Category Archives: Bike Log

Marv’s April Ride Log

Dear Rouleurs,

Usually, MMT writes his monthly ride blog, a few days after the end of the month.  Unfortunately this hasn’t been the case for April.  In fact, it’s almost 4 weeks late, which means MMT doesn’t really remember too much about April other than a very nice week away in Phuket over Easter.  That short holiday feels a long time ago.  The good news was that I wrote up my log page in early May, which means its a lot more informative that this abbreviated ‘puff’ piece.

MMT’s April 2018 log can be found here.

The graphic form of the log is presented below.  Now as of April 2018, Strava no longer do a suffer score.  Its been replaced by some comparative measure based on your previous rides on a given route.  This means that MMT’s month suffer score graph will be discontinued….grrhhh.  MMT will have to figure out what to do with the new data.

As you can see not much happened in the first week of April and that he only just creeped past his monthly target.

Also MMT hasn’t ridden with RCC this month, mainly due to a irritating but minor YAFF.  Even today, 31st May, MMT hasn’t managed to shrug off this damn lurgy.

Until next time, ride safe.

MMT

Marv’s March Ride Log

Dear Rouelurs,

With the good weather and MMT’s return to better health, March 2018 was an excellent month for riding the roads around Melbourne.  MMT did 825km, which is his second highest total, only exceeded by December 2017.  That month included the Festive 500.  This means MMT is doing about 200km a week. This is not bad for 48 year old FLAB/Clydesdale (Fat Lad At the Back).  Come to think of it, I should write a blog about FLABs.  Any how, here’s March’s Log:

MMT’s March 2018 log can be found here.

The highlight of the month, was Team MMT’s visit to Sydney, where he managed early morning 3 rides around the eastern suburbs of Sydney.  MMT hired another bike from Livelo, a very nice Bianche. See photo below, taken one overcast morning at Clovelly Beach.

Hmm deja vu,  actually MMT probably write a review of that bike. My only gripe being that Livelo seem to keep providing MMT with the XS or S sized framed bikes, which look like clown bikes given my frame.

This month’s Strava Suffer score graph is still showing that Thursdays and Saturdays are the days MMT is out doing hard work. This dropped off a bit towards the end of the month as life/other commitments got in the way.

The graph is starting to take a different shape. As MMT has been doing medium length rides as a opposed to his usual 70-80 km slog on a Saturday morning. Unfortunately, MMT has also missed a few RCC rides as well.

Until next time, ride safe.

MMT

Marv’s February Bike Log

Dear Rouelurs,

Of course, it could never last, a unbroken run of nearly 5 months without any illness related time off the bike.  Well, that run came to an end, abruptly in February with not one but two YAFFs kicking MMT’s proverbial butt.

MMT’s February 2018 log can be found here.

The first YAFF was minor cold and inconvenience.  The second YAFF was a proper flu, that meant 2 days off work and so far 5 days off the bike….booooo!!!!.  These absences can be clearly in MMT’s monthly worm and Strava hurt numbers.  Also the second YAFF meant missing a fairly entertaining, by all accounts, Greek Wedding. 

Considering that MMT had nearly 370km in the bag by the 12th Feb, only to total 652km, this was extremely disappointing. MMT is starting to feel the mental pressure of his weekly target of 145Km. This monthly total meant that he only accumulated an extra 26km on his overall ‘lead’.  MMT is now wondering whether 7500km in a year is possible, given he’s committed to 2 overseas holidays and Christmas in Sydney this year. Hmmmm…..

The Strava Suffer score graph is still showing that Thursday and Saturday are the days MMT is out doing hard work.

Probably the only thing of any note, was that MMT, managed to take his gorgeous 20 month old, half pint daughter out on his bubba carrier Cannondale. These short trips have only been a couple of km, but have been immensely enjoyable.

Until next time, ride safe.

MMT

Marv’s bike log…January 2018…where did 2017 go??

Dear Rouleurs,

As MMT’s age creeps towards the big….5…0….  sigh, he’s noticed that days just keeping slipping by at an increasing rate…boo.  There is so much to do and so many places to ride.  However, summer 2018 style has been a particularly pleasant and January was an excellent month for cycling, with lots of sun, some rain and strangely, quite a bit of humidity. The humidity came care of some heat trough that lodged itself over SE-Australia for a few weeks.  Some mornings, MMT could close his eyes and feel the warm warm moist air and think that he was in Thailand.  Ah…that’s proof that MMT is in desperate need of a holiday 😉

January was significant for a couple of other events.  First, MMT completed the ridiculous flaming, dog poo covered, jumping hoop, obstacle course that was re-applying to work with his current employer.  More on that in March, MMT hopes.  Second, MMT returned back to  the RCC crew and completed a number of speedy south side rides. Finally, MMT completed the 65km course of Cadel Evan’s Peoples Ride on a very muggy Saturday morning down in Geelong.  The last two points contributed to a bumper result for January.   Here’s my monthly graph for Janaury 2018.  Already, MMT is up on monthly target, achieving a very productive 800km even. That’s a pretty good start.

On the back of that work, MMT’s Strava graph is also very consistent.  As stated before the weather has been very good so, riding 21 out of possible 31 days, means really solid workouts on the bike.  This makes MMT very, very happy :-).  MMT’s ride log can be found here.

Before signing off, a digression about this log.  One of the things that MMT was ruminating over during the Christmas holidays was what kind of target, he should set for 2018.  Afterall, whilst MMT was YAFFed many times in 2017, he still managed nearly 8,000km.  Which is not bad for a 48 year old “Clydesdale” with a bad back, who is desperately trying to keep his weight down to something that starts with a ‘9’.  So what to do??  Well, part of the answer lies in doing a few Strava challenges to keep motivated and continuing to ride with RCC.  The final annual MMT decided on was 7500km, or approximately 145km a week.

Whole point of this effort, was three fold:

  1. Cycling is fun and MMT wants to get better at it.
  2. MMT would like to loose about 10 kg this year.
  3. MMT is aiming to complete an “l’eroica” style event in Italy or Spain, to celebrate his 50th Birthday.

So really, the 145Km target is meant to be way of getting to those goals, rather just counting kms. So there it is, why MMT keeps churning Kms and blogs.

Until next blog, ride safe.

Marv