Tag Archives: Covid-19

Are Specialized road bike riders the equivalent of middle aged Porche drivers?

Dear Rouleurs,

It has been a while. MMT has been busy with his day job and whilst he’s been cycling plenty, post-YAFV, there hasn’t been must time for blogging. So this post is an instant remedy to that situation. Speaking of remedies, MMT has received his first COVID vaccination, this year’s flu shot and is booked in for the second COVID shot in August. As Victoria is back in Lockdown 4.0 (really…who could be bothered counting these things :-), MMT urges everyone in Australia to get vaccinated…now. Seriously, what could be more important than being vaccinated against a life threatening illness.

MMT digresses. So whilst being out and about, MMT has occasionally crossed paths with an unknown Specialized road cyclist. MMT reckons that he’s seen this rider a few times heading to or from Mordialloc, always wearing Specialized clothing and riding a Specialized roadbike. This rider is reasonably fast, pretty grumpy but not Peter Sagan. MMT couldn’t identify the make of the bike but wonders whether the following applies. See graphic below.

It is interesting what a quick internet search reveals, such as this opinion by https://www.probikecorner.com/is-specialized-bike-overpriced/

“Specialized offers some of the most expensive bikes on the market. While they do go on sale on occasion, even their sale price is going to be more expensive than 99% of bikes from competing manufacturers.”

Or this from Bike Radar – https://www.bikeradar.com/features/why-are-bikes-so-expensive/

Ouch…so really is Specialized the equivalent of Porche or BMW? If so what does that say about individual that buys one? Middle crisis victim or merely appreciating the finer things in life?

Until next, stay safe, get vaccinated and ride lots

MMT

Goodbye 2020, you’ve been no fun whatsoever…

Dear Rouleurs,

By any measure the year 2020, has been completely crap. As far as MMT can tell, the only other thing, besides this awful COVID-19 pandemic, that anyone will remember is that Trump didn’t get re-elected. However, MMT is thankful that his support team a.k.a. family hasn’t caught this dreadful virus and that he is still employed. There are many, many people in the world that can’t say that.

MMT would prefer to remember 2020 as the year where he saw his kids grow up at close range, he lost about 8kg and rode over 11,000km. The last two points of the sentence are, invariably related 😉 Certainly, an initial strict application of the 5:2 diet helped alot, in much the same way Christmas pigging out hasn’t.

However, MMT was surprised by his Strava stats for 2020. He was less thrilled that Strava only made them available through the app. So what follows below is a hastily taken set of screen shots from his iPhone. Eventually, MMT will update his ride log and do a Festive 500 blog.

Until next time, ride safe and stay safe,

MMT

And suddenly the world seems like a safer and saner place….

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT’s Blog has rarely strayed into political commentary, but after being glued to ABC and SBS’s coverage of the American election in early November, its time the gloves came off. Donald ‘Dump’ Trump was finally visited by the karma fairy. All the lying, cheating and no doubt soon to be revealed stealing has caught up with him and his cronies.

Finally, sanity prevails….thank you America’s voters.

Trump’s reaction of hiding in the White and sulking is a fitting footnote to his presidency. The American people living in the states of Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, who voted for the Biden-Harris ticket, take a bow. You’ve restored America’s international standing and made the world just that little bit better. Thank you.

MMT is going to have this put on a t-shirt….

Aside from die-hard Trump supporters, the most aggrieved group in American society, who will dearly miss Trump, are cartoonists. Once Trump is dragged by the Secret Service out of the Oval Office, what will they have as inspiration? So while this blog is openly disparaging of Trump and his lackeys, it offers its condolences to cartoonists world wide.

The following is smattering of cartoons that have caught MMT’s eye over the last couple of weeks

No doubt history will say that Donald Trump’s presidency was one of the greatest periods of time for political cartoonists.

Anyhoooo, that will MMT’s last foray into political commentary for this year, cycling is much more interesting.

Until next keep safe, ride safe and Make American Great Again

MMT

Melbourne is stage three lock down and someone at Garmin is having a very bad day…

Dear Rouleurs,

Of course it was too good to last. Back in May, Australia looked like it had dodged a COVID-19 bullet. Now that bloody virus gotten loose loose in Northern Melbourne and trigger this new stage 3, 6 week lockdown. Almost all the COVID-19 cases in Australian are in Victoria at present. About the only silver lining in this awful mess, is that road traffic around Melbourne has reduced significantly, which is great for cyclists. Who knows may be Melbournians will adopt the bike as their preferred mode of transport.


MMT took a snap shot of a great Mark Knight cartoon, that is in all honesty is bit rough on Victorian Preimer Dan Andrews. However it does capture the mood of frustration about how Victoria’s quaratine system was clearly being run by muppets. It appears that the Rydges on Swanston in Carlton and the Stamford Plaza in Melbourne’s city centre have been the epicentre for this new surge….WTF…. As the number of new cases keeps bounding along in the high 400’s, it will be interesting to see how the security company running fares in the recently announced inquiry.

Now speaking of stuff ups, something very odd is going on the Garmin Connect website. MMT has been trying to upload today’s ride around the Capital City trail when he encountered this error. Its been down for nearly 8 hours, which is seriously weird, given that its probably sitting on a Google or AWS cloud. MMT will be really f%#ked off if his 56 km ride disappears in into thin air. He finally navigated, clockwise the Capital City Trail, on the third attempt.

MMT checked a few social media groups and tried the website again tonight and its apparent something has gone wrong. Even an a UK newspaper, The Independant, has reported the outage. Someone at Garmin must be having a very bad day. In word…bugger..may be the website has caught COVID-19 or been done over by Chinese hackers…conspiracy theories run wild.

Until next time, ride safe and keep safe

Marv