This morning I woke naturally at 05:30 before getting up and ready. By 07:00 I was on the road cycling towards Geneva and I arrived 20 minutes early. By my standards that is quite close to the expected time.
Familiar Climb I chose this ride for a simple reason. It was a climb to La Baudichonne. This is a hard, sustained bike ride. The course that we took involved 1300m of climbing.
On Wednesday morning I rode my bike into Geneva to drop it off for a service. In the evening I went for a group ride that was heading in the direction I wanted, before leaving the group and riding for home. I didn’t ride much on Wednesday, but I was tired. I believe that walking in cycling clothes, to catch a train, twice, does tire us more than walking in normal clothes.
Yesterday I went for an evening bike ride in Geneva and I chose to take the train home, rather than cycle. In the process I saw that trains are not that convenient later at night. The reason for this is that they’re smaller, so the space for bikes is restricted.
A person boarded before me so he was able to put his bike down and go and sit. I was after him so I was stuck standing with my bike.
A few days ago I went on a group ride. I noticed that a high percentage of bikes had bike radars so I checked to see the price of these devices once again. For a year or two I have considered getting a bike radar but didn’t because I found that the price was too high. I believe that recently either the price went down or the offer of cheaper alternatives improved.
It’s very easy to fall into a routine. Our routines can revolve around cycling, hiking, work, scuba diving and more. It can also revolve around local walks and more.
This weekend I saw the chance to go for an overnight bivouac and I am not tempted. I saw the chance to cycle through vineyards and drink wine, and I am not tempted. I saw the opportunity to hike around Interlarken and I am not tempted.
I like to cycle but I don’t like the idea of having my bike stolen. I loved using a foot scooter but I find that e-scooters are frustrating because we can’t go above a certain speed. For months, or even years, I have been considering using Publibike bikes for shopping and getting to the train station but didn’t because a bike costs 3 CHF for half an hour, and ten centimes per minute to use after that.
Yesterday 60 people went to Morges to cycle the Tour De Romandie Morges stage ahead of the race today. There were two loops, a 90+ kilometre loop for an average speed of 29km/h on the flat and another loop for an average speed of 25 km/h on the flat and a distance of 57 kilometres.
When I got the GPX for the 90 kilometre loop I considered doing that loop, until I considered that with an average of 30 km/H I would be tired, especially since I rarely cycle 90km loops at the moment.
As it is meant to be warmer over the next few days I went for a bike ride this morning, rather than in the afternoon. The rational is that by going for a morning bike ride traffic could have been less. The other reason is that it’s slightly cooler in the morning than in the afternoon.
Today wasn’t a warm day, but I felt like going for a bike ride, and I wanted to see if a different time of day made it more pleasant.
For a few days I played with an e-bike around St Moritz and in the process learned that riding an e-bike is intuitive. It’s on hills and when you’re riding into the wind that you feel the advantage of e-bikes.
The trick, with e-bikes is to learn to ride gently. With a road bike and mountain bike you get into the habit of pushing hard. With an e-bike you need to pull back.
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.