Ducks cycling

Playing With the Switzerland Mobility App

Byrichard
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Yesterday I was planning to walk from Nyon to La Barillette but rather than take the usual route that takes me via a set of cabins where there is sometimes a dog I wanted to try an alternate route. In the end I used the Switzerland Mobility app and website because I can trust that the paths they suggest actually exist.

Garmin Explore

At first I was experimenting with the Garmin Explore App and although it does provide us with the opportunity to draw routes it creates a track but we don’t have information about whether it’s on a road, or other surfaces, and we’re not sure that the data is correct.

Komoot and Alltracks

I then tried to draw the same route with Komoot, and possibly Alltrack, and it created a route, and gave me information about what to expect, but once again I didn’t know whether I could trust that the route existed or not. That’s when I looked for the official Swiss eco-friendly mobility app.

Sqitzerland Mobility

Switzerland Mobility is an official app that provides you with all hiking, cycling, canoeing, snowshoeing, canoeing and other routes. Look around the map and you can see local hikes, bike routes and more. You can also see places to sleep, whether hotels, hostels or campings. This simplifies adventure planning in Switzerland.

Skating and Canoeing

It amuses me that they have skating and canoeing routes available for people to enjoy. Those are two sports I wouldn’t have considered looking for. With skating they also include slow ups. Slow ups are good because roads are closed to cars, for cyclists, walkers and skaters to enjoy the surface, without the danger of cars.

The Phone App

The phone app is well designed. It is easy to look for routes, and to jump between route stages. If you’re looking at the Via Jacobi you can go back and forth between stages, as well get info about the distance of that stage, climbing and descending, as well as the hiking time. Finally it will provide you with access to the Swiss transport network, to get to and from the starting and end points.

Drawing Routes

If you pay 35 CHF per year you gain access to draw routes. The reason for doing this is that you gain access to the Swiss database of walking paths that other websites and services may not have. You can zoom in to a scale of 100m to whatever your screen is set to, so you can see a very detailed map, with contours and more. It also provides you with information about path closures and alternative routes. This is practical for local exploration of a region that you may be familiar with.

And Finally

I expected to try the walk I drew yesterday afternoon but due to going to sleep later than anticipated, and then not having something to do once at the top, I cancelled that plan. That’s why I am speaking hypothetically, rather than documenting an experience.

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The French Landscape Program – The Tour de France
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The French Landscape Program – The Tour de France

Byrichard

I like to speak of the Tour de France as the French landscape program. I watch the cycling, not because I care about the cycling but because I like to see the landscapes, the castles, the panoramas, and more. It’s a way of getting travel ideas. Of course I do sometimes like watching the cycling. I liked watching Alaphilipe two years ago as he went towards winning, but not quite the tour de France. I like to watch the echapées that can last for 100 or more kilometres. I like to watch as they go through beautiful landscapes, as they climb on steep gradients as if they were nothing. I also like to be inspired for my own bike rides and progression.


I usually wach the Tour De France by starting On France 3 and then moving on to France 2. They like for part of the race to be on France 3, the regional French TV channel, before going to France 2, the national channel. In so doing you can watch most of the races. You don’t always get the start of the race but you can spend several hours a day watching the Tour.


Today the weather is rainy, and the camera lenses are sometimes covered in rain. The helicopter’s camera is covered in rain. In another shot, you could see rain being lifted by the motorbike’s rear tyre as they ride up the Alps today. On other days you see them cycling in high temperatures with fields of sunflowers or others around them.


Aside from the landscapes and the cycling you also get some historical context for the locations. They speak about why the region is significant at different points in time. I learn about architectural terms and interesting monuments.


I saw that Le Monde, a french newspaper they have a guide to when to have a siesta without missing the interesting moments. It’s easy to fall asleep as you watch the Tour De France, as it is three or four hours of viewing several days a week for weeks. You can’t help but fall asleep.


You have some beautiful climbs followed by fast descents. You would never descend like them because we have to deal with traffic, and we don’t have a motorbike in front of us to scare animals out of the way.

Climbing to La Barillette
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Climbing to La Barillette

Byrichard

The first time I climbed up to La Barillette on a bike it took me two and a half hours. This time it took one hour and sixteen minutes. I was going so slowly that I had to work to keep the bike upright. Since then I have gone from a mountain bike with tyres that weren’t pumped enough and soft suspension to the same bike with slick tires, hardened suspension and higher pressure in the tyres. I then swapped that bike two or three years later and tried the same climb. I struggled with the road bike as well. I had to stop at least two or three times. I also found that clipped in pedals on such steep gradients are a hindrance because you can’t stop until the flatter bits.


This time I wore normal shoes and I set off from around Nyon. I cycled up to the start of the climb and i just started climbing. Above Cheserex I already had to stand on the bike to get enough thrust, then sit down, and then repeat. As I went up I saw two or three groups. One group set off just as I was getting to them and the second stopped where the first had been.


I like having a group in front of me. The group in front gives me a goal. It gives me a pace. I want at the minimum to keep up with them and ideally to overtake them. The person I used for pacing gave up within the first four to six kilometres. I then continued at my own pace as the other people were now a long distance away.


As I go up this hill I often daydream and my mind wanders to something completely different. It’s the closest I’d get to meditation. You’re making a physical effort but the body is so used to it that the mind has time to think of other things. I don’t remember what I was daydreaming about.


I’m used to doing this climb in the heat of summer when it’s 37°c or more. This time it was no more than 20 or so. I didn’t need to take two litres of water with me but I would have been happy with a rain coat and a third layer. The reason for this is that the beautiful weather I set off in turned overcast and cold.


As I got closer to the top I could feel the temperature begin to drop, and i felt the need to close the zips, to preserve heat. I even thought of putting my spare layer on. I continued.


When I set off you could see the top. By the time I got back down this is what it looked like.


When you’re climbing you know what your previous times were and during this time I got to a certain point where i saw that I was going to beat my previous best times by a nice margin so it encouraged me to keep going, but also not to stop and rest, and not to wait for two cars to figure out how to pass each other. I cycled through the grass to overtake them.


When I finally got to the top I saw people get out of their cars, smoke cigarettes and talk loudly. I had two Balistos and then headed back down. The view was so bad that I didn’t take any pictures.


As much as you think you suffer during the way up, which I didn’t this time, going down is the difficult bit. When you’re going back down you’re cold and you’re not doing much. You’re letting gravity undo the work that you just spent an hour doing.


My tyres have over 4000km in them so as i went down the hill I was slower than I needed to be. The surface was also wet and therefore could be slippy. I was holding the brakes for a good portion of the descent, to such an extent that I thought this was a good finger strengthening exercise.


Just before I got to the pond my rear tyre suffered a puncture. I can see two marks where I think a thorn or some other object punctured the tyre and deflated it within seconds. It didn’t matter as I had a spare tyre with me.


This winter I changed tyres frequently for the indoor trainer so the process has become automatic. What I especially enjoyed about changing a tyre on the side of a mountain slope is that you don’t have to worry about getting the floor dirty. Within minutes the tyre was changed and I could continue the descent.


This ride is unique because the night before I decided to do this climb we were discussing a via ferrata with two friends but they don’t have the equipment. The compromise was going to climb indoors but I didn’t feel like doing that because 1. the weather was nice and because 2. there are free sports to be enjoyed. I woke up that morning, opened the blinds and because of what a beautiful and warm day I saw it would be I decided to go for a bike ride and enjoy it. It felt so good to get on the bike after several days, or even weeks of not riding.


I was fully within the moment yesterday. I profited from the good weather, I set a goal and I achieved it, and I lived in the now, rather than later. This is rare for me. This ride, despite it’s physical nature, was relaxing.

Walking in Rain – Not Singing

Walking in Rain – Not Singing

Byrichard

When some people see that it’s grey or rainy they don’t want to go for a walk. They don’t want to get rained on and they don’t want to experience the discomfort of being in a wet environment. I don’t mind the rain. I don’t mind wearing a rain coat and rain trousers, and waterproof shoes, and ensuring that I don’t need to fiddle with the phone when my hands are wet with rain.

I think tbat one reason for which I’m fine with walking in full rain gear on a rainy day is that I used to drive in a dry suit, and that at the end of the day walking in the rain is not much different from dry suit diving. In both situations you’re wearing cloths to keep warm, with a layer of protective gear over the dry clothes.

One of the problems with walking on a sunny day, after a day of rain is that shoes get extremely muddy, as do trousers, but that mud is just viscous enough to stick to my shoes. It’s the day after heavy rain that it’s awful, because shoes get muddy and when shoes get muddy I sit on the stones and scrape away the mud from my shoes. This takes several minutes. ¨

My shoes get muddy because whether I am on agricultural roads, on main roads car drivers will drive so fast and so close that I am forced to walk in the mud. During a drought this doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter when it’s raining. That’s because when it rains water soaks shoes. Mud doesn’t stick. My shoes look good as new, and that’s a great advantage of walking in heavy rain.

Rain also changes the landscape. What is a road, in dry weather, becomes a stream. What is usually an orchard with grass growing between the trees becomes a pond with trees, a mangrove. I might be pushing our imagination a little with this image.

There is one massive disadvantage to rainy days. My coat drains onto the tile floor and I need to keep mopping it up, to avoid stains from forming. I often have to mop the floor where the coat was hanging on the back of a chair. It’s hanging from a chair because if I let it drain on the coat rack it will soak the ISP device.

As I write this blog post I am struck by something. It’s the 30th of december and I’m speaking about rain, with barely a thought for snow. Facebook reminded me that 12 years ago we had snow on this day. According to the Apple Weather app the normal temperature range for where I am is from -6°c to 4°c. It’s 9°c today. At lease precipitation is 7.3cm above average, so that’s one plus. If it was cold we would have a nice snowy landscape.

And Finally

When it’s almost always sunny people like me get fatigued with the sun, and rain becomes a rare treat. In the same way that we used to think that it’s a shame to stay indoors when it’s sunny, I now find it a shame not to go out when it’s raining. At least when it’s raining the landscape changes, the walking paths are quiet, and my shoes are spotless when I get home. Usually the morning frost makes the ground muddy and I need to clean my shoes before entering the building.

Maybe I’m ready for the Camino Primitivo. If it rained for the entire time I might still be comfortable, especially if I sleep in a building every night.

A Forgotten Apple Event

A Forgotten Apple Event

Byrichard

On the Twelfth of September Apple held an event to promote their new iPhone devices and I completely forgot to watch and spoof what they were selling. For years now I have had little to no interest in new Apple devices and watches for a very simple reason. They’re extremely expensive, compared to alternatives.

Years ago I bought a new iphone every year, from the 4 to the 4S to the SE but after that I stopped until I bought an 8+ for drone flying as it had a bigger screen before reverting back to the Iphone SE(second generation). I heard on a podcast that the original SE was the best low budget iPhone so that’s why I took it. I took the second Gen SE because it had the smallest screen.

Too Big To Hold and Use One Handed

The problem with almost all iPhones is that they are large, fragile, and hard to use one handed. This means that you need big pockets, big hands, and a protective case to keep them safe. Small and elegant phones are more interesting. They’re easier to hold, carry, and keep safe. A phone that you can use one handed with ease, is more useful.

Incremental Progress

When the first iPhones came out every new device was priced at an interesting point and the tech was innovative. Now you spend 1000 USD for an incrementally better phone. According to GSM Arena it’s not worth buying the iphone. I don’t want to spend so much money on a device, that if, dropped once, needs to have the screens replaced. The front and back glass can shatter after a single drop.

The Ultra 2

Some people will see the Ultra 2 and desire it. I don’t. Apple watches are fragile. I broke one indoor climbing. I wore Suunto watches rock climbing in the mountains and barely have scratches to show for scraping the watch on real rocks, every weekend. Another issue is the price point. You’re paying 800 CHF for a watch that lasts 36hrs in GPS mode. For 150 CHF or so you can get the Garmin Etrex SE and track for a week, and within a few seconds you can swap the AA batteries that you can buy almost anywhere.

Planned Obscolecence

The other drawback to buying expensive Apple Watches is that if you buy one, you will want to buy the next generation, and the generation after that. It will cost 800 CHF to keep up to date. Do you want to fall down that rabbit hole?

A good App-mosphere

Of course when you’re buying an Apple Watch you’re not just paying for the watch. You’re also paying for the app-mosphere. You’re paying to have access to all of the apps that play nicely, for a fee, with the Apple watch. it’s great to have access to so many apps, but most cost 30 CHF per year, per app. That’s easily hundreds of francs.

With Garmin, Suunto, Google and Xiaomi this is included in the price of the device you wear on your wrist. I would have written Fitbit instead of Google but we know that Fitbit is on borrowed time.

Daily Charging

With the Suunto Peak 5 you charge once every few days. With the Garmin Instinct Solar you can go for weeks without charging, in summer. With the Garmin Suunto 45s you charge every two or three days. Do you want to spend 800 CHF on a watch that needs one and and half hours to charge every single day, for normal use? No other high end watch forces you to recharge so often. Batteries degrade with charge cycles, so you’re going through one charge cycle, per day.

With the Suunto D4 diving watch and Suunto D9 you would charge once every two or three years, by swapping batteries.

And Finally

Not being interested in the latest apple watches and iPhones works to my advantage. I save on time, money and desire. When innovation is not ground breaking it is easier to remain indifferent. I would be more interested in swapping the battery in the current second generation SE than in getting a new phone.

A Happy Pan – When Oil Smiled

A Happy Pan – When Oil Smiled

Byrichard

Yesterday I had a happy pan, when the oil smiled at me. I didn’t intend for it to become a smiley face. I poured in the oil as I always do before cooking. That’s when my imagination thought it saw something. Yep, a face. I was amused enough, and I thought that my imagination was seeing something clear enough for others to recognise, so I took pictures.


A smiley face made of oil
A smiley face made of oil


This face came too early. If I had seen this on Halloween then it would have been perfect. This is a demonstration of how chaos theory can make anything happen. Alternatively if enough monkeys like me pour oil into pans we eventually get a face. People like this cooking oil. Five people have told me that they like this brand of Greek oil.


In other news Google says that I have travelled 3700 kilometres this year, between walking, cycling and the car. I think that most of it was by foot though. This is day 285 of 2021. 3700 / 285 came to around 13 kilometres a day. I think this proves how local our lives have become during this pandemic. 13 kilometres is easy to walk in a day, especially at a conference or other event, but also when walking to and from work, for some, or daily walks for other. My first reaction had been “how did I manage that, this must be wrong. Upon reflection, this seems correct.


The Refugee Cultural Festival Kickoff Party
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The Refugee Cultural Festival Kickoff Party

Byrichard

Last night many of the volunteers participating in the Refugee Cultural Festival could come and meet who they will be working with for the duration of the event. Falafel, samosa, hummus, wine and beer were among the offerings available to those people. Along with this was a drive for them to tell their stories either as migrants, refugees or allies of both. This is within the framework of the I am a Migrant campaign by the International Organisation for Migration.

As usual with most Geneva events this was a culturally diverse group of people. Just an ordinary day in Geneva but special for those who have not grown up with such cultural diversity.

The Refugee Cultural Festival itself will take place on two key dates. The first of these is the 17th of June. The Swiss National day of the refugee. On this day there will be singing, dancing, international karaoke, discussions, music, yoga, photography and much more. You can find a full list of events on the 17th here. They will be around Les Grottes from 10am to 1900 and from 1800 until late at Perle Du Lac.

On the 18th of June there will be interactive activities around Photography and Visual art from 1400-1800 at Bellevue.

The 20th of June is World Refugee Day. This is the day where you get to “Celebrate World Refugee Day with a Grand Cuisine and Cultural Party made up of international delicacies from Syria, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Eritrea and more. This event will take place at Bois-De-La-Batie, 20, petit-lancy.

On the 21st of June there will be a dinner hosted by Asile LGBT from 2000-2400 in Paquis and on the 22nd of June it will be the IFTAR dinner hosted by RMCA, Cusine Lab & Foodhack.

Disclaimer: I am a volunteer within the comms team for this event.

 

 

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