Tag Archives: suffer score

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  Its been replaced by some comparative measure based on your previous rides on a given route.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

Marv’s July Bike Log

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Dear Rouleurs,

July was a much better month for cycling around Melbourne and happily MMT wasn’t too badly messed about YAFF in the form of  Laryngitis.  The highlight of the month was the two rides he had in Sydney in late July.  Unfortunately, RCC Sydney didn’t have a spare bike on short notice.  So instead, MMT turned to Livelo, which provided a very serviceable SWIFT.  More on that next blog.

This meant I exceeded my monthly target by a solid 130 km.  However the overall total yearly total is still 704 km ahead of yearly target.  That’s about 6 weeks in terms of time.  So here’s my usual graphs.  As you can see a week was lost at the start, and daily totals were much lower than last month.

Weirdly, while the monthly kilometres was up, MMT’s average suffer score fell again, May (46), June (39) and then in July (36).  MMT suspects that skipping Thursday speedfests with RCCMEL might have something to do with it.

My ride log is found here.

Until next blog, ride safe.

Marv

Marv’s February Bike Log

Dear Rouleurs,

Well here’s a first, I’ve actually managed to complete my bike log on the first day of the following month.  Wonders never cease 😉   February was a productive month despite catching gastro and chest cold from No.1 daughter…sigh.  The gastro was particularly unpleasant and nearly forced MMT to withdraw from the Ballarat Classic.    Notwithstanding, I still managed 696  Km for the month, which is a smidge under MMT’s all time record of 702 km.  My log and stats can be found here. This puts me over 150 km ahead of my monthly goal of 542km.

New pretty graph for February.

The big numbers are longer training rides and the Ballarat Classic.  The impact of illness is immediately visible with 2 big gaps around the 12th and 22nd of February.  Here’s the   matching suffer score graph for the above graph.

Apparently, on average, I suffered less than last month. Hopefully that’s a good thing 😉

According to Strava, I seemed to suffer less in the Ballarat Classic than in the Cadel Evans People’s ride.

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