Quintessentially irreverent but with a deadly serious message - ultimately it tells you how to protect your hard earned cash and save yourself from financial meltdown.

If you had a committee of medical doctors/dieticians/ nutritionists etc I am sure they could come up with some sort of system and include a race ‘weight in’ and then a table of permitted losses throughout longer races like a grand tour. The 'annus horribilis' is a reference to the death of Coles' partner, Reverend David Coles, last month.David Viner recently bumped into American cycling legend Greg LeMond who offered words in support of our campaign. In general, Kiwis "couldn't be nicer, kinder, more helpful, more supportive, just great, fantastic," according to Marsden.

AN unholy war of words broke out last night as the CEOs of two pharmaceutical giants slammed their rivals’ erectile dysfunction drugs, each challenging the efficacy of the other’s products.

I will now dismount my soapbox and wander off into some even purer speculation: are mountain stages so popular because so few of us have the French Alps - or any mountains of real note - at our doorstep?

Even if we say your new breed of GC rider could contend with the true sprinters for the bonus seconds, pick up for absurdity's sake three stage wins, that's enough time to lose - handily - in one mountain stage, time trial, wacky breakaway by some French guy on a more rolling stage, you name it. If someone told me I was looking healthy, I would think, 'Oh, I need to lose more weight, I look normal'. For example, we know that those who exercise in a group record 10% more activities the month after they join a club, and that cyclists going on group rides cover twice the distance of solo rides. Conor Dunne has retired without a team at the age of 27 after Israel Cycling Academy decided not to renew his contract.

At Strava, we believe that people keep people active which is why we connect athletes with like-minded athletes. However, on the final day of this nightmare road, a police car pulled up alongside me, one of the officers wound down the window and said something in Portuguese to me - I thought I was getting nicked for not obeying some local law.

I don't suffer from cycling's culture (looks at remains of icecream, christmas cake, crisps and cheese for tea, thinks about dinner. Thanks everyone for your support and hopefully in the new year we can get the Needs Analysis published! When it comes to money and how it really works, most of us are too busy, too bored or too bewildered to think about it, despite being at the sharp end of the consequences. An update on the Poggio - so often the decisive climb in Milan-Sanremo - which has suffered landslides in recent months. According to Marsden, "They go so close you can feel the hairs on your arms stand up, the gust of wind.I know it is more complicated than setting a flat minimum weight, but something like a height/min weight index, or BMI (I know the limitations of BMI), or maybe a minimum body fat percentage etc.