When I set off on my cycling trip to Lausanne and back I thought that the strong wind would force me to turn around and that I would abort the attempt by the time I got to Rolle or Morges. As I continued cycling I fought the wind and I made slow progress. When I was in the dips or along certain walls I had a break from the wind. I continued on with the effort.
So far this year I have been cycling for 680 km in 33hrs with a height gain of 6800 meters. In this time I have used my narrative clip 2 device to document the ride with a picture every 10-30 seconds as I want to focus on riding rather than other things. I like to have as high a moving time as possible so I usually stop once I get back to my starting point.
For years I have enjoyed watching the Tour De France and often call it the French Landscape program. In this case we start with Vittorio Brumotti cycling with his team before becoming distracted and going to enjoy some mountain bike trails, some balancing on barriers, floating in a swimming pool, enjoying a running carpet and more. It shows the area of Livigno and what it has to offer in summer. You might remember him for a video from earlier this year or last year.
The High Tech world is not making us weak and weird. I believe that the opposite is true. According to Patrick Mustain in his article “Welcome to the Devolution: The High-Tech World Is Making Us Weak and Weird” for The Daily Beast he worries that modern technology and conveniences have taken the physical aspects out of our daily routine. We don’t need to clean clothes by beating them against a rock and we no longer need to clean dishes manually.
StravistiX for Strava Stravistix for strava is a Chrome plugin. It allows you to analyse the data from your ride in more detail and with more graphs. In the detailed view you can see heart rate information, speed, power, grade, elevation and  ascent speed. It allows you to see each metric in more depth. It allows you to look at your statistics in detail. You can see what percentage of the ride was flat, uphill or downhill.
After cycling over 1100 kilometres in 2015, I aim to cycle 1200 kilometres in 2016. This goal is an easy one to achieve. It’s the 21st of January and I already have 100 kilometres logged. The weather over the last three weeks has been cold and wet. We have had rain almost every day and it recently turned to snow. As there is a lack of good weather there is no choice but to go out in the bad weather.
One evening this week I was walking in the countryside at the foot of the Jura enjoying the evening when I walked by a couple. They were sitting on a bench looking across some fields towards the Mont Blanc, the Alps and of course the Lac Léman. Leaning against the bench were two e-bikes with good suspension. It made me think about retirement and free time. It encouraged me to think about the freedom and pleasure of exploring the landscape on a bike without having to make the same effort as if you were on a conventional bike.
This weekend teams of Resistance Ingress agents from Fribourg, Lausanne and Geneva met in Fribourg to neutralise and capture all Enlightened portals. Some teams were on foot to liberate portals from the centre of the city. I was with the bike team and we took care of liberating all of the portals on the outskirts. It involved cycling up and down hills, a thunderstorm and being rained on. I really enjoyed being part of the cycling team.
Bulle is a city by a lake in the Canton De Gruyère in Switzerland. Last weekend they held their annual slowup event. A slowup is an event where roads are closed to motorised transport in favour of cyclists, roller bladers, skate boarders and other self propelling sports. The loop is around 26km long and there are ares to stop and enjoy food every few kilometres. At this event you can also get your bike maintained for free except for parts that need replacing.
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.