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Mt Tendre via Rolle

For a year or more I had been tempted to cycle up to the Mont Tendre and on Saturday I got the opportunity to try that ride with Tête de Course, a Nyon cycling community and café/restaurant.

The route went from Nyon to Rolle, and then from Rolle upwards towards Aubonne and then upwards towards Montricher. From Montricher you have the climb to Mont Tendre.

In theory this is a quiet road with limited cars. In practice we had quite a few cars passing us. The road is narrow, so when a car passes you need to get to the side of the road but with débris and more it does not fill me with euphoria. If the road was completely closed to cars, then this would be a nice climb. For me, good climbs are those with no cars, or those where the road is wide enough for cars to pass with ease.

This morning I woke at Four, before birds started to tweet, and before the sun started to rise. I woke so early, not to deice planes, like I did years ago, but to go for a group run with five hundred and fifty other people, in theory. In practice I think some people paid to participate but failed to wake up.

Wake Up and Run, in Switzerland, is based around a simple concept. Lunatics, like me, pay 38 CHF to join a 5km run at 05:30 in the morning. We get coffee, breakfast, a purple/pink t-shirt, a wake up and run glass and more.

People know that I love to hate the Apple Watch. I have loved to hate it since I had an Apple Watch Series 3 where the screen cracked while indoor climbing. For years I had climbed with Suunto without any issues. I replaced the Apple Watch Series 3 with a Series 4 and that watch lasted for four years. I still have it but the battery dies within half a day. It’s because I had to charge it twice a day that I switched to an Apple Watch SE.

Within the last two weeks children have headed back to schools. As a consequence of this schools, towns, villages, and ‘states’ are banning mobile phones for children and teenagers. In theory this is a fantastic, and simple solution. In practice this is failing society.

Plenty of adults, from my generation, and younger, are media illiterate. They use computers for work, and used them for uni and for school, but they didn’t use them for pleasure. The result is that instead of learning, by trial and error, as technology progresses they remain ignorant, until a niche has become mature.

Yesterday I planned to walk so I put on my hiking boots and just as I was about to go out I heard large rain drops hit the velux. I thought “according to the weather app the rain should be light”. It wasn’t light. It was heavy and sustained.

You might think “So, why didn’t you just wait out the rain. A few days ago I saw that rain was forecast, so I didn’t go for an after lunch walk. The rain never came so I ended up going for my walk at rush hour, when everyone was commuting home, rather than when it was quiet.

On Sunday I rode with the Le Cercle No Pressure Club group ride from Nyon to Montricher via Vich to Begnins, and From there to Gimel and then onto Bière and eventually Montricher.

Easier Start

Normally groups default to climb from Nyon to Coinsins, and from Coinsins up towards Genolier and Le Muids before going across towards Bière. By choosing the route we chose we got to have a more restful ride. It’s a small change that makes a huge difference for the quality of the ride.

Last night I was tempted by the idea of going for a bike ride this morning but chose not to because I wanted to save my energy to ride with a group tomorrow. Now, as I watch some induhviduals (intentional spelling) prepare things for an all night party I’m thinking “oh duck, I made the wrong decision”. If I had gone for the group ride today, I could have fled the noise pollution that will take place this evening, and this evening.

On Sunday I want to do a bike ride that I have been thinking of doing for months, at this point. It’s an 81km loop that begins in Nyon and ends in Nyon, going via Montricher. The challenge with this ride is that it has 1100m of climbing.

A Slight Let Down

My looking forward to this bike ride is tainted by the news that some alcoholics will have a party from 13:00 onwards in a house/apartment nearby. By law the alcoholics need to stop making noise by 22:00, but the likelihood they will, once drunk is very low.

Last night I could have gone for a group ride, and it wouldn’t have rained on, despite what the weather said. As I went for a ride that morning, and felt tired, it felt rational not to ride in the evening.

Last night it rained consistently until this morning but now the sun is almost out again and the sky is brighter. In theory this means that cycling would be an option.

On RTS Info they warn about Erin, the ex-cyclone probably hitting Switzerland, dumping a lot of rain. The alert for some areas is level 5.

This is for a narrow band in the Alps on the Italo-Swiss border. The possible impacts are ’extreme rise in water of rivers and lakes, flooding in many areas, and landslides. Rail and road traffic could be impacted.

Around Nyon there is a chance of localised flooding, dry ditches filling with water, and in some places localised flooding in basements and other places.