In Spain I keep seeing the BKL Prolimp bikes and I like them. They’re tricycles rather than bikes but I think they could be useful. Instead of transporting a broadcast camera and tripod in a car or smart you could transport them on the back of this bike. Instead of a bin bag though I would have the tripod bag and find a way to fix the camera as well.
I don’t like the price. These bikes are 3300 euros according to at least one site. I like these as a curiousity. It’s nice to have transport like this for cleaning, rather than a pickup truck or small car. You’re outdoors, riding a bike over small distances.
I saw a helmet being used as a parking brake so I don’t know whether these bikes come with a parking brake or whether they have to be improvised.
I know this post is random. I am lacking inspiration.
I just noticed that I’d love living in Singapore because that’s the city where people walk the fastest. Copenhaguen is a city I’ve walked in but I didn’t notice it being particularly fast. Berliners walk faster than New Yorkers and Londoners walk slower than all of the above.
I wonder how I’d compare to all these people and how I’d affect the averages. It’ just the type of news story I enjoy. Out of all these cities Malawi is the slowest. It’s 20 seconds slower than the rest.
In 2015, I was exploring on a mountain bike when I found a road above La Rippe that was closed to traffic, so I decided to explore it. I managed to cycle a certain distance before I met a rockfall blocking the road, so I had to turn back. I then tried again in 2018 and I got quite close to the top but decided to give up and turn around. Within the last three weeks or so I have attempted the ride again, and this time I have made it up not once, but twice.
The first time I attempted it this year, it was exploration. I used Komoot to set the destination point, and then I started cycling up. This ride is a challenge because it starts steep, and it stays steep almost the whole way up. I read a comment that once you get to 1200 meters it gets easier. That’s almost at the top of the climb.
It is easier to do this type of climb if you look at distance remaining, rather than altitude. It is the type of ride that you do one kilometre at a time. Every kilometre is earned. One nice aspect of this ride is that you have more wildlife. You hear rustling in the leaves, and you hear things scuttling around. I saw at least one Chamois, one snake and quite a few hikers. Hikers do not count as wildlife. You see some people walking upwards, and others walking downwards.
I like to find routes that either have very few cars, or no cars. Cars often drive too close and too far. The further we are from cars, the safer we are. It gives us the time to focus our attention on the effort and the challenge, rather than on safety. I wear normal shoes, rather than cycling shoes, for this climb. In a previous attempt I found that I wanted to stop but couldn’t, so I was stuck with continuing to climb until the gradient was gentler. That was not fun.
View of the Alps through the trees
On this ride you have a good few of the Lac Léman as well as of the Alps and the Mont Blanc on the right day. When you get to what I consider the top there is nothing to do. I could go further and explore on the french side, but during a pandemic I prefer not to cross borders, especially on foot, with a bike on my back. I could go up on foot, and explore from the other side, and eventually link the two. In theory I can go up from La Rippe, over the top, across to the West of La Dole, rejoin La Cure, cycle to St Cergue and come down the fun road. We’ll see next summer.
From Grächen to Zermatt via the longest suspension bridge: part two
When you wake up in the Europahütte and look down you can see the span of the longest suspension bridge in the morning shade of the mountains. It’s at this moment that people like me think “shame, not ideal for pictures”. My advice is to plan the day of hiking so that you arrive at the bridge when it’s lit by the sun to get good images. Plan to arrive in the afternoon. I’d be tempted to start from Zermatt if I did this hike again.
Six minutes to cross
When I crossed the bridge it took about six minutes slowing down occasionally to look at the view. It’s stable and hardly swings. I was able to walk with a camera in one hand without holding on to the cable. It’s nothing like via ferrata monkey bridges and others. If you’re used to via ferrata bridges then this one is tame. The Ladders of Death and other via ferrata are more impressive. I’d compare it to the bridge above Saillon but much bigger.
You can see that the bridge is solidly anchored into the mountain on both ends. It’s a mere 86 meters off the ground and when you walk out and look down you can see the tops of trees like a paraglider would see them. It’s a nice taste of the world as seen from a paraglider.
A Walk in the woods
Most of the hike on the other side is through pine forest with some exposed bits where you can look up and see a glacier and streams flowing as well as waterfalls. At one point you pass above a nice gorge before heading back into the trees. This part of the hike is comfortable compared to the previous day. It undulates less. There is one moment where the trail is covered by reinforced concrete to protect hikers from rock fall. There are two tunnels through which to walk. Between the two tunnels, you can see damage created by large boulders. In one case the reinforced concrete is buckled. at another section the concrete has been pushed down vertically. For a brief moment you go back into the trees and head upwards again. Saplings have had time to grow in this section, implying that rockfalls have not occurred for a few years.
There is a prairie with warnings of active rockfall and at this segment of the hike bunkers have been dug into the side of the mountain. If you hear or see rocks falling you can shelter here until the danger has passed.
Zermatt
I feel that Zermatt should have many more solar panels on roof buildings than it has. After decades of electric cars and horse drawn carriages you’d expect them to seize the opportunity to generate and use their own power.
FIFAD’s second day’s documentaries were introspective. They looked at mining in Bolivia, Jean Troillet’s life of adventure and the film Sherpa.
[caption id="attachment_3257" align="aligncenter" width="660"] The peaks we see from the Festival[/caption]
Tous Les Jours La Nuit
Tous Les Jours La Nuit is a documentary by Jean-Claude Wicky who passed away recently. The documentary looked at the lives of Bolivian miners who have to work for up to 20 hours a day in mines where the air temperature can reach up to 50°c, where the life expectancy is between 40-45 years and where they barely earn enough to live. In this documentary he looks at some of the pictures he took when down in the mines. He tells us stories about the people who are photographed and tells us about their culture. At the end of the film he comes back to the country once again and meets with some of the miners and their communities. He donates copies of the books to individual miners as well as their community. The aim is to document the hardships faced by these workers.
Sherpa
Sherpa is a beautiful and powerful film because it teaches us about the Sherpa people, the Everest climbing industry and explores the social challenges posed by professions that can lead to accidental death. The documentary looks at the subject from the perspective of tour operators who are responsible for their clients as well as Sherpa. We also see how Sherpa families see the opportunities but also dangers that come from the industry around summiting everest.
The strength of this film lies in that it provides us with the discussions, sights and concerns of people on site at the time of the tragedy. In the documentary they say that as tourists want an increasing level of comfort when climbing Everest the Sherpas have to climb through the Khumbu ice fall from 20-30 times per season to take up supplies and equipment. The clients, tourists or adventurers, whichever name you prefer face the crossing just twice.
The Khumbu ice fall is a snow waterfall “cascade de glace”. On the day of the tragedy a 14,000 ton bloc of ice came lose causing an avalanche that crossed the entirety of the ice fall.
This film highlights the need for adequate social cover for the Sherpa and their families so that, because they do a dangerous job, that their families are cared for. One of the Sherpa, the leader had been approaching 22 climbs of Everest. I will write no more. Enjoy the film when you get the opportunity.
Jean Troillet
Jean Troillet is a Swiss explorer with 50 years of experience of the mountains and fourty of those on expeditions. He holds the record for the fastest climb of Everest and has climbed ten summits over 8000 metres. In the main film projected at FIFAD we see him spend a week in a tent and receiving guests to speak about previous adventures and experiences. Some time was also devoted to him providing his home crowd, people from this region of Switzerland with the opportunity to listen to personal accounts and more.
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