Today I saw that they were expecting a storm and I was really looking forward to a sudden downpour, lightning and more. I also thought that it would trap me at home and that I’d have a day without walking or cycling. In the end I saw that the doppler radar no longer expected any rain etc so I got ready for a bike ride and went out. I could see that the clouds over the Jura were nice and dark, threatening to become an active storm. I still continued my bike ride. I went from near Nyon to Mies, up from there towards Commugny, then towards the Versoix, up a road and had not explored yet.
During the ride I saw a few fresh roses, so I stopped to photograph and smell the roses. I didn’t see as many people walking and cycling as I would usually expect. They were wisely hiding from the rain as I should have done. I had a cycling rain coat, so if the rain had caught me I could have been slightly less drenched, and cycling clothes are not usually dry at the end of a ride anyway.
What is less fun is hail and thunder. Both of those things are dangerous. Small hailstones hurt when they hit you. I know from personal experience. Not only is hail painful, but it’s cold and it can chill you to hypothermic levels within minutes.
It didn’t hail, but it did rain and thunder, and it missed me by five minutes or less. If I had been that bit slower, my bike and I would have been soaked. As things were, the rain didn’t get me.
There was a time when I would change the rear tyre regularly. I was changing from an indoor trainer tyre to a road tyre and back regularly. I developed my skill at this art and then the pandemic occured and I stopped changing tyres as regularly. Recently I went for a 74km bike ride and when I checked the tyre a day or two later I noticed that the rubber was gone and the fibres were showing. I went for one last bike ride, and then I swapped the old tyre for a new one.
Frequent Changes When I Used Zwift
Swapping tyres, once you know how to do it takes a minute or two, with the right tools and right level of experience. It took me 15 minutes. It took that long because I haven’t replaced a rear tyre in three or four years so the right habits had to resurface. When they did the process was quick, and painless.
In the past when I changed tyres I pinched my fingers, or hurt myself in other ways. This time I didn’t even draw blood. That’s a smooth and efficient tyre change.
Wait Until Punctures?
I intended to wear it through until the first puncture. The tyre damage was clear. I swapped it. It’s better to swap the tyre at home, rather than have to swap and inflate the tyre on a bike ride with a tiny pump rather than the proper home bike pump.
What’s Next?
The tyres that I have on my bike have been discontinued so I have to choose which tyres to replace them, several thousand kilometres from now. The rear tyre is brand new, and the front tyre looks fine. Indoor trainers ruin tyres because they wear them out unevenly. The bottom is flattened but the sides are fine. The front tyre is fine.
Good For Another Two Years
if I ride like I have been riding then I’m good for another two or three years before I need to swap the tyres. I’m using continental Grand Prix 4000 S II tyres and they last for three or four thousand kilometres before needing a swap.
And Finally
I’m tempted to shop for new tyres but it isn’t urgent, as tyres can last for years, or thousands of kilometres before being swapped. By the time I need new tyres new technology will have come out. I can also buy new tyres when the price goes down. At the moment they’re 10-20 CHF more than at their low point.
For those who like to cycle in a group of people there is a critical mass event organised for the 29th of August from 1830 onwards in Geneva. The meeting point is the île Rousseau. From there they will cycle around the city of Geneva. At the moment of writing this post the weather is meant to be good with sun and 29°c.
When I cycled with a group of people in London I had fun. I found that the city of London was much smaller than I had thought. If you don’t know a city it is an opportunity to discover new cycling routes and if you do know the city it is an opportunity to meet new people.
The group cycles at a speed that is comfortable for everyone. Those who are confident have time to stop and take pictures or place ingress and Pokemon Go and those who are not as fast are not abandoned.
Although not a critical mass bike ride when I met with a group to cycle in Geneva we travelled about 40km. The advantage that I have when I cycle in and around Geneva is that the landscape is flat compared to where I cycle in the countryside.
Geneva has bike and bus lanes in the centre and when you get out of the centre you have cycle paths that are separate from road traffic and pedestrian traffic. When youn get to the Geneva countryside the roads are relatively quiet so you do not have to worry about cycling in traffic.
There is a critical mass cycling app to make finding the group easier if you meet the group after it has started cycling.
I stopped playing Ingress a few years ago because of how much time it requires. I have started going on Ingress walks again – a 12km path to level 13 in yesterday’s case, because I’m combining the daily walk that I would do anyway, with listening to podcasts and audiobooks, anyway.
By walking and listening to audiobooks and podcasts I am constantly learning about new things. Recently I’ve been listening to current affairs podcasts, I listened to 13 minutes to the moon, I listened to podcasts about the Swiss Watch Industry and more. Every walk is a journey in learning. I also learn about the fifty objects that made the world and more.
I also listen to books when I walk. These aren’t the most inspiring of books but four of them were free, as part of the books I get by being an audible member via Audible originals. Every walk I go on is an opportunity to learn, without feeling that I am not as productive as I could be.
According to my blog stats, I should have lead with writing about the game Ingress, which I took a break from for years, because of how much time it takes to level up, especially when you live in the countryside.
Luckily as time has progressed so has the ability to suggest and have new portals approved. A 12-kilometre walk had three or four portals. Now it has twenty or thirty. This means that during a walk in the countryside it is worth playing Ingress. Going to a polluted city is no longer required. Even country bumpkins like me can play and progress.
By having portals in the countryside it also opens up the prospect of Ingress bike rides. Last week I cycled from Nyon to Rolle, and from Rolle I went up into the vineyards and I destroyed and captured portals. My health benefited because it was a 40km bike ride with four hundred meters of climbing in between vineyards and some of these climbs are steep.
That’s where you see that cycling in Spain has its advantages. I cycled up steep inclines without suffering or worrying I wouldn’t make it. I also cycled up those steep inclines clipped in. I don’t feel comfortable with cycling up steep hills when clipped in because I’m afraid that if I lose power in my legs I will lose forward momentum, not be able to unclip and fall.
Having said this the swiss hills are nothing compared to the Cumbre Del Sol climb. As you cycle up from Mercadona there is one bit of road that is so steep that you can’t start up again. I know because I made the mistake of stopping there and had to walk a hundred meters or so before I found a portion flat enough to start up again.
In Switzerland, you almost never find such gradients on roads, for the simple reason that it snows and water freezes. Snowploughs and other machines need to go up and down Swiss roads.
To get to level 13 I participated in an Ingress Saturday for the first time in years and I participated in two fielding events, to get one of the medals I was lacking the first time, and for the Didact Field Challenge medal currently taking place.
This month I visited 735 unique portals, discovered one portal, collected 4.7 million XM, walked 117 kilometres (low because most of my walking is without playing ingress) and more. I could bore you with the stats but I’d bore myself too. I also spent three weeks in Geneva as part of a favour for a friend so during my daily walks I got back in the habit of playing Ingress.
I don’t make time to play Ingress. I take advantage that my walks and bike rides take me by Ingress portals and play. By combining Ingress with cycling I go down many more roads than I would otherwise go down. I explore villages that I have no reason to stop in. I treat cycling as a journey, rather than a challenge to get segment personal records. I slow down., to experience the locations. It results in me having a more relaxed bike ride.
Ingress walks are also interesting because local people, who know about features that could be portals suggest them, and as a result, we see a portal off to the side of where we’re going, and we investigate. We capture the portal but we also increase our mental map of the area where we are walking.
Ingress, for a while, was a game for people who lived in town and cities. If you lived in the countryside you had to make time to play. Today Ingress can be played in short bursts and yield better results. It has been from a “chronophage” (waste of time/time consuming)activity, as french speakers would call it, to being, for lack of a better word, integral to our daily activities.
The Return on Investment of time, and distance traveled, to play Ingress, even in the countryside has decreased to the point where it is feasible to level up, without devoting half a day. One hour yields the same result.
Cycling in Switzerland requires the ability to go up and down hills. Some of the climbs are long and steep, others are short and steep, and yet more are shallow but long climbs. That’s where bike gears come into their own. The more gears you have the more precisely you can control the amount of effort you’re making. With a mountain bike the gears are designed to help with climbing. With road bikes they can be set to make hill climbs easier or harder.
Six Gears with a Brompton
A Brompton bike may have just three to six gears. I went for a ride on one yesterday, on some undulating swiss hills in Vaud, at the foot of the Jura. The first thing I noticed is that the steering is really nervous compared to a normal bike. That’s because the wheels are tiny, so the torque needed to turn the wheel is minimal. You need to focus a lot of thought on ensuring that you don’t oversteer. I think that Brompton bike wheels are a third the size of normal wheels, or maybe half as big. With a normal bike wheel steering is more sluggish, therefore it feels natural.
Bigger Gaps Between Gears
The second thing you notice with the Brompton is that the difference between gears is greater. The hard gear is really hard, so it doesn’t get used much on hilly terrain. You need to shift down to the second and third gears, to make cycling possible. The easiest gear was too easy on hills, but the middle gear made it more challenging. The result isn’t that I slowed down. I think it sped me up. A Brompton, on mountaineous roads, requires you to find the least worst gear, and find a speed that is sustainable. In my case that speed saw me cycling faster than I would, on a normal bike, not by choice, but by necessity. To go slower would make the gear harder, so once I had inertia I tried to maintain it.
No Drinking
Usually I have no problem drinking and cycling but with the Brpompton I was fully focused on trying to find the right gears, but also being careful not to oversteer. I kept both hands on the bars at all times. I didn’t feel comfortable reaching to have a drink. The Brompton is a different beast to most bikes. The fitter you are, as a cyclist, the more you can adapt to the challenge of riding it, but it would take a few more rides before I felt comfortable riding it, and taking a sip of water.
Average speed
I got up to 37.2 kp/h on the Brompton but my average speed was 17 km/h. Usually I am at 20+ kilometres per hour and my peak is closer to 50+ km/h. My total ascent was 223 meters, according to the Garmin Etrex SE. I don’t know how the effort compared to riding the usual bikes because I didn’t measure my heart rate with a garmin watch this time.
And Finally
Bromptons are not cheap, so it makes more sense to get a normal bike for the same price, or cheaper. I tried this experiment because I felt too lazy to load the bike into the car, if I didn’t then ride the bike due to weather or a change of plans. I can keep up with people on electric bikes, despite the difference in riding comfort and style. My proof of concept test was a success, but rationally cheaper normal bikes make more sense.
They forecast rain and I looked forward to going for a walk and having clean shoes as shoes are washed by the rain keeping shows slick. The rain didn’t come so my shoes got muddy and I stood by the tap trying to get the mud to drain away from between the tread, without much luck. Tomorrow if I run down the stairs as I always do I will leave thick clumps of mud from my apartment down to the garage
Apparently the cleaner doesn’t like seeing clumps of mud that has fallen off shoes. If I was a cleaner I’d be happy. I’d ask if they want to increase the frequency of my visits, or alternatively I would ask for a shoe brush to be placed at the front door, so that people may clean their shoes before coming in.
Of course, in the 21st century shoes never get muddy because they are worn from the car park, for the walk and back. People never go for muddy walks without the car so they never have muddy shoes by the time they get home. By that time their shoes, and the mud has dried, and fallen off inside the car.
It is absurd that someone would go for a walk straight from home. Who in their right mind would do something so quaint and old fashioned. I write this as a joke, but also with seriousness. If people did go for walks from home, rather than taking their cars, walking paths would be more prominent, and easier to find.
It’s only during the pandemic that paths were worn out from villages and back in. During the pandemic people went for local walks, especially during lockdown. Now that people have their freedoms to burn petrol to go for a 40 minute walk, away from home, they do. People haven’t learned not to use their cars for everything.
I don’t make stairwells and halls muddy on purpose. I make them muddy because it’s hard to walk locally, without using a car, without walking where it’s muddy. If everyone was like me then you would need those taps and grates, like you see at football stadiums, where shoes can be brushed clean before going indoors. That will be my next purchase. I really need such a brush.
Puddles and rain would do the same, but for some reason, despite the ground being wet and muddy it never rains at a time, to prevent me from going for a walk.
There is a hill that is steep. You often see people struggle up it, trying to beat their own records and in so doing get knackered by the top. Yesterday I went up such a hill and I felt low on energy so I didn’t bother to sprint. I just focued on getting up to the top. As I went I saw a group of runners running down towards me and I wanted to take a picture but I was too slow so I took a picture of my shadow as I cycled instead.
I showed the bison road to someone else. I think it would be a good place to walk or cycle, if people have the motivation, and the range.
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One Comment
We’ve had some seriously unpredictable weather lately around here. Storms expected that don’t happen, unexpected storms that do, surprise sunny days, surprise humidity… Whew!
Glad you missed that storm. Walking and the rain is one thing, but that sort of massive storm (replete with lightning!) would not have been safe.
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We’ve had some seriously unpredictable weather lately around here. Storms expected that don’t happen, unexpected storms that do, surprise sunny days, surprise humidity… Whew!
Glad you missed that storm. Walking and the rain is one thing, but that sort of massive storm (replete with lightning!) would not have been safe.