When I decided to flee the noise pollution of Paléo to stay somewhere different for a few days I was filled wiith cycling projects, but because of the weather forecast I mothballed them. They announced that it could rain all day, every day, for almost the entire week.
Weather They announce that it will rain ’tomorrow’ except that tomorrow is either sunny or overcast but the rain fails to materialise. Today it did show up as a serious downpour for a few minutes and then it stopped.
Yesterday I didn’t dress for cycling. My plan was to see if I could get the power meter to work and then go for a short ride. In the end I found that as one device failed to detect them I would try a second. The second worked after a few seconds. I calibrated the pedal, and then I went for a short ride.
The short ride I speak of became a longer ride.
Years ago we could choose between watching SRF, TSR, France Télévision, RSI and other channels. We had just five channels to choose from but we had them available for free. Today those channels are still available but because we live in modern buildings with no external TV aerials we are stuck relying on Swisscom, Sunrise, Orange, and other telecom providers.
You might think “But with a TV box we get access to all these channels, and we do, but we’re made to pay for content that should be available for free.
Yesterday I was playing with Strava Flyoveers and I tried to share the videos of flyovers but rather than sharing the video as I had wanted to do it shared a hyperlink to the activities that were already shared. I then tried to share via Instagram but the result was a pixelated mess with a line.
What is a Flyover? A video flyover is a 3d video of the ride, hike or other sport that you have just completed in the same style as you see ahead of Tour De France Stages and others.
For the TLDR Crowd. Yesterday after multiple tries to pair my phone with my watch I hard reset the phone and tried again. When it asked me to login to iCloud I did, and then I was able to pair the phone with the watch.
For the patient crowd, for several days I was unable to pair my Apple Watch SE with my iPhone SE 2nd gen. I tried rebooting and resetting the watch and I had no luck.
Yesterday we were cycling up towards Marchissy when a combine harvester began to follow us quite close. The experience of being followed, while cycling is quite something. These machines are large, with big tyres, and the driver is centred rather than to the left as with other vehicles. Luckily the gradient of the climb was not too steep.
After riding in two groups in a single day I expected yesterday evening to be relaxed.
Yesterday I went with a morning ride with TDC, which felt relaxed, before going for a ride with LeCercle in the evening. This group has a high level with many of the cyclists riding thousands of kilometres per year.
Yesterday I wrote about how groups that are large enough can cater to fast, and slow people. LeCercle feels like a smaller group of highly engaged cyclists who ride regularly.
Until Genolier I was able to stay with the group comfortably.
Meetup and Strava are two sites filling specific niches. Meetup is a dinosaur of the web. It dates back to 2005 when the web was still looking for a way to be sustainable, and thus, more fun. Meetup was good for people in big US cities, London and other metropolitain cities. If you lived in Bumbleduck nowhere it was not. (Intentional spelling)
Strava in contrast is a young company. It was created in 2009 and became popular among the cycling community for a while, before eventually including running, hiking and then climbing and many other sports.
Years ago, when Strava was newer, and more appealing I eventually decided to pay for Strava because I wanted to support the project. I wanted to help make them sustainable. The same is true with Zwift. When both of them got VC funding I ended my subscriptions rather than renewing for another year. This was years ago.
For me, it’s simple. If we are paying for a site like Strava, be patient, and use our money to improve things incrementaly.
A few weeks ago two individuals in a car yelled abuse at a group of us who were cycling. They were mad that a cyclist did not pull in for them to pass easily. At this point I thought “Despair is not sat on a bench as in the proverb, he is sat in a car.
Years ago, after yet another speeding fine when driving between home and a scuba diving spot, or vice versa I was flashed and I thought “expensive cars are a waste of money, because the motorway is rarely quiet enough to drive at the speed limit, let alone to speed.