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.

To Lycra or not to lycra…apologies to Shakespeare

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Dear Roulers,

Way back in 2015, I stumbled across a series of cartoons by a very funny cyclist called Dave Walker here’s the link.  Mr Walker has been very busy and published a book of his work.  As means of avoiding a law suit for plagiarism, this blog entry is a shameless plug for his book. Now depending on how ‘old school’ you are, you can either walk into your nearest bookstore and take pot luck or find it on Amazon.

Now the reason for the plug. I was walking down the stairs to my employer’s locker room, when I passed a fellow MAMIL going out for a run.  No big deal, except for the really suspect choice of tight lycra shorts and top.  Most runners I know tend to go for the light weight short and tank top combination.  The choice of clothing was not helped by the MAMIL’s middle age spread, which MMT can happily report was significantly worse than his own.

Strictly speaking, MMT is throwing stones inside the glass house here and MMT is not wishing this runner into an early grave either.  This MAMIL should be wholeheartedly applauded for his endeavours.  Nevertheless, it wasn’t a great look.  Possibly a Rocky style tracksuit may have been more flattering.  However, it was this chance encounter that made me think of Mr Walker’s take on the inappropriate wearing of lyrca.

MMT says ‘chapeau’ Mr Walker.  MMT adds that lyrca should never worn on public transport, unless its accompanied by a bicycle.  Similarly, any male tendency to ‘spreading’ should be resisted.

Until next time, ride safe,

Marv

Marv’s July Bike Log

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Dear Rouleurs,

July was a much better month for cycling around Melbourne and happily MMT wasn’t too badly messed about YAFF in the form of  Laryngitis.  The highlight of the month was the two rides he had in Sydney in late July.  Unfortunately, RCC Sydney didn’t have a spare bike on short notice.  So instead, MMT turned to Livelo, which provided a very serviceable SWIFT.  More on that next blog.

This meant I exceeded my monthly target by a solid 130 km.  However the overall total yearly total is still 704 km ahead of yearly target.  That’s about 6 weeks in terms of time.  So here’s my usual graphs.  As you can see a week was lost at the start, and daily totals were much lower than last month.

Weirdly, while the monthly kilometres was up, MMT’s average suffer score fell again, May (46), June (39) and then in July (36).  MMT suspects that skipping Thursday speedfests with RCCMEL might have something to do with it.

My ride log is found here.

Until next blog, ride safe.

Marv

‘Chapeau’, Monsieur Bling !!!!

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Dear Rouleurs…Goddamit….

MMT’s mind is doing a mean impersonation of a cement mixer, rolling over and over the gunk of his employer’s latest corporate restructure. Worst still the wind has been blowing its proverbial’s off, providing shiver inducing head winds on MMT’s normal ride routes.  MMT is so sick of both these things.  So in amongst the hype of new ways of sacking people, ahem, the Tour de France concluded.

And what a race it was.  MMT can remember reading a book about the history of the TDF, where Henri Desgrange described his ideal TDF as a race where only one cyclist finished and was declared the winner.  Fortunately this year’s race didn’t come close to that apocalyptic standard.  However, of the 198 starters, only 167 finished.  The chaos of Stage 9 alone, resulted in 11 rouleurs either DNF or outside the time cut-off.

Chris Froome cemented his reputation of being the greatest drug free cyclist post world war II. But for MMT, the stand out performer was Australia’ s own Michael Matthews, the 2017 winner of the Green Jersey.  Rather have MMT wax on lyrically about, the man they call Bling here’s a plagiarised copy of what that great cycling tome, Melbourne’s Sun Herald had to say.

MMT can’t really improve that.  Except to say ‘chapeau’.

Until next time, ride safe

Marv

 

Marv’s June Bike Log

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Dear Rouleurs,

June wasn’t much fun as ‘Winter is coming’ moved into ‘Winter has returned’.  Cold temperatures and winds, meant MMT buying a new Castelli jacket and wondering why he was feeling the cold so much, this year.  The first week of was a write-off, with MMT catching Yet Another F$%&king Flu (YAFF) from his darling daughter.  Hence the month’s riding amounted to just over 600 km.    It took a few weeks to shake off as well.

This meant I exceeded my monthly target by just 50km…boo.  However the overall total yearly total is still 704 km ahead of yearly target.  That’s about 6 weeks in terms of time.  So here’s my usual graphs.  As you can see a week was lost at the start, and daily totals were much lower than last month.

Not surprisingly my suffer scores for June were way down.  Last month, MMT’s monthly average was 46.  This month its was 39.

My ride log is found here.

Until next blog, ride safe.

Marv