Category Archives: Randonneuring

And….we’re back in 2018 and MMT is feeling festive ;-)

Dear Rouleurs,

It’s the second day of 2018, MMT is already been on the bike and churning out kilometres.  First things first,  MMT completed Rapha’s Festive 500, for the first time.  Here’s his log, written on the ever-so-stylish Rapha chit.

MMT cycled every day betwen the 27-12-2017 and the 30-12-2017, to finish the challenge with a day to spare.

At some point MMT will have to write a short blog about this challenge, which proved to be tough, mainly to muscle fatigue and horrible headwinds. Also, disappointingly, there didn’t appear to be any decent coffee shops in Frankston, which made 3 of rides particularly difficult…sigh 😉 All the rides were dutifully recorded on MMT’s strava log.

 Damn…MMT’s legs hurt after that second 100km ride.  As Jens Voight would say ‘shut up legs’…But still its worth all the pain to know that MMT finished 11,921st out of  69,622 who completed the challenge….giggle 🙂

Anyhow that the first blog for the year over and done with.

Until next time, ride safe.

Marv

Marv’s March Bike Log

Dear Rouleurs,

March an awesome month for cycling.  MMT clocked up 753.29 Km and beat his old record by some way.   The weather has been excellent, with light winds and mainly sunny conditions.   MTT’s  log and stats can be found here. This puts me over 200 km ahead of my monthly goal of 542km.

The big numbers are longer solo and RCC training rides.  March 26 was the date MMT did the MS Cycle 50 km event.  Here’s the matching suffer score graph for the above graph.

Apparently I suffered more this month than the previous two, despite having no big events in March.

Until next blog, ride safe.

Marv

2017 Cadel Evans People’s Ride

Dear Rouleurs,

Life as daddy day care has continued at pace.  So much so that MMT has realised that he’s only got about 4 weeks left before he returns to work… the horror….Nooooo!!!!.  MMT had a long ‘do to’ list that hasn’t quite worked.  One of those items, that has been sadly neglected, has been this blog. Whilst MMT has been on the bike, training with his new club Rapha Cycling Melbourne and doing longer versions of the events he did last year, not much blogging has been occurring.  Another new development for MMT was signing up for Strava for the first time this year. At some point in the not too distant future, MMT will write about what it’s like to be a new member of RCC and his impression’s of Strava.

The subject of this blog is one of those recently completed events, the 2017 Cadel Evan’s Peoples Ride. Team MMT stayed in Geelong three nights to soak up the atmosphere of, what event organisers are hoping will be become, a modern one day classic. Team MMT really enjoyed the ‘buzz’ around Geelong for the race.  The event village, finish/start line and sponsor’s pavilions were ideally located on the foreshore.  Good weather for the People’s Ride, Men’s and Women’s races seemed to draw the crowds out around the course.

MMT’s first attempt of the  111 Km version of the People’s ride was pretty tough experience. A quick look of the course profile can provide some insight into why this so.  The first 50Km or so is easy and very scenic, particularly the segment between Barwon Waters and Torquay.  However the fun starts on the hills just outside of Bells Beach where a vicious ‘W’ shape contains the KOM climb. Looking at Strava, these hills range between 4.5 and 6% on average.  Honestly, they felt much tougher than that and I had to walk some of last two.  Happily MMT made it over the top of the KOM by myself.  After that it’s quite manageable up to the final Aid Station Moriac at kilometre 82.  After that it begins to become quite nasty. There are 6 steep climbs in the backend of the course that I found difficult.

This is not a pretty picture !!

By far the nastiest of these is the very last section, Queens Park Road to Melville St, which if Strava is to be believed, ranges from 5% to a whopping 19%.  That’s a proper Belgian Col and I only saw one guy make it up over the top.  How the pros ride over this hill three times, fast, is a mystery to me. The other sections range in the 5 to 7%, with the hills around Ceres (up to 7%) and Scenic Road (up to 11%) being the toughest. I think I had to walk on least four of them.  I was really underdone coming into this event. Next time I’ll need to add some hills to my training and not get pneumonia.

Opps!! 114km or 111km, printer error.

On the course itself, I have to say that I though the positioning of the aid stations was really off.  The Aid Station in Torquay, should have been after the first climbs, not before it.  The first aid station, intended for the shorter course, I assume, was at kilometre 29 in Barwon Heads.  The Torquay station was less than 20 kms further down the road, on the flat part of the course.  In hindsight I would have stopped there and not Barwon Heads.  Moriac station was about 35km further on.  The finish line was another 29Km after that.

IMHO, the Torquay station should have been a few kilometres after the KOM at kilometre 62.  Similarly the Moriac Station should have been around kilometre 92.  The printed collateral which I’ve re-produced here, also had some errors.  First the long version course was 111km not 114km.  Not sure why there was a screw up measuring the distance.  Also the distance between the stations was completely wrong.  Not sure who has been doing their proof reading.

So here’s my Strava log for the event.  Have to say that a Suffer Score of 136 is not something MMT would hope to repeat anytime soon.

So onto a few photos, some taken by MMT, others by course photographers.  Happily, none of these guys took a photo of me walking up a hill 🙂

On the starting line.

Crap selfie of moi. I’m showing nerves

On the road, near Torquay.

In the hills of the last 25km.

Moriac rest stop. Nice bikes 🙂

Nearly there, a few km from the finish in Geelong

So the big question is will Team MMT try this tough course again next year??

Until next time, ride safe

Marv

Marv’s January Bike Log

Dear Rouleurs,

Well here’s my first bike log for 2017.  As per my last log, my holiday cycling plans didn’t go as planned,resulting no riding between 18 December 2016 to 6 January 2017…bugger.  Notwithstanding, I still managed 650 Km for the month.  My log and stats can be found here. This puts me over 100 km ahead of my monthly goal – 542km.

New pretty monthly graph for January.

The big numbers are longer training rides and the Cadel Evans People’s Ride, which you have read MMT’s report on here.  As MMT has signed up for Strava this year, he can produce a matching suffer score graph for the above graph.  It looks a bit like this.

January’s suffer score graph care of MMT’s Strava account. The 136 was the Cadel Evans People’s Ride, which was long and hilly.

For MMT, the Suffer Score roughly aligns with the distance of the ride but increases when MMT starts climbing or falls when I’m dawdling along.  I’m looking forward to fiddling more with these stats over the forthcoming months.

Until next blog, ride safe.

Marv