Cycling stings

Byrichard
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Yesterday I was stung by a wasp while cycling and when I tried to remove the stinger I couldn’t. I was in pain and almost stopped cycling. I was in distress as a bus passed on a main road. I was on an agricultural path by some apple orchards. I stopped where the agricultural road reached the main road. 

It’s almost twenty four hours later and my lower lip and one of my cheeks have swelled up. A few weeks ago I had a similar incident with a bee but I was able to remove the stinger while cycling and my quick action prevented too much poison from being pumped into my lower lip. When that incident occurred I was surprised not to have any swelling. 

In previous years I have been stung twice to my right leg and at least once to the stomach. I had no adverse reaction. Being stung when you’re riding a bike or scooter is normal. Usually the windshield on the scooter protects your body so that’s where bugs get splattered. I often hear when bumble bees and other larger insects hit my helmet. There’s that little “poc” sound on almost every ride. 

If you look at car radiators, windshields and side mirrors you will see a graveyard of insects. This year I have seen flying swarms of small insects and I’ve tried not to have my mouth open by accident when going through them. 

I am tempted to get a face mask, to protect my mouth. I already protect my eyes on every ride for this very reason. A face mask would be a logical next step. 

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The Zwift Everest Challenge

The Zwift Everest Challenge

Byrichard

This summer I climbed over 8848 metres in a single month and now I have just completed the Zwift Everest challenge as well. This challenge, on Zwift, is much easier than in the real world because you are not carrying water, the weight of your bike, dealing with keeping yourself balanced on your bike or traffic. 


Using a Fluid Trainer.


I don’t use a smart trainer. I use an Elite Qubo Fluid trainer and to climb I use information on speed to decide how hard to work. If I feel lazy I can pedal at 100 watts for a long period of time to get to the top but that isn’t in my nature. I like to push myself. I push until I get tired and then I recover, and then I push again. I also loe to sprint to the end and try to beat my previous time. Yesterday I rode up at a relatively lazy pace. When I got to within 1.5 kilometres of the top I really put out a lot of energy and when I reached the summit I was spent. 



I put out an average power of 291 watts for an effort of 2 minutes 29 with a peak at 612 watts and a cadence of between 100 and 121 pedal strokes a minute. It might seem strange to put out such a lot of energy on a bike indoors but the feeling of accomplishment is the same as if you had done it in the real world. 


I like climbing challenges because I live in a mountaineous landscape therefore reaching long ride distances is more challenging. It’s not that I don’t have the ability to ride for four or five hours but that if I ride four to five hours I travel one hundred kilometres because I have to climb cols if I want an interesting GPS track. 


Stamina and technique


Stamina and technique do improve as you get used to climbing. You might be in the easiest gear going just above “stalling” speed but you endure up that hill until you get to the top. On Zwift you ride your bike in the physical world but a top of the range frame and wheels in the virtual realm. This means that you’re achieving times that you could never reach in the physical world with your current bike setup. 


With a dumb trainer like mine, in contrast to a smart trainer with force feedback, you only see that you’re climbing because A) your speed decreases and B)The gradient indicator tells you that you’re on a hill. With a smart trainer it does get harder and you may want to switch to an easier gear Some people even add a gradient machine at the front to tilt the bike. 


With what I describe above there are two things that you do not get with virtual climbing. The first of these is a sensation of altitude as the air gets thinner and colder and secondly you do not get that fantastic ride down. On an indoor trainer whether you’re going up or down you still need to keep pedalling. In the real world when you’re going downhill you rest and recover unless you’re one of the top descenders of the Tour De France or other cycling races. 


Conclusion


I haven’t tried a smart trainer so my experiences and opinions on virtual climbing are based on theory rather than practice. I have used recumbent bikes but they give you a power to achieve rather than a sensation of climbing. Virtual climbing, as I have experienced it, is easier than climbing in the real world because if you go to slowly you don’t fall, and you don’t have the sudden very steep gradients that you sometimes experience in the physical world. Most indoor trainers are blocked at 12 percent if my memory serves me well. In the real world they can reach 23 percent or more. 

The WeWatt Bike wait
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The WeWatt Bike wait

Byrichard

Today I experienced the WeWatt bike wait again. The first time I experienced it was when flying from Alicante to Geneva and the second time is when I was waiting to meet someone for lunch today. The principle is very simple. If you see that a wewatt bike is free for you to use you simply sit on the seat and start pedalling. The first two or three strokes are difficult but after that the resistance is minimal.


Wait and Charge


The beauty of the Wewatt bike wait is that while you’re waiting for people you usually play with your phone or with another device. In this situation, you’re waiting but as you’re waiting the battery level on your phone is going up rather than down. The longer you wait the higher the charge on your phone and the higher your physical fitness.


Not that strenuous


If you are used to cycling then the WeWatt bike does not offer enough resistance once you have given it inertia. You have to reduce your cadence in order not to be windmilling. For me getting the right cadence is a challenge. I would like to be able to change the resistance. I would like for the whole revolution of the pedals to exert force. During a ten minute session, I burned around 48 calories. I would need to spend 110 minutes on a WeWatt bike to burn 550 calories. On a normal bike, I would burn that in half an hour or less, depending on the terrain and effort.


Charge Produced


During the ten minute session, I charged the phone by about ten percent. It would take a theoretical 100 minutes to charge a phone fully. I do not see many people staying on one of those bikes for that long. I would like to try charging a laptop with this bike and I would like a home desk version. For the home desk version, I would want the option to increase to resistance to generate more power and charge devices sooner.

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France Télévision Coverage of the Tour De France

Byrichard

The Tour De France is a 3600 kilometre race over 3 weeks with one independent race each day. They start in an international city and then make their way to France within two or three days. The programmes are built around three specific shows. There is the pre-show Village programme followed by the first part of the race before the depart until well after it. The last segment is moved to France 2 for peak viewing and audience.

During the first of these programmes you learn about the city the tour de France is leaving. You get artist interviews, food preparation and other small animations. During the second programme, the first part of the race you see the cyclists and the landmarks and places worthy of note. You get landscape shots of the countryside, aerial shots of castles and learn about where they are cycling for future tourist visits should you be in one part of France or the other. You also get to see the cycling.

Today they’re cycling through the Pyrenées so you will see the cyclists face the challenge of climbs at the same time as working on making their endurance last long enough.

There are a lot of sports on television but very few of them have the intensity and landscape of cycling. Tennis is in a court, Football is in a stadium, golf is in a park. Only Cycling provides television audiences with a journey, a voyage. I love this voyage and love the “French Landscape programme” as I like to call it, for this very reason.

One Hundred and Fifty Six Days of Walking 10,000 Steps Or More and Two Bike Rides

Byrichard

For one hundred and fifty six days I walked 10 thousand steps or more, before I broke my streak by going for two bike rides. The first one was a twenty five kilometre loop. The second was a more ambitious 51km loop. I ended up in Geneva, by the Palais Des Nations. This had not been my goal. I just felt good so I kept going. 


View of the Broken Chair and the Palais des Nations
View of the Broken Chair and the Palais des Nations


Recently i have seen a few articles that discuss that the 10,000 steps myth was created because that was the name of a step counter, designed by a Japanese company. It stuck around for a few decades. Recent research shows that the health benefits of steps stabilise after 8000 steps. The research found that from 8000 steps per day onwards the health benefits of walking flatten off and it becomes surplus to requirement. This doesn’t mean that you don’t get fitter. They mean that after 8000 steps in a day life expectancy remains the same. 


Mahatma Ghandi and spring flowers
Mahatma Ghandi and spring flowers


The conditions for cycling were good yesterday because there were no commuters in a rush, and ignoring the safety of cyclists. It was also good because the temperature was low enough not to get too warm, but warm enough not to get cold. These are good cycling conditions at the moment. 


I cycled 52 kilometres at an average speed of 23.2 kilometres per hour over 2hr14. It took me about one hour to get towards Palexpo etc. This is relevant because people speak about how public transport should be improved, and how people should take public transport. I think that cycling routes should be improved instead. If cycling routes are made safer for cyclists then instead of taking an hour to take a train into Geneva from Nyon you could cycle. Instead of commuting for an hour passively, you could commute on a bike. This is an easy distance to cycle. 


View of Vaud looking towards Lausanne with two trees in bloom and a blue sky
View of Vaud looking towards Lausanne with two trees in bloom and a blue sky


We should think about replacing the car, for short journeys, and even for commuting. The bike ride tired me, but because it’s the first time I do such a distance in many months. By the end of summer this will be an easy ride. 

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Geneva to Hermance on a bike

Byrichard

Hermance is a place where I have dived frequently and so it is only natural that I hard to ride from Geneva to Hermance on a bike. The ride is an easy and pleasant ride. It takes you out of Geneva and through the fields to the East of Geneva before taking you down to Hermance where you have a good view of the lake. The ride back takes you through a few villages before getting back to Geneva.

The landscape undulates with only one climb as you leave the lake and take the back roads towards Pallanterie. From that point you follow the road until you get to the French border and cross to the left and head straight for the lake. It’s at this point that you start to see signs for Hermance and follow them down a steep road to the lake side.

Hermance is a nice small town where you see divers and at this time of year animations. There is the beach which is free for divers and paying for normal people. You also have changing rooms and showers. There is a café/restaurant where you can have a drink or snack before heading back. I would like to do this circuit again with a group. Stopping in Hermance would be more pleasant.

I love for the GPS track of my rides to be a loop so to ensure that this was the case I cycled back via the lake road. There are bits where you are with cars but for the majority of the route you have a dedicated cycle path.

An Ingress Bike ride that passed by bisons

An Ingress Bike ride that passed by bisons

Byrichard

Yesterday I went on an Ingress bike tide that passed by bison. I went from Nyon to Mies and from Mies up towards Gex, and before getting to Gex, I turned towards Divonne where I met an Ingress player before heading home, as the sun was setting.


I went out in the morning, dressed warmly. It was warm. Warm weather means less clothing on the bike ride. With such a great opportunity I decided to go for a bike ride.


I set off with no destination in mind so I skimmed Nyon and went by the lake road. Cycling along the lake road is good because there are cycle paths for almost the entire length. The drawback is that the bike lanes have obstacles. In some places the paths are not cleaned as often as roads, in others, you have road works and in yet more there are cycle lanes but the transition from one surface to the other is not smooth. In one case you would have to stop and lift the bike onto the cycle lane.


As I cycled I hacked certain Ingress portals along the way, linking, and liberating others. As I was hacking one portal after Mies, someone on a bike asked me if I had a pump, so I cycled back to where I had been and lent it to them. After a few minutes, the flat was resolved and I could continue on my way.


I could have continued cycling towards Geneva, but as I saw a snicket I chose to go up the path. It took me to an unusual place. I think it is a place for camping trailer homes and fair equipment that is stored when not in use. It’s right by the Centre Sportif De Versoix. It’s a road I have seen plenty of times but never explored.


On the Route de La Viellie-Bâtie I saw bison grazing. I didn’t expect to see them there. They are usually in another field close to the motorway and airport. As I continued along this path I followed the cycle route signs and ended up on a narrow metalled path that took me by walkers.


At the end of the path, there is a barrier and I saw three or four old people making their way towards the barrier. Rather than wait for me to pass they lethargically walked through and I had to slow down and wait for them to pass. If I was in a group of pedestrians, I’d like to think we would let the cyclist pass, rather than force him to slow down or stop. When you are flâneurs what rush is there to get from A to B?


There is a fun segment to ride on a bike. It requires a short climb on the lake side of Cessy before a nice descent towards Tutegny. As there was no traffic I enjoyed riding fast along this segment.


When I got to Grilly I went along the Cycle route 7. This is an old train or tram track that has been surfaced for walkers and cyclists to go along. In theory, it’s a cycle lane but on a Sunday this isn’t the case. Between dog walkers and walkers you’re on a bike ride rather than cycling as a cyclist. I don’t mind slowing down for children on their bikes, or parents with children. I mind adults taking the entire road. I cycled slower than usual along this segment.


One or two weekends ago I was in Divonne on foot to play Ingress and field. This time I was on a bike. Playing Ingress on a bike is great. You can get from one point to another very fast and you can go down roads and other paths that are closed to cars. Instead of a 10-minute walk, it’s a two-minute ride. It’s great for hacking some portals and destroying those controlled by the opposition.


I know of people who like to play Ingress in a car, rather than on foot when the space between portals is long. I prefer the bike. With a bike, you’re having a workout, whilst playing the game. You can get between villages in an instant and so cover greater distances. This is useful when portals are spaced widely apart.


Someone was active in Divonne at the same time as I was riding through and after a few minutes of talking, and sharing keys he asked: “Can you go and link these two portals?”. With a bike such favours are quick.


By cycling frequently I increase my endurance. By combining Ingress I take different routes than I would if I was on foot, by scooter or by car. I get to know the local area and I see changes. I headed home, not because I was tired, as I have been on other rides, but because I wanted to be home before the sunset. I need to find a way to fix the front light to my bike. I could simply wait for the long summer days instead.

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