Tag Archives: bike log

Reasons to be cheerful in June…here’s the 2020 UCI schedule

Dear Rouleurs

Let’s face it the last 3 months or so has been bloody awful without competitive cycling. Watching the fairly boring replays of the Paris-Nice 2020 on SBS, is no substitute for a fully fledged spring classics season. So it was with some excitement that MMT heard through his favourite podcasts that the UCI had published a revised 2020 event calendar.

It looks like this. MMT hasn’t figured out how to show the Women’s events yet, so accusations of sexism please.

RaceCountryDate
 Eschborn–Frankfurt Germany1 May – Delayed due to COVID-19
 Strade Bianche Italy1 August
 Tour de Pologne Poland5–9 August
 Milan–San Remo Italy8 August
 Critérium du Dauphiné France12–16 August
 EuroEyes Cyclassics Germany16 August – Delayed due to COVID-19
 Bretagne Classic Ouest–France France25 August
 Tour de France France29 August – 20 September
 Tirreno–Adriatico Italy7–14 September
 GP de Québec Canada11 September
 GP de Montréal Canada13 September
 BinckBank Tour Belgium  Netherlands29 September – 3 October
 La Flèche Wallonne Belgium30 September
 Giro d’Italia Italy3–25 October
 Liège–Bastogne–Liège Belgium4 October
 Amstel Gold Race Netherlands10 October
 Gent–Wevelgem Belgium11 October
 Dwars door Vlaanderen Belgium14 October
 Tour of Guangxi China15–20 October
 Tour of Flanders Belgium18 October
 Vuelta a España Spain20 October – 8 November
 Three Days of Bruges–De Panne Belgium21 October
 Paris–Roubaix France25 October
 Il Lombardia Italy31 October

Now a few aspects of this schedule are immediately obvious, such as the enormous overlap between one day races and grand tours. Spain has lost all of its races, except the La Vuelta. MMT reckons that cyclists being earmarked for the Tour Guangxi would be looking for danger money.

But what’s interesting about this compressed season is the impact that it may have on the grand tours. It seems to MMT that teams will be forced to choose which races to prioritise. For a team like Ineos, they may choose to skip many of the one day events. For a team like Quickstep, MMT guesses that it will write off the Giro. The French and Dutch based teams will have serious thinking to do. One wonders which of the tours, Mitchellton-Scott will prioritise?

Either way its going to be fascinating to see how this turns out. Speaking of fascinating – MMT has completed his bike log for the first in years on time and May was a great month. The last week or so meant the Zwift-Tacx Neo trainer was pushed aside for some time outdoors. Some days were actually delightful for cycling.

So until next time, stay safe, ride safe

MMT

Marv’s June bike log

Dear Rouleurs,

Sometimes cycling and everything else you do life just don’t mix.  June was a busy month for Team MMT.  His adorable half-pint daughter, turned 2 years old in mid-June.  The very lucky/spoiled toddler received 2 birthday parties, one in Perth and the other in Melbourne.  This combined with a minor YAFF, meant that MMT spent some time off the road bike.  MMT would have loved to ridden a few of the coastal bike paths in Perth.  However, given how infrequent his family’s visits are to WA, it just didn’t seem to be the right priority.  Oh well, may be there will be another time.

The other thing about June was the weather has really turned on ‘Antarctic’ mode with icy gales and rain coming from deep south.  Those northerly winds that lead in the high pressure zones after a cold front are just as nasty, providing chilly head winds on most of MMT’s favourite routes.  MMT’s weekly washing has almost trebled with multiple base layers being needed per a ride.  Anyhow whinge over…here’s the log.

MMT’s June 2018 log can be found here.

The graphic form of the log is presented below.  It pretty obvious where the gaps are in the graph, that this was a disrupted month.  The total of 567 km was about 57km short MMT’s monthly target.  Based on MMT’s usual routine, he lost about possible 6 days in the month, that he would have usually ridden.

 

MMT is now preparing for extreme sleep deprivation with the Tour de France underway.  MMT is really looking forward to Stage 9, which looks like a mini-Paris-Roubaix.  Let’s see how many of these GC riders/grimpeurs survive that day.

Until next time, ride safe.

MMT

Marv’s May bike log

Dear Rouleurs,

May was a productive month for MMT on the bike, generating over 800km and 39 rides. Yes its one of those 5 week months, but it was still a good effort. The weather became progressively colder and occasionally wetter in May. MMT had to break out all the woollen long sleeve jerseys and his Castelli Perfecto.

MMT’s April 2018 log can be found here.

The graphic form of the log is presented below.  Overall it was a fairly even month for kms ridden.  MMT passed the monthly target on the 24th May 2018.

 

MMT managed a couple of rides with RCC this month and now has a few new followers on Strava.  Its a constant source of self-amusement and a bit of mystery  to MMT that anyone would bother to follow him.  Oh well….

Until next time, ride safe.

MMT

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