Category Archives: Humour

Marv’s bogan ute revenge fantasy

Dear Rouleurs,

Over the last couple of months I’ve been harbouring feelings of ill will towards tradies. Presumably, they are all male, driving at breakneck speeds early in the morning in utes, vans and 4WDs along my local ride, early in the morning. Whilst MMT realises that every working ‘person’…(let’s see if I’ve hit the right tone of political correctness ;-)…has an obligation to arrive at work on time, he wonders whether it is necessary to speed at 20 or 30 km/h above the speed limit to get there. As there is no police presence at that time of the morning they get away with it, almost every single time.

So I’ve been harbouring feelings of ill which had started to develop into a full blown revenge fantasy. It involves a bit of tweaking to a scene from ‘Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story’. The scene involves the aging, wheelchair-bound Patches, who volunteers to coach the Average Joes dodgeball team. Patches’ training regimen includes throwing wrenches at the team members (“If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball!”).

I imagine riding along, pulling a wrench out of my jersey pocket and throwing through the back window of a ute that has just illegally sped by. The wrench shatters the back window and hits the bogan dickhead in the back of the head with a satisfying ‘thwok’. Yes its a bit juvenile and cartoon-ish in a Super Mario way, but goddamnit it brings an evil smile to my face every time.

Revenge fantasies never come true, which is probably best for the continued existence of our society. In reality, the chances of MMT throwing a spanner that accurately at a speeding ute is pretty much zero. Its much more likely MMT would overbalance and donate a lot of skin and possibly bone to the ashpalt. Then one day coming back from Truman on a coffee run, I saw this and laughed my ass off.

Somewhere near Albert Park a dickhead bogan is crying in his beer over his wheel clamped ute 🙂

This is poetry and karma sweetly connected in the form of a wheel clamp. I would have loved to have seen the face of the dickhead bogan ute owner, just after he discovered this. Just to be clear the Sherrif’s Department has the right to do this, under the Infringements Act 2006, when a vehicle owner has an outstanding infringement warrant…possibly for something like not paying speeding fines 😉

So here’s to karma, ride safe in the knowledge that there is one less dickhead on the road.

Marv

MMT’s Analysis of the TDF 2016 – Part 3: Chris Froome

Dear Rouleurs

This is MMT’s third instalment of highly irregular analysis of the TDF 2016. This one focuses on the general classification winner, Team Sky’s Chris Froome. So MMT’s take on Chris Froome’s third win focuses on aspects of his performance that cycling fans just wouldn’t have expected to see. MMT believes the old adage of a picture being worth a thousand words and has picked out four images, carefully stolen from various reputable online publishers.

Chris Froome is clearly more flexible and just plain nuts that MMT had previously believed.

The first thing MMT never expected see Chris Froome do, was attack on the decent on stage 8. Lets face it Mr Froome is a very tall and skinny man, who looked fairly ungainly whilst wrapped around his bike whilst pedalling. Rumour has it the the ASO picked out a number of down hill finishes to neutralise Froome’s attacks in the early mountain stages. Clearly, that tactic didn’t work.

Chris Froome nearly beats Peter Sagan in a sprint..WTF??? 🙂

The next thing that MMT never expected to see was Chris Froome attempting to out spirit the eventual green jersey winner Peter Sagan. I reckon Peter Sagan got the shock of this life when he saw out of the corner of his eye, the lanky Brit in yellow on his six on Stage 11. Apparently a spirit finish between the yellow ands green jersey holders has never happened before.

Chris Froome dragging his broken bike up Mont Ventoux, Stage 12.

However, the biggest shock for cycling fans would have been the sight of Chris Froome running up Mont Ventoux in stage 12.

Chris Froome wins the Natourcriterium in Aalst, Belgium and receives a very big beer and a very silly hat.

Finally, whilst not strictly related to the TDF 2016, Chris Froome winning the Natourcriterium in Aalst, Belgium less that 24 hours after the tour finished is pretty phenomenal. Presumably, the Team Sky medical team must have told him to have a rest and some downtime. What is remarkable is this ridiculously hat that the race organisers made him wear as part of the awards ceremony. There you have it Chris Froome TDF 2016 Winner in four unexpected moments.

Now to balance out the reporting I should say a big ‘Chapeau’ to Chloe Hosking of the Wiggle High 5 Team for winning the La Course 2016.

Chloe Hoskings crosses the finish line of La Course, much to her surprise, in first place.

With multiple crashes and breakaways, the 89Km race came down to a bunch spirit with the Australian beating out some very big names.

1. Chloe HOSKING, WIGGLE HIGH5, in 2:01:27
2. Lotta LEPISTÖ, CBT, at :00
3. Marianne VOS, RABOLIV WOMEN CYCLING TEAM, at :00
4. Joelle NUMAINVILLE, CBT, at :00
5. Roxane FOURNIER, POITOU-CHARENTES.FUTUROSCOPE.86, at :00
6. Pascale JEULAND, POITOU-CHARENTES.FUTUROSCOPE.86, at :00
7. Tiffany CROMWELL, CANYON SRAM RACING, at :00
8. Joanne KIESANOWSKI, TEAM TIBCO – SILICON VALLEY BANK, at :00
9. Lotte KOPECKY, LOTTO SOUDAL LADIES, at :00
10. Maria Giulia CONFALONIERI, LENSWORLD-ZANNATA, at :00
Read more at

Until next time, ride safe

Marv

MMT’s Analysis of the TDF 2016 – Part 2

Dear Rouleurs,

This is part 2 of MMT’s analysis of the TDF 2016. Last time MMT focused on those that didn’t finish the TDF. Afterall, its a hug achievement to finish, even if a rider finished in the bottom ten. Which segues nicely into this blog, the analysis of the race for the lantern rouge, otherwise known as last place. So first a few facts and figures about the big race.

Nationality of riders finishing in the bottom 10 of any stage.

36 riders from 20 different teams featured in the bottom 10. France had the best representation with 7 riders, which is hardly surprising as 38 starters were French.

Teams with riders finishing in the bottom 10 of any stage.

Only Astana and Trek-Segafredo had no riders finish in the bottom 10 of any stage.

Only 1 rider managed to start, stay and finish in the bottom 10, take a bow Lars Ytting Bak of Lotto Soudal.

So here’s the bottom ten as they finished on stage 21:

1	174	Sam Bennett (Ireland) BORA-ARGON 18	+5:17:14
2	173	Lars Ytting Bak (Denmark) LOTTO SOUDAL	+5:01:18
3	172	Leigh Howard (Australia) IAM CYCLING	+4:55:13
4	171	Bernhard Eisel (Austria) DIMENSION DATA	+4:51:07
5	170	Daniel Mclay (Great Britain) FORTUNEO – VITAL CONCEPT	+4:50:14
6	169	Marcel Sieberg (Germany) LOTTO SOUDAL	+4:40:24
7	168	Davide Cimolai (Italy) LAMPRE – MERIDA	+4:39:37
8	167	Vegard Breen (Norway) FORTUNEO – VITAL CONCEPT	+4:38:27
9	166	Marcel Kittel (Germany) ETIXX – QUICK STEP	+4:35:06
10	165	Jacopo Guarnieri (Italy) TEAM KATUSHA	+4:34:45

Congratulations to Ireland’s Sam Bennett who entered the annals of cycle sport history by finishing last in the 2016 TDF. He can quite rightly claim that he was better than the 22 riders who didn’t finish. Keep in mind he had a horrible stack on the first stage which left him bruised and most tellingly for a sprinter, a broken small finger.

The unlucky Sam Bennett shortly after a horrible crash on stage 1.

So lets look at how this race for the lantern rouge progressed for these ten riders over the 21 stages of this years race.

This is how the bottom 10 got there.

No surprises that most of these guys were sprinters. I feel a bit for Marcel Kittel who couldn’t take a trick on the spirit stages and then limped home on the final stage. Leigh Howard must be considering himself lucky as he nearly went the double, backing on his last place in the Giro this year.

Well that’s enough pretty graphs and sniping 😉 until next time ride safe.

Marv

MMT’s Analysis of the TDF 2016 – Part 1

Dear Rouleurs,

Seriously how good was this year’s Tour De France?? It had all kinds of thrills and spills. I never thought I would see Mark Cavenish win another spirit stage, let alone four or Michael Matthews win his first or see Chris Froome running up Mont Ventoux because some motorcycle camera man collided with him and broke his bike. I’ll have to write a proper blog about this stuff. However, MMT will start with the less fashionable analysis first.

As a perennial back marker in any peloton on Beach Road, I feel it is necessary to celebrate the bottom ten finishers of the Tour De France. Lets face it. Finishing the TDF is an incredible athletic achievement in its own right. So this report will be provided in two blogs. The first will present analysis about those riders who didn’t finish the race. The second will assess the last ten that did.

So of the original 198 riders that left the Grande Departee, 22 didn’t make it all the way through to Paris. Some left due to injury eg Alberto Contador and Simon Gerrans. Others left to complete their preparation for the Olympic Games in Rio, in about 2 weeks time. This is who they were, in order of abandonment:

1	MORKOV Michael	KATUSHA	Denmark
2	PINEAU Cedric	FDJ	France
3	LADAGNOUS Matthieu	FDJ	France
4	RENSHAW Mark	DIMENSION DATA	Australia
5	CONTADOR Alberto	TINKOFF	Spain
6	LANGEVELD Sebastian	CANNONDALE-DRAPAC	Netherlands
7	TULIK ANGÉLO	DIRECT ENERGIE	France
8	VAN DEN BROECK Jurgen	KATUSHA	Belgium
9	GERRANS Simon	ORICA-BIKEEXCHANGE	Australia
10	PINOT Thibaut	FDJ	France
11	THEUNS Edward	TREK-SEGAFREDO	Belgium
12	BRESCHEL Matti	CANNONDALE-DRAPAC	Denmark
13	FRANK Mathias	IAM CYCLING	Switzerland
14	DEBUSSCHERE Jens	LOTTO SOUDAL	Belgium
15	HERRADA Jesús	MOVISTAR	Spain
16	BOZIC Borut	COFIDIS, SOLUTIONS CREDITS	Slovenina
17	CAVENDISH Mark	DIMENSION DATA	Great Britan
18	DENNIS Rohan	BMC RACING	Australia
19	IZAGUIRRE Gorka	MOVISTAR	Spain
20	NAVARRO Daniel	COFIDIS, SOLUTIONS CREDITS	Spain
21	DUMOULIN Tom	TEAM GIANT – ALPECIN	Netherlands
22	MARTIN Tony	ETIXX – QUICK STEP	Germany

Now MMT has been espousing the merits of infographics to communicate to the attention challenged Gen-Y. So MMT has tried his hand at a few pretty graphs to tell the story of these 22 riders. So on to the first infographic, which captures when riders decided enough was enough.

Rider abandonment by Stage TDF 2016

There some big name casualties none more than Alberto Contador and the seemingly cursed Simon Gerrans. Mark Cavendish managed to win with out Mark Renshaw. Tony Martin must have qualified for some kind of award for failing to finish the last stage on the Champs Elysses. What was remarkable, that no abandoned in the first week. This is the first time in the history of the TDF that has occurred. Onto the second infographic, abandonments by nationality.

Rider abandonment by Nationality TDF 2016

This is actually quite intriguing and shows how that the more strongly represented nations suffered from more abandonment, mainly from riders leaving early to complete their Olympic preparations either for track or road events. No riders from the ‘long tail’ of the graph abandoned. I note that 33% of Australians abandoned the race. On the final infographic abandonment by Team.

Rider abandonment by Team TDF 2016

Ignoring injuries, it becomes pretty clear that stronger teams tend to finish with all their riders. Weaker teams lose riders regularly, usually through the mountains. It’s remarkable that 6 of the 22 teams didn’t lose a single rider. It also highlights why Team Sky has become so dominant over the last 5 years.

I’ll continue on in this theme in the next blog race for the lantern rouge.

Until then, ride safe

Marv

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Category Archives: Humour

Marv’s bogan ute revenge fantasy

MMT’s Analysis of the TDF 2016 – Part 3: Chris Froome

MMT’s Analysis of the TDF 2016 – Part 2

MMT’s Analysis of the TDF 2016 – Part 1