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