As if they were flying
As if they were flying – you see a few sequences with the Jet D’eau in the background. They appear weightless.
For three hundred and sixty two days I have struggled to find a topic to write about. In that time I have, more than once, felt, during my walk, that I had a great idea for the next day, only to deflate the next morning.
Yesterday as I was running I considered writing about the On CloudNeo Shoes. They’re shoes that you pay for, monthly, rather than weekly, and you can get them replaced every 90 days. If you browse to the site you will see a count down for when to get them replaced.
They started being so clean and white that I didn’t like having such obviously new shoes on my feet. I don’t like when clothes are so obviously new. I prefer them to have a little more character.
Or maybe I just prefer darker colours on my feet. Light grey shoes are fine. The thing about white shoes, in rainy weather, is that they quickly get caked in mud. Once they’re muddy the’re less obviously new, so they’re more comfortable to run in.
The CloudNeo are interesting for two reasons. The first is that they enable you to get running shoes at a monthly cost, and the faster you wear them out, the better the deal you get. The other advantage is that running shoes are often 200-300 francs per pair. That’s a lot to pay for shoes, that, in the end you don’t find comfortable.
Years ago I bought expensive hiking shoes, and I used them in the arctic circle, at first, before using them for hikes, via ferrata and climbing for years to come. That’s right, years. I then bought another pair of hiking boots and they lasted days, or weeks. It’s not the boots that failed. It’s that they were too tight around my ankles and I felt as if my ankles would break if I continued to wear them.
I then bought a cheap pair from Decathlon and these are nice and comfortable. The point is that expensive shoes can just as easily be fantastic, as cheap shoes, so it’s worth trying cheap shoes first.
When you get the Cloud Neo shoes they come in a white bag with velcro. You open the velcro, pull out the shoes, and wear them indoors for a bit, to see how they feel. This is because you have 30 days to test these shoes before you’re commited for six months. If you try them outdoors and find they’re uncomfortable then they’ll be dirty and will be recycled, rather than sent to someone else.
When I determined that they were comfortable, walking around indoors, I tried running with them, and they felt okay so I kept them. I’ve been with them for several runs now and they’re fine. My knees don’t hurt as I run with them.
I did notice with normal shoes, after wearing barefoot shoes, that my ankles tend to roll more, especially on rough surfaces. I don’t know whether it’s because the shoes are not stable, or because I lost the habit of wearing normal shoes. In either case I have had to relearn to run, in normal shoes, on uneven surfaces.
I like a little more rigidity in the back. I often find that my heel folds the back of the shoe as I put them on. Other than that I like the shoe laces and I like that they’re light. They’re not weatherproof but they’re so light that if they do get wet it doesn’t matter because they dry without any concious effort.
The base of the shoes has very basic grip, so if the ground is slippery you’ll know. Some people might see that as a drawback but I see this as an advantage. If you go running through mud, for any reason it takes seconds to clear mud away from the shoes, rather than minutes. Last year I regularly spent 10-20 minutes after every walk clearing the mud from my shoes. With these shoes I don’t need to.
They are aimed at road runners and dry trail running, not muddy or uneven surface running. It’s on roads that you want good padding so they’re well suited to various types of road running.
After 90 days, or when you’ve worn them through, within six months, you can get them replaced and get brand new recycled shoes and start again.
These shoes are made from bio-based resources and the expectation is that you will recycle them every three to six months. They say “You don’t own these shoes, you just use them for a bit, and then return them.
When you get the shoes they come in a white bag with a velcro fastening. Within this bag you have the shoes, but you also have the return address for the shoes. You can send the shoes back, and a new pair will be sent to you.
With conventional shoes you wear them, and once they’re worn out you attempt to get them recycled but they’re counted as bulky recycling so I don’t know what happens to them. With these shoes they’re sent back to their home, they are shredded, cleaned, and then turned into new shoes.
An added bonus to having shoes that are made from “bio-based resources” is that as they get worn down through use, their remains are not harmful to the environment. Mine will, in theory, be ready for recycling in over 65 days from now.
If you replace these shoes every three months then they come to about 105 CHF. If you replace them after six months they come to 210 CHF. The faster you wear through a pair of shoes, the more affordable the plan is, but conversely, the worse your habit is for the environment, since shoes require energy to be recycled and reused.
Although they are sold as running shoes I wear them for running and walking. I usually run for a set distance and once I have finished the run I walk. These shoes are okay for both but I don’t like these shoes like I like the Merrel trail glove 7 shoes. If I had this deal for Merrel Trail Glove 7 then I would be very happy. I have been using Merrel shoes for years and I like them, especially since some of them are so cheap, but I wear them out too fast. With a subscription model I wouldn’t worry about how fast I wear them out because I would get a new pair when I needed it.
As I write this I believe that a good niche market for this would be children, because children grow out of shoes, before they even wear them out. By renting children shoes you would ensure that children always get new shoes when required.
The moment when I don’t like these shoes is when I am walking in the grass to avoid being run over by a car driver who doesn’t slow down or take precautions when seeing pedestrians by the side of the road. I feel my feet and ankles twisting at unsafe angles. That’s why I walk on agricultural roads where I know there are very few cars.
Running shoes are usually expensive, so paying monthly to spread the cost makes sense, especially if they are replaced every three months. If they’re replaced every six months then they’re much more expensive and the deal is less interesting. You have one month, tho choose to keep the shoes, and then you’re committed for six months, before you can terminate the contract. There is a huge “cancel plan” button, should you decide to cancel the plan.
These shoes fill a niche. They fill the niche of the person who runs 600 kilometres every three to six months and wants their shoes to be recycled, and turned into new shoes. It fills the niche of the person who wears through shoes at a rapid rate. I do, so such a deal is interesting for me, especially if I burn through 600km per three months.
At a rate of 8km per day it would take 75 days to walk/run 600km. This puts me comfortably within the 90 day recycling window.
The pandemic continues. People continue suggesting to do things in the physical world but I find little to no desire to be in close proximity to others, The only moment I am, is when I am cycling.
Today I didn’t bother wearing a mask to recycle, not because I didn’t have it with me but because there were no people around. This proves that when the pandemic is over and that risks are minimal, I will resume normal life, without a mask at all times.
I can keep dreaming of that day.
In 2019 Swiss people spent 162 million hours walking and hiking in Switzerland. Hiking generates 2.5 billion CHF per year and there are 50,000 signs to help people find their way. In Switzerland people hike 20 times per year.
I go for a two to three hour walk/hike every single day and as a result I have walked almost 2 million steps since March.
The Canton de Vaud has 3736 kilometres of hiking trails of which 1538 have hard surfaces. 547 kilometres are in the mountains. 136 volunteers help keep the paths open.
The total number of hiking trails in Switzerland amount to 66,722 kilometres, of which 17444 have hard surfaces. 24,783 kilometres are in the mountains. For 2019 there were 1028 organised hikes by Randonner.ch. These facts and figures are from the 2019 annual report.
On-Running, is ideal, in theory, but sub-optimal in reality. The biggest issue I found with On-Running CloudNeo shoes is that they are seasonal running shoes. If it’s icy or wet you’re going to slip and slide all over the place. If you’re a former snowboarder and cyclist you will recover, but if you’re not used to slipping and sliding you will fall. As a result of this I got shoes a month or two ago but never used them because it was either rainy, or cold.
Imagine having a pair of shoes that you pay 35 CHF per month for, but that can’t be used for 4-6 months per year. That’s a lot of money for shoes that are dormant due to not being well suited to the running environment.
My second grudge with on-running is that they encourage you to think “Oh, you should, but you don’t have to return the shoes that are warn out”. The cost if you don’t return shoes is 100 CHF. If you have warn out shoes with the sole peeling off with the first pair then that is appalling customer service. If a shoe is degrading 100 CHF is very expensive for an unusable pair of shoes.
The shoes were comfortable when running, at first but eventually they began to feel like crap. The shoes lasted three months with my use before starting to fall apart. The sole fell off. I felt that the toe box was uncomfortable when wearing them after several weeks of use, especially with walking. I find that on-running shoes in general are not comfortable walking shoes.
I cancelled my subscription today. I haven’t used the replacement shoes at all, due to the unfriendly weather and badly suited grip for winter Switzerland. As a result I am stuck with a connundrum. Do I return shoes that are perfectly fine, to be recycled, to avoid paying 100 CHF on top of the 35 CHF per month I paid for several months, or do I pay 100 CHF? I think the answer is obvious. Return the shoes.
Idealisticly, once you cancel the membership you should be given the option of running the shoes until they need to be recycled, and return them then. The first pair I had were worth the 105 CHF I paid. The second pair were worthless due to snow, ice and wet roads making the second pair unusuable for months. They’re still new. I haven’t removed any of the packaging from the shoes yet. I could use them for three months, and then send them to be recycled out of contract. I have paid for them. I just never got to use them due to them not being designed for a Swiss winter, despite being Swiss shoes.
I really like the idea of a shoe subscription where shoes are recycled after their useful life is over. I liked running in them and during the summer months they were a pleasure to use, for running. For walking they’re sub-optimal, especially for longer walks.
What I would like with the Cyclon program is an option to suspend the plan while the conditions are not good for the shoes. When it’s raining, snowing, and the ground is frozen these shoes are dangerous. When it’s warm and sunny the shoes are great. Sending them back is easy, and the process is convenient.
In my opinion on-running need to make Cloudneo shoes that are usable in winter, and comfortable for walking, and I will renew my subscription.
The tapeless workflow is a term used to describe video production without the use of tapes. That is to say that from the point the material is recorded in camera to the point it is distributed it never changes from being data. In other words television production has become a profession of data managment as some would say.
A few production companies came to give demonstrations of their tapeless workflow system, at least in broad terms. Red Bee and Virgin Media showed how they have collaboratively brought the post production process to being a tapeless one. In order to do this good networking capability is needed and so is storage. They had to digitise over 40,000 tapes as well as face many more challenges.
Some of these challenges have to do with meta data. Everyone is used to dealing with tapes. you shoot your material, you label it for post production and then store them for later use. When dealing with data though the mentality is different. Some productions have shot straight to P2 cards, backed up the day’s shoots to external P2 hard drives before sending them from China to London for example. Of course when doing this everyhting must be planned ahead.
Part of this planning has to do with the compatibility between recording format and editing. If you get this wrong then you either don’t get the quality you were looking for or you slow down the process. That was part of a case study between Panasonic and two of it’s camera’s during a shoot in China.
The second example was between Red Bee Media and Virgin Media in relation to the creative Village. The idea is that when the material is ingested by Red Bee media it’s saved to a central server from which it can be accessed by a number of workstations, from transcribing to tapelogging, editing and producer’s work stations. it also has to be available in two buildings.
There are a number of advantages to this workflow. The first is that the work is available to the producers when they have the time to check the material rather than when everyone has ten free minutes. As a result the editor can edit a rough cut and a number of producers at up to two hundred workstations may check the edit and say whether they like it. If they don’t then it’s quick to make any changes that are required. It also means that there’s far less mess and expensive equipment is not tied up.
When you’re working on post production dubbing to tape used to take a lot of time, real time and with DVD it’s quickly a messy affair. Files in an edit folder are far easier to deal with.
I really like the idea o the tapeless workflow and i’m going to work on that for my own work, first with affordable equipment and then work my way towards more fun alternatives. It’s what we expect. No more ingestion time, no more dubbing time, just straight editing, agreement and finally output to a number of formats. Of course that’s not as easy as it sounds but post production companies are working on making this a smoother process.