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.

Zoom, Zoom, Froome…Apologies to Mazda

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Dear Roulers,

Alas work and other parts of my life have been interfering with New Year’s resolution to blog weekly.  Rats………

However, MMT was very excited to watch the recent Herald Sun Prolog held last Wednesday 3rd February.  For some reason MMT has managed to miss this event in previous years, but not this time.  Located between 50m to go marker and the finish line, I managed to take a few reasonable photos as the riders zipped by.

The 2 km course, was very technical and had a mix of surfaces, acute corners and proximity to the crowd that some of the riders would have found disconcerting.  Nevertheless, last year’s winner Will Clarke and and runner up Caleb Ewan were again first and second over the same course.

20160203-PrologCourse

However, my favourite moment was watching Chris Froome sprint past, which I managed to capture in this sequence of photos.  I’m guessing that this is about as close as I will ever get to a Tour de France winner, without being tackled by a security guard.

 20160203-CFroome-01
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20160203-CFroome-04
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MMT is relived that no blatant breach of copyright will occur in this latest blog, for a change.

Until next time, ride safe on the roads

Marv

 

Marv’s Jan 2016 Bike Log

 

Dear Rouleurs,

I’m a bit pissed off.  I spent the last two weeks afflicted by a stomach bug and chest inflection.  The first illness wiped out a long planned Australia Day holiday at Apollo Bay.  The second, prevented me from riding in the Cadel Evans Peoples Ride this week.  In short, this ruined my preparation and left me with a lingering chesty cough.  Bummer….oh well.

Peter Kennaugh wins the 2016 Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Classic

Peter Kennaugh wins the 2016 Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Classic

Having watched the men’s road race today, it looks like Australia has new one day classic on its cycling calendar.  I thought Team Sky’s Peter Kennaugh’s win today was outstanding, with his attack on the final climb of the last lap, showed impeccable timing.  The resulting gap extended out to 20 seconds which left the high tempo exhausted peloton with too much do.  Local rider Leigh Howard, riding for IAM Cycling, finished second.  May be we’ll see an Australian win next year.

2016-Jan-AccKmGraph

So looking at my cycling log for January, I’m seeing so-so start to the year.  Weeks 2 and 3 were blessed with good weather, light traffic and few disruptions.  Weeks 4 and 5 haven’t been as anywhere as productive. So I’m slightly below my target for week 5.  Bummer…

I guessing Feburary will be a big month to get this back on track.

Until next blog ride safe.

Marv

A very cool Christmas present…The Evolution of Bicycles Puzzle

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Dear Rouleurs,

Warning!!! this blog may be a shameless plug for a cool present.

My Wife has picked up on my obession with cycling. Probably, Its because
it has taken over my vocabulary, daily conversation, caused re-routing of holiday trips and
arguments over what’s on the telly. I digress 🙂 However, she has
embraced this change in my personality with aplomp and for Christmas 2015
gave me a very cool present. I have no idea where she bought this
in Melbourne.

<Shameless-Plug> but it can be purchased direct from the retailer Pop Chart Lab at: https://www.popchartlab.com/products/the-evolution-of-bicycles-puzzle </Shameless-Plug>

Essentially its a 500 piece poster of 75 illustrations of notable and famous bikes
from 1780 to the present day. It was pretty tricky puzzle that tested my
mid-fourties eyesight to its limit. However, it was a wonderful way to spend
some quality time with my partner and marvel at how the form and function of
the humble bicycle has changed over the years.

So here’s a picture of the “beastie”, after 8 hours of eye-straining puzzle
solving. Yes ,the background is brown stripe table cloth…yuk 😉
20160120-BikePuzzleAs an aside, how good is it to see Channel 9 doing a decent job of the
Tour Down Under coverage. Congrats to Caleb Ewen and Mark Renshaw for 1st-2nd
finish in the first stage.  I wonder if we ever see that combination in the same UCI team some day.

Until next time

Marv

Yes I feel the need, the need for speed

 

Dear Rouleurs

I just has to share this cartoon. I’ve swiped it off this very good blog. Hope the author has more readers than I do 😉

https://humancyclist.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/faster-without-training-or-money/

Yes I feel the need, the need for speed :-)

Yup… only a cyclist would understand this.

Hopefully the really crappy weather that’s hovered over Melbourne for the last 48 hours will disappear tomorrow. I’m keen to go riding and test out my new drive train.

Later

Marv