Category Archives: Infographics

Everyone likes pretty pictures.

And we are back………TDF 2020 – a.k.a the Tasmanian Edition

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT’s life is not his own at the moment. The combination of Stage 4 lockdown, ridiculous bollcks in his remote working life and 2 small kids, has just started wear thin. Whilst MMT can ride a bit further in his 5 km radius, care of stage 4 exercise time being increased to 2 hours, he’s thoroughly sick of his usual routes in the Tour de 5km Radius. About the only respite to this enervating scenario has been this year’s wonderful edition of the Tour De France, his beloved Tigers coming good at the end of the most peculiar season in AFL history and regular Zwifting on the pseudo France and Paris parcours.

So to the Tour De France 2020, all MMT can say is Tadej Pogačar is Poga-star. A bad pun, but seriously his performance this year has been nothing short of astonishing. The Tadej Pogacar/Primoz Roglic time trial shoot out on stage 20 was incredible. It was most riveting time trial since the Benard Hinault/Greg Le Monde in TDF 1986. It just goes to show that someone can win the TDF, without a ‘skytrain’, 60 million Euro worth of funding and superstar domestique backup in the mountains. Take a bow, Tadej.

Speakin of bows, Richie Porte and Caleb Ewan, as the only Australian’s competing this year, what superb performances. Porte’s 3rd at the age of 35 is a testement to perservence. I’m sure his newly born daughter Eloise will forgive him, in the years to come, for not being there. Richie we love you because your a Tasmanian….

Ewan’s performance to win 2 stages in middle of the Bennett/Sagan malliot verte shootout was a excellent result. However, for MMT to see the guy haul his ass over ridiculously sprinter unfriendly mountain ranges and avoid the broom wagon, was the personificaiton of mental toughness.

So just to show how close the top 3 finishers were, MMT has liberated this wonderful infographic from Cycling News. No doubt the threating letter from their lawyers will be on its way soon.

Whats’ interesting about this graph is shows clearly, Poga-star recovered time lost in the cross winds on Stage 7 and in the time trial. Arguably if Porte’s Trek-Segafredo team hadn’t been asleep that day, he may have finished second. The graph also shows how little advantage Roglic gained in the mountain stages despite having all-star support from team mates Tony Martin on the flats and Tom Dumoulin in the mountains.

Oh yeah, one more thing…Team Ineos more like Team Invisible 🙂 except for stage 18. S

Well that’s all for now, until next time, ride safe, stay safe.

Marv

The Stage 4 Lockdown Blues

Dear Rouleurs,

It’s the second week of August and MMT is, to quote Shaun Micallef, ‘mad as hell’. Apparently, the Victorian version of overseas passenger quarantine was run by a bunch of muppets who didn’t brief or prepare their staff. Now all of Melbourne is in stage 4 lockdown and all of country Victoria is in stage 3 lockdown. Bummer…. The pic below shows The Age headline for the 3rd of August. In the end, the State Government didn’t have choice. The mounting mystery case list and sadly, deathtoll simply couldn’t be ignored.

The impact of that has meant has a drastic reduction in MMT’s time on the bike outdoors. People living in Melbourne are only allowed one hour of exercise a day and aren’t allowed to travel outside of a 5 kilometre radius of their home. The combination of those 2 restrictions has meant a lot of short, and some what frustrating rides inside the Red Circle of Boredom….

And there it is in all of its glory. The Red Circle of Boredom has meant a number of rides around Albert Park Lake and Fisherman’s Bend. If MMT had more than 1hour, he could have ridden to Williamstown and back. Being so close to the Bay has meant a large reduction in ride variety. Fortunately, MMT still has St Ali’s and Brother Bubba Budan in that zone so at least he has access to decent coffee when needed.

Now before MMT forgets the Red Circle of Boredom, is based on a rather heplful website, https://2kmfromhome.com/. The author is a fellow called David Bolger in the Republic of Ireland. You can find him here on Twitter: https://twitter.com/davebolger. It looks like his website received some serious interest from Melbourians judging by this tweet.

If MMT hadn’t seen this website on Strava, he may resorted to using a Melways (…remember those?? ;-), a pin, a piece of string and a pencil, to achieve the same end. Very old school geometry vs a new snappy website…the website wins. If you feel so inclined you can buy Dave a coffee here at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/devhaus. BTW, Coffee in Ireland must be seriously expensive at 5 Euro ie $8.23 AUD…ouch.

Any how, ride safe and stay safe

MMT in Stage 4 Lockdown

Fiddling about with WordPress….and some cyclist humour

Dear Rouleurs,

This blog has another attempt at cycling humour, again care of FLAB ie Fat Lad At the Back. I feel a deep empathy for the kind soul that crafted this faux magazine cover. 🙂 Clearly, they are having a gentle dig at this etailer in the USA – Competitive Cyclist and at the hyper-competitive breed of cyclist that focuses on grams and kilojoules.

Fake new from a 'faux' magazine, the Non-competive Cyclist

The emphasis on cake, pork pies and putting the push back into push bikes, certainly gave MMT a bit of a chuckle. Its also a bit of test of the behind the scenes tinkering I’ve been doing with WordPress.

Let’s see if it worked…..Bugger, just checked – it didn’t – Boooooooo!!!

Until next time, stay safe, ride safe

MMT

Time for some cyclist humour about tan lines….

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT has been taking potshots at Millennials for a few years in this blog. After all it’s great sport to see generation ‘selfie’ suddenly realise the world, nay, universe doesn’t actually revolve around their sense of entitlement. MMT has particularly enjoyed poking fun Millennial’s preferred form of communication the infographic.  It’s a well take on the aphorism that a picture says a thousand words. 

Occasionally, MMT happens upon one that is genuinely amusing or informative.  Today’s infographic falls into the former category.  The visual is self-explanatory and here in Australia should have been accompanied by a ‘slip, slop, slap’ message of some kind.  There’s nothing funny about having serious skin cancer.

MMT reckons he saw this pop up in on the FLAB Facebook page. Although it looks like The Joy Divison liberated it first. The visual has stuck in MMT’s head, as his directeur sportiff, Mrs MMT, had commented how deeply tanned MTT’s legs were, hence the thoughtful and artistic addition to the graphic 😉 MMT is also big fan of zinc across the cheeks and nose. As Banksy once wrote “The bad artists imitiate, The great artists steal – Picasso Banksy Marv ;-)”

Until next time, stay safe, ride safe

Marv