Author Archives: Marv

About Marv

A avid but amateur cyclist who regularly commutes to work, rides for exercise and completes the occasional long distance event. I also write a very poor blog marvmadethis.com about the joys of work/life/cycling balance with his long suffering wife and 2 little angels under the age of 5.

Its been a very long time….

Dear Rouleurs,

Its been nearly 6 months since MMT last wrote a blog. MMT is not sure how that time slipped past…so fast. So a quick catch up is in order. MMT rode 11,000+ km in 2021, which is awesome. COVID enforced work from home agrees with MMT. MMT is not looking forward back to the office. Booooo……

So the other big news was that MMT’s oldest bundle of joy is now riding her bike to and from school and is off training wheels. MMT is a very, very proud dad and is looking forward to short rides to the park and school for the next 12 months.

There are two other cycling events that caught MMT’s eye in the past 6 months. The first was the classic underdog victory of Austrian Anna Kiesenhofer in the 2021 Olympic Women’s Road Race.

Here's....Anna...
Dear God…how much further to the finish line??

The Austrian attacked from the gun as part of a five-rider break that managed to build a lead of 11 minutes before she dropped her breakaway companions on the Kagosaka Pass with 41km to go and held off the entire bunch to take gold. For further details about how the race was won and in the case of the Dutch women’s team, lost read the following Cycling News article.

The second was an astonishing piece of daredevilry from the forgotten Slovenian Matej Mohoric who won the 2022 Milan-San Remo. Mohoric attacked on the descent from the Poggio with a winning combination of his impressive (bordering suicidal 🙂 descending skills and a mountain bike dropper seatpost.

Spot the dropper post
Its so light I can pick it up with one hand…

It is well worth watching the last ten minutes of that race on replay on SBS or GCN. If not you can read about on Cycling News here.

So that’s it from MMT. Enjoy the spring classics and ride safe until next time.

MMT

Normal transmission has resumed…with fury

Dear Rouleurs,

It has been a while. MMT has been decompressing from an awful AFL season, work, 2 weeks of non-COVID respiratory illness and child induced deprivation. Much to his surprise he’s discovered that nearly 2 months has passed since his last blog entry. It really does seem such a long, long time ago. In that time, the La Vuelta, Olympics, UCI World Championships and….finally an actual Paris-Roubaix with rain and mud, have occurred. MMT will spend some mulling that over in a future blog.

However what is really on MMT’s mind is bicycle maintenance, bike shops, Shimano parts and COVID…again. MMT took his beloved Trek Domane SLR 6 in for a service, after an irritating creaking noise started a 3 month old replacement bottom bracket. MMT figured that some crud had flicked up off the road and strategically landed in the bearings. Sadly this turned out to be worn out crankset that simply wasn’t sitting on the bearings correctly. Mine you it took MMT to chase up the said bike shop to find that out.

Whilst chasing up bike shops to do their jobs, isn’t a new experience for MMT, being told that he had no hope in the short term of replacing the Shimano Ultegra 50-34t with similar model. Shimano has no available parts in Australia and there was no indication when they would be come available. Surprise!!! its been seriously impacted by COVID. A quick Google seemed to confirm that no one local seemed to have them either. Instead the said bike offered a silver Durace 53-39t….WTF. The good news is that crank is $400 and could be resold, the bad news is that it doesn’t match the rest of the group set in brand or colour and will be an absolute bitch to pedal up hill….sigh.

So with had recent experience MMT returned to the solace of the wonderful cycling cartoonist Dave Walker. Here’s what Dave drew that exactly capture the ripped off feeling MMT has.

MMT seems to be practising acceptance in lieu of the alternative which means putting the Domane up on a rack in the garage until parts become available. Levels of fury indeed.

Until next time, stay safe, ride well.

MMT.

The return of Richmonditis…the end of an era

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT’s enjoyment of AFL has been greatly reduced by the sudden loss of form from his beloved Richmond team. Tumbling from 7w 5l to 9w 12l as of today. Pretty much everything that could go wrong has gone, losing close games, night club indiscretions and a lascerated kidney for Dustin Martin all against the background of the COVID pandemic.

Now season is being closed out with retirements of club stalwarts, rumours of feuds with AFL HQ and general bad tempered sniping from Carolyn Wilson. This is all just starting to feel like 2012 to 2016…sigh. MMT just has this feeling after watching the young Swans team dismantle Richmond at the G on a sunny Saturday afternoon that things were amiss. The impression was further deepened by the trouncings the Tigers received from Geelong and Melbourne.

So where to now Tigers, what is the future without Cotchin, Martin, Riewoldt, Edwards, Grimes, Caddy?? Premiers 2020 to rebuild in 2022? Still 2017 to 2020 has been a thing of beauty. Lets hope the next premiership isn’t 37 years in the making.

Richmond tragic to the end,

Marv

Are Specialized road bike riders the equivalent of middle aged Porche drivers?

Dear Rouleurs,

It has been a while. MMT has been busy with his day job and whilst he’s been cycling plenty, post-YAFV, there hasn’t been must time for blogging. So this post is an instant remedy to that situation. Speaking of remedies, MMT has received his first COVID vaccination, this year’s flu shot and is booked in for the second COVID shot in August. As Victoria is back in Lockdown 4.0 (really…who could be bothered counting these things :-), MMT urges everyone in Australia to get vaccinated…now. Seriously, what could be more important than being vaccinated against a life threatening illness.

MMT digresses. So whilst being out and about, MMT has occasionally crossed paths with an unknown Specialized road cyclist. MMT reckons that he’s seen this rider a few times heading to or from Mordialloc, always wearing Specialized clothing and riding a Specialized roadbike. This rider is reasonably fast, pretty grumpy but not Peter Sagan. MMT couldn’t identify the make of the bike but wonders whether the following applies. See graphic below.

It is interesting what a quick internet search reveals, such as this opinion by https://www.probikecorner.com/is-specialized-bike-overpriced/

“Specialized offers some of the most expensive bikes on the market. While they do go on sale on occasion, even their sale price is going to be more expensive than 99% of bikes from competing manufacturers.”

Or this from Bike Radar – https://www.bikeradar.com/features/why-are-bikes-so-expensive/

Ouch…so really is Specialized the equivalent of Porche or BMW? If so what does that say about individual that buys one? Middle crisis victim or merely appreciating the finer things in life?

Until next, stay safe, get vaccinated and ride lots

MMT