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.

Agile work practices are killing my blog…sob

<whinge mode>

Dear Rouleurs,

It’s been a while, since my last blog. Unfortunately the day to day drama of working in an agile workforce has become a sinkhole of wasted time. Oh well they pay me I turn up. C’est la vie…

Unfortunately, this has meant much less time to work on this blog. It’s also not helping that my adorable half pint daughter is not sleeping through the night…. Sigh. So this means much less available time and energy to do blogs and generally reflect on MMT’s experience of cycling. Happily, MMT’s weekly kilometres ridden has stayed fairly consistent since Christmas.

With the exception of a couple of minor colds and a deeply peculiar skin virus, MMT’s health has been very good. A quick glance at MMT’s Strava account reveals a steady average of 170 Kilometres a week. Hooray, MMT supposes, that for a near 50 year old man this should be cause for celebration.

</Whinge Mode>

Anyhow, enough wingeing and onto the subject of this blog. MMT spied this awesome piece of…. Street art or philosophy on the Gill’s Diner sign last week and thought it was worth putting pen to paper to publicize it.

MMT doesn’t know who chalked this memorable quote but they clearly have a strong grasp of theology. Hopefully MMT will be feeling more chipper and write a less self indulgent blog next time.

Until next time ride safe

MARV

Welcome Back to 2019

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.

Festive 500 Comparison Table

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

Cycling in the rain….

Dear Rouleurs,

the silly season is upon us again.  MMT finally managed to attend a bunch ride with the Bicycle Network this morning.  Unfortunately it was only 3 laps around Albert Park Lake.  As you may have noticed it rained very heavily in morning.  So much so that when MMT took off his shoes, two large puddles of water drained out.  As always a picture tells a story of a thousand words.

Hopefully won’t be like that tomorrow.  MMT is only 15km short of achieving 7500km for the year and achieving his annual target.

Until next time, ride safe.

MMT

Post-holiday angry rant part 3 – coffee cup thievery

Dear Rouleurs,

This blog will be the 3rd and final instalment of MMT’s angry rant series.  MMT can’t possibly maintain the rage for longer than a week, well not without really hurting someone 😉  So this angry rant is dedicated to the dickhead who nicked my Sttoke reusable coffee cup at work. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this astonishingly good and seemingly unbreakable cup, this is what they look like.

 

To the thief who heisted MMT’s cup – May you, your children and their children be cursed to drink appalling US-style coffee for the rest of their lives. 

MMT, replaced his black Sttoke with white one and wrote his fucking name and mobile phone number on it.  May be that will discourage further thievery.

Until next time, ride safe

MMT