Tag Archives: lantern rouge

To Rapha Cycling Club or to not Rapha Cycling Club….that is the question

Dear Rouleurs,

MMT mentioned in a blog a few months ago that became a member of the Melbourne chapter of the Rapha Cycling Club. MMT received his shiny new membership for Christmas from Mrs MMT. MMT was actually twice gifted, by receiving the Rapha Welcome Kit for 2016 and the new 2017, later in the post. Nice. MMT has 2 member chapeaus, a matt grey metal membership card, a luggage tag, musette, a bunch of stickers and access to Rapha’s free members only app. In short its an impressive haul of goodies.

Mind you club membership was $225, which is not cheap but is comparable to racing licence purchased via Cycling Australia/SKCC herein Melbourne. Also not cheap and not discounted in any form is the Rapha Club Cycling Kit. There’s a couple of nice features about the kit. First it’s really well made and looks great. Second it is not plastered with sponsors adverts. Compare the following:

   

The St. Kilda is one of the best club jerseys going round in Melbourne at the moment. The above version was offered to members between 2013 and 2016. MMT has bothered with 2017 version, as its just a little too bit Mondrian for his liking. The Rapha Jersey is much cleaner, daresay MMT say, elegant design. Yes MMT is biased and Yes $200 was shelled out for the short sleeve version of the Brevet. The other cool feature of club membership is being able to lay your sweaty hands and cleats on one of these Canyon bikes, if you are visiting a city that has RCC Club House.

Phoaw….its so beautiful. MMT can’t wait until he clips into one of these beauties in Sydney or who knows may be London some time soon. MMT digresses.

Of the main reason why a cycling club exists is for its members to go cycling. RCCMEL offers three regularly scheduled rides.
Tuesday’s Northside ride deporting from Richmond
Thursday’s Southside ride departing from Elwood
Saturday’s Shop ride departing from the Popup Shop in Fitzroy

MMT has been riding on Thursdays. The first couple of rides post-pneumonia were unpleasant and just a little bit humiliating. MMT was dropped on ramp leading out from Sandringham to Black Rock. The hacking cough and reduced lung power were to blame. However, MMT is now on pace and happily not always the lantern rouge.

The Thursday ride has become the stretch ride for MMT’s aspiration to be ‘FASTER’. The bunch averages 30Km/h and in certain section on the return leg touches 50Km/h. Those sections were quite a shock. The outward leg is a straightforward run down Beach Road to Mordialloc. After that the route weaves through the back streets of Parkdale, Mentone, Hampton and Brighton. MMT surmises that being a newbie in the bunch and being dropped on the return leg would mean using Google Maps to get back to Elwood.
So the key question is club membership worth the $225 annual fee worth it?? MMT thinks so the answer is ‘Yes’.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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