans Peoples Ride. The next blog will probably be about that ride.

Until next time, ride safe

MMT