Heatwave

Yesterday I set off at about 07:20 feeling slightly tired and under the weather. While I rode into Geneva I felt that I couldn’t push too much and I questioned whether I should abort the ride.

When I got near Geneva I thought “If I stay in my apartment I will be as warm as if I am outdoors, but without the breeze. I decided to go on the long variant anyway. The relaxed group, in my mind was not relaxed. On a flat section we were riding at 31 kilometres per hour, sustained.

I live in a Minergie, which, in theory, means that I never need to worry about climatisation because the building keeps itself warm in winter and cold in summer. In practice the features that make a flat fantastic winter make it awful in summer.

Good in Winter

Large windows, in winter allow heat radiation in, so you use the sun to heat your apartment. From Spring until Autumn it has the opposite feature. It turns a room into a sauna, rather than giving an enjoyable temperature.

We are in a heatwave and despite this I have cycled for four and a half hours and walked for three hours and fourty minutes. For the bike rides I woke at 6am to avoid rush hour traffic, and to do things before the temperatures rose. Yesterday the temperature in Geneva reached 39°c. Just a few decimal places away from 40°c heat.

Despite the weak I still went for my afternoon walks, but it’s also because of the heat that I walked with 1.6 litres or more. During hot days I find that I can act normally, but I still try to keep myself hydrated. If I feel that I am overheating I pour water on my hat/helmet to cool down.

Two days in a row I have poured water on my head. The reason for this is that yesterday we were in 35°c heat and today we were in 33°c heat. When you’re walking for two or three hours at the solar Maximum the best cooling strategy is to pour water on your head, as I did. It’s a quick way of cooling. It’s not that the water was cool. The water is warm, heated by direct sunlight for the last half hour, or even hour.

Yesterday I spent time in the sun in the morning, as a result of which I thought I would avoid going out in the heatwave. I changed my mind. Every Sunday a group of pétanque playing alcoholics play pétanque for several hours. They cheer, they laugh, they make noise, for hours in a row. I don’t want to hear that sound, especially since the pandemic is not over. People are still falling sick with Long COVID and they’re being disabled. It doesn’t take long to read posts on social media by people suffering from Long COVID.

When you cycle you feel the difference between different landscapes between seconds. You go from farming landscapes to wooded areas near forests before finally getting to the cities. In the process you notice the difference in temperatures between these different land uses.

The Permanent Summer Heatwave

This summer has been mild in Switzerland, so far, but it could get up to 37°c for several days at a time again. As heat becomes more common the way the Swiss are building new properties becomes absurd. Where there was a single house, surrounded by grass, with two of three trees, and shade, you get a tarmaced parking space, with walls that prevent breezes and tarmac that absors the heat during the day, and radiates it at night. Fantastic in winter, awful in summer.

Cycling is one of the best sports to do during a heatwave because you have a 25 km/h breeze blowing over you, until you stop. If you flee the oven like cities, and head for the woods by a stream, you will feel the coolness provided by nature, rather than air conditioning.

Yesterday I cycled along the lake from Nyon to Geneva. Most people headed to the lake to go for a swim but I don’t. I like to avoid crowds, and cycling is one way to do that. As I cycled I felt that I was thirsty and I did drink one water bottle heading to Geneva, and other when riding back.

Minergie is theoretically a fantastic, environmentally friendly way of making a building more energy-efficient, by reducing the need for air conditioning and heating. For three years now I have been playing with and experimenting with minergie. During the first and second heatwaves, I liked to open windows and get fresh air. I found that Minergie means “poor air circulation”. As soon as you close the windows you feel the heat radiate from the walls as if they were sauna stones.