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.

And….we’re back in 2018 and MMT is feeling festive ;-)

Dear Rouleurs,

It’s the second day of 2018, MMT is already been on the bike and churning out kilometres.  First things first,  MMT completed Rapha’s Festive 500, for the first time.  Here’s his log, written on the ever-so-stylish Rapha chit.

MMT cycled every day betwen the 27-12-2017 and the 30-12-2017, to finish the challenge with a day to spare.

At some point MMT will have to write a short blog about this challenge, which proved to be tough, mainly to muscle fatigue and horrible headwinds. Also, disappointingly, there didn’t appear to be any decent coffee shops in Frankston, which made 3 of rides particularly difficult…sigh 😉 All the rides were dutifully recorded on MMT’s strava log.

 Damn…MMT’s legs hurt after that second 100km ride.  As Jens Voight would say ‘shut up legs’…But still its worth all the pain to know that MMT finished 11,921st out of  69,622 who completed the challenge….giggle 🙂

Anyhow that the first blog for the year over and done with.

Until next time, ride safe.

Marv

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

 

 

 

Ode to TISM and Dior BMX

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT has long been a fan of Melbourne’s ultimate underground band ‘This Is Serious Mum’ aka TISM.  MMT believes that members of self-entitled Gen-Y should be forced to listen to TISM as means to increase their self-awareness.

For example, the song What Are Ya? should be played on rotation to hipsters:

You’re a yob or you’re a wanker
Take your fucking choice
So who is your favourite genius
James Hird or James Joyce?

You ever seen a live performance?
Join the wanker club
You thought I meant table top dancing?
You’re a yobbo, bub

I digress.  MMT was driven to this latest burst of hostility after skim reading today’s AFR (yup I’m a wanker 😉 but he was trying to figure what to do about his superannuation) when he encountered this:

For the love of God…$4,300 for BMX/fashion statement.  Contrary, to what the AFR writer/wanker says, MMT can and will resist the urge to buy something like this.  Also its really not that stylish.  Clearly, if you are buying one of these things you have too much money.

YOU ARE A COMPLETE WANKER.

Think again and donate the same amount of cash to a worthwhile charity.

Ok that’s my moralising rant finished.  TISM please make a comeback and release a new album, the world needs you.

MMT

 

Time to build an Ark??

Dear Rouleurs,

MTT was walking past one his workplace’s TVs when he noticed Emergency Services putting out a state wide warning for Victoria, for the next three days.  A quick search of BOM revealed the following:

Significant and widespread flooding is likely across most of Victoria from Friday onwards.

A large high pressure system near New Zealand continues to direct a hot and humid northeasterly airstream over Victoria. A trough of low pressure crossing the Bight will reach western Victoria late today then become slow moving. A low pressure system will develop on the trough over northwestern Victoria on Friday then drift slowly southeastwards over the weekend.

Heavy rain and scattered thunderstorms are likely to develop in the far west during Thursday night into Friday before extending across the remaining parts of the State during Friday. The heavy rain and thunderstorm activity will continue on Saturday and Sunday.

Three day totals of around 100-200 mm are expected across most of northern and central regions of the State. Elsewhere totals are likely to be between 30 and 100 mm. The highest totals are expected over the northeast ranges, where three day totals may exceed 250 mm.

GOOD LORD…Is this really how summer is going to start?? The synoptic charts are spectacular.

I’m guessing that I won’t be doing too much riding on the weekend…boo 🙁

Until ride safe, avoiding ridiculous thunder storms and floods.

Marv