Today I had to go into Geneva to do something Initially my plan was to drive to the Parking St Antoine. As I got towards Secheron and the P&R parking I thought, “I have time, I’ll park here and walk the rest”. I did park, and then I did walk.
I know that some people drive the car and park as close as they can to where they’re going, even in town.
A day or two I opened the Instagram app and I scrolled down without seeing a single photo so I deleted the app from my phone. There was a time when instagram was a photo sharing network between friends, and friends of friends. Now it has become a video spamming platform for influencers we have never, and will never met. In essence it has become worthless, hence the uninstall.
I noticed that Threads was also saturated in video.
Yesterday I went for a bike ride. When I looked at the route I thought “this looks like a nice calm, relaxed ride. It wasn’t. I rode with group 2, which is a fast group, going uphill at 20-40 km/h on certain segments.
You might look at a cycling route and think “this looks flat, it doesn’t go to the top of the Jura” but don’t let that mislead you. When you’re riding at the foot of the Jura it’s easy to climb, and then descend, and then climb again, and then descend, and then climb yet again.
We are all familiar with the phrase. We learn better when we write things by hand, rather than when we type them on the keyboard. For decades people have been against typing, saying “It’s cold, it’s dead, it’s impersonal”. Those same people will then say “you have awful handwriting” and yet still feel nostalgia for hand written notes. In the age of AI more is being lost.
Ten Thousand Hours of Practice When people my age were growing up, if you wanted to sing, you needed to devote ten thousand hours to develop tone, timber and a good voice.
Yesterday morning I felt a little under the weather so I considered skipping the 07:00 ride. I didn’t because I thought that I would regret not going, if I did not go. In the process I got to ride with the autumn/winter tyres and this time they felt less laggy than before.
Two days ago, when I was ready to go for a ride I noticed that the tyre was flat.
Yesterday afternoon I heard some very loud banging. I thought that it was due to an idiot driving a farming machine into something solid and they were trying to fix the damage. As it continued it made me furious. It’s for this reason that I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon on my bike.
When I rode by the absurd people making a huge amount of noise I saw that they were hammering at the bed of their flat bed truck.
The sun is shining. For a day or two the grey Autumn weather is gone. This would be a good time for a spontaneous bike ride. The issue with this is that Strava is great for sharing activities that are planned in advance, and those that have passed. It’s easy to get kudoes. It isn’t easy to converse.
They have instant messaging but it is only available via the mobile phone app, rather than from the web interface.
A week ago I proposed a bicycle ride to Mies, before stopping at the Port de Crans for coffee. Quite a few people joined the chat but no one committed to turning up. I woke up in the morning and said “I’m thinking of setting off early, since no one had confirmed. When no one said “wait, wait, wait” I set off on my bicycle ride.
The conditions were excellent. I was warm, the roads were quiet, and the views were pleasant.
Routine is extremely important. With routine the question is not “whether you can be bothered” but “I will do this.” You go from asking “if” to automatically assuming that on Wednesday morning you will ride, and sunday morning you will ride. If a ride is cancelled for A or B then you’re asking “if”, but you’re also making other plans.
This weekend, for example, I saw that it would rain today.
Bike rides have been cancelled because of rain, rather than wind or other factors. When it rains cyclists don’t want to ride because it gets their bike dirty and they have to clean it, lubricate it and more. With hikers rain is also an excuse to be lazy, within some groups. With other groups rain is just rain and the walks and hikes go ahead.
Yesterday morning we had stormy weather.