Wordle Attempts
I like this collection of words. I think the experiments are more interesting than the result.
This summer I was thinking of buying a car until I found out that my contract break was for six months rather than three. As a result of this my ability to buy my own car vanished. I used the scooter, my feet and eventually the bike to travel thousands of kilometres.
I rode the scooter for at least four thousand kilometres and I cycled for around 1000km. I also hiked
This year I have logged 121hrs of moves over 1500 km and 19395 metres in vertical movement. This breaks down to 57hrs and 45 minutes of cycling, 42 hours of hiking, 7hrs of walking, 4:34 of indoor cycling, hrs of climbing and one hour of aerobics.
This comes to 11772km cycling, 197.2 km hiking, 56.48km running, 47km on an indoor trainer and 20km trekking
I have ascended 19395 metres in total of which 14981 metres cycling, 3721m hiking, 338m running and the rest climbing or on foot. I didn’t climb much as climbing usually requires a car to get to climbing sites.
This comes to a total of 74419 kcal. On bike rides and hikes I have burned up to 2500 calories in a single day.
By cycling so much I have really grown to appreciate what the arc Lemanic has to offer to cyclists. I found that if you take agricultural roads and if you head away from the main roads you can spend hours without cars driving next to you. I developed the stamina to cycle up cols and once at the top ranged further. I ranged from La Faucille to St Cergue and from Mollendruz to St Cergue. I also ranged around the Bière region discovering that there are a lot of nice roads for cyclists who want the pleasure of cycling without the drawback of cars.
I also walked in the area around Nyon towards Crassier, La Dole, Prangins and further. I saw that there are a few places where you can pick up local produce such as apples, apple juice, grapes, eggs and other products. If you’re willing to carry litres of apple juice you can also purchase it straight from the producer.
The single drawback to having such a sporty summer locally is that I did not participate in many group activities. In fact this summer I only did one organised group activity so it was one of the most solitary summers in recent years. Poetically I did walk by a path taken by a path Jean Jacques Rousseau walked along. I got to experience the Daydreams of the Solitary Walker first hand.
At the beginning of the summer my goal was to go on a twenty one day hike along a section of the Via Alpina and I was tempted to try an organised seven day hike either in the Dolomites or around the Mont Blanc but due to commitments every two to three weeks and restricted access to a car the logistics would have been more complicated. Instead I took advantage of what was on offer locally. For years I had the goal of extending my cycling range and I had often thought of walking up to La Dole from the foot of the Jura. This year I accomplished those goals.
I also explored the landscape in a way that I would not otherwise have done. I settled with what was on offer locally and I wore out a pair of shoes in the process. They now have holes in their soles.
I estimate that without counting other trips I would drive 4800km to do activities to do sports. This summer I drove less than one hundred on a scooter for one group hike. That’s a great environmental saving.
Although the ride from L’Isle to Romainmôtier feels easy because I’m cycling slower than my maximum it is still tiring, as is illustrated by two points. The first is that the trip burns 800 kilocalories according to the Apple Watch, which is significant, but also because by the end of the ride I feel tired.
When I cycle by myself I ride to my maximum, and eventually by the end of the ride I hit the wall, and then I make an effort to make it home. When riding with people on electric bikes, the theoretical limit is 25 kilometres per hour but the practical speed, at the moment is 14 kilometres per hour, including the stop for coffee and more.
As people on electric bikes get fitter, so they can pedal with more force and reach a higher speed on their electric bikes, which results in someone on a normal bike having to make more effort. You go from a gentle ride with an effort to keep an eye on the people behind, and allowing them to keep up without straining too much. As they get fitter, the speed increases, and the effort on the normal bike increases.
Although I am not racing the e-bikes, I am pacing myself according to their capabilities, rather than my own. When I was riding up a hill yesterday I noticed that I was breathing quite heavily and that my heart rate got up to 130 to 150. That is not my maximum, but it is an effort. As those on e-bikes get faster, so the effort I will put out will increase. Eventually I might need an e-bike to keep up.
Using Saturday as a rest day made sense. It allowed me to recover for a day, before making a large effort once again. With 400 meters of climbing this is not an easy route and should be treated with respect.
For years I heard about Roman pisciculture baths near the sea in Spain and I thought that this is where they would keep fish for eating, like they did in medieval Europe. That idea is wrong. The pisciculture that you have near Javea, Cadiz, and other parts of the Mediterranean coast were for the production of Garum and other salted fish versions.
If you walk by the coast you can see this channel, and you can even walk along it. If you look out to see it looks like this. If you look the other way it has been filled in and exploration would require excavation, and that would require a permit. This is one of the smaller channels.
The channels are deep enough for me to stand in. The experience is interesting because they block the sound of the sea. Someone who has studied the process in depth should produce sketches to give us an idea of how this would have looked. I feel no need to know how it smelled.
This channel Is at least two meters wide and three or more meters deep. I don’t know which way water would have flowed.
You can see one of the tanks in this satellite image.
Another satellite image to give you some context
For a better understanding of Fish satling during Roman times I recommend reading this paper. .
The answer to the question of why the really large salting factories are found in the western
Mediterranean, Brittany and the Black Sea, but not in the Eastern Mediterranean
probably lies in the fact that the large-scale factories were designed to handle the
massive catches of migratory species along particular routes. They are therefore found
chiefly on the key migration routes along the Straits of Gibraltar and the North
African coast; through the Kimmerian Bosphoros; and in the Bay of Douarnenez
(Brittany) where there are migrant shoals of sardinesQuantification of fish-salting infrastructure capacity in the Roman world
The site is accessible on foot, as long as you are wearing good shoes.
There is an article on Swiss Radio and Television that discusses the positive impact that the flooding has had on the water tables. For several years not only have we had warm weather but we have also gone with very little or no rain for months at a time.
During some weeks we were told “The water reserves are so low that we will soon need to switch to retrieving water from the lake rather than our reservoires. Underground water is great for when there’s a drought above ground, but the problem is that underground water is finite, and as a result if it is not replenished then it will eventually run out.
The fact that we have had so much rain over the last few days is excellent for the water tables, as I have tweeted or written here. As that water gets down to the water table, it will remain, until the next time it is needed.
Après plusieurs années de canicule, les eaux souterraines avaient, en certains points, fortement baissé, notamment dans le canton de Vaud.
Source: Les fortes précipitations ont un impact positif sur les nappes phréatiques
It’s easy to see the human tragedy of mass flooding, and people losing everything. We must also understand that nature has a way of balancing things out. That’s why this planet, and these latitudes, are inhabitable. It is normal, after a period of drought, for a lot of rain to fall, to replenish water tables, and then for another period of drought to come back.
This amount of rain has not fallen in seventy years. What makes this year unique is that it is spread across the whole of Switzerland.
Chaque ville a déjà connu des débuts d’été particulièrement arrosés. À Sion, ce fut l’année 2007. À Genève en 1997, à Lucerne en 1993. La particularité de cette année 2021, c’est l’étendue du phénomène. Toutes les stations montrent un pic des moyennes quotidiennes de précipitations.
Un niveau de précipitations inédit depuis 70 ans en ce début d’été
And for your intellectual curiosity, if you understand French. The phenomenon of the “Cold Drop”.
Les faibles températures et les violentes précipitations qui s’abattent sur la Suisse sont dues à un phénomène météorologique appelé “goutte froide”. Il désigne une poche d’air froid qui est abandonnée par la calotte du pôle Nord.
Cette masse est ensuite “étranglée” et “attaquée” de part et d’autre par un air plus chaud. Elle se met alors à tourner sur elle-même jusqu’à former une dépression, donnant lieu à des orages et de fortes pluies.
That’s it for today.
According to my watch, and farmers, a storm is coming. That’s why they are busy trying to harvest all the grain before it hits.
At this time of year you can watch the combine harvesters harvesting all the fields and collecting grain. You can then see tractors following up and gathering what they leave on the fields and making plenty of bails.
I can’t focus so I’m cutting this post short.