I like to cycle but I don’t like the idea of having my bike stolen. I loved using a foot scooter but I find that e-scooters are frustrating because we can’t go above a certain speed. For months, or even years, I have been considering using Publibike bikes for shopping and getting to the train station but didn’t because a bike costs 3 CHF for half an hour, and ten centimes per minute to use after that.
Yesterday 60 people went to Morges to cycle the Tour De Romandie Morges stage ahead of the race today. There were two loops, a 90+ kilometre loop for an average speed of 29km/h on the flat and another loop for an average speed of 25 km/h on the flat and a distance of 57 kilometres.
When I got the GPX for the 90 kilometre loop I considered doing that loop, until I considered that with an average of 30 km/H I would be tired, especially since I rarely cycle 90km loops at the moment.
As it is meant to be warmer over the next few days I went for a bike ride this morning, rather than in the afternoon. The rational is that by going for a morning bike ride traffic could have been less. The other reason is that it’s slightly cooler in the morning than in the afternoon.
Today wasn’t a warm day, but I felt like going for a bike ride, and I wanted to see if a different time of day made it more pleasant.
For a few days I played with an e-bike around St Moritz and in the process learned that riding an e-bike is intuitive. It’s on hills and when you’re riding into the wind that you feel the advantage of e-bikes.
The trick, with e-bikes is to learn to ride gently. With a road bike and mountain bike you get into the habit of pushing hard. With an e-bike you need to pull back.
Cycling in Switzerland requires the ability to go up and down hills. Some of the climbs are long and steep, others are short and steep, and yet more are shallow but long climbs. That’s where bike gears come into their own. The more gears you have the more precisely you can control the amount of effort you’re making. With a mountain bike the gears are designed to help with climbing. With road bikes they can be set to make hill climbs easier or harder.
Yesterday I rode an e-bike over 5km and played with the eco, touring, sport and turbo modes. I experimented with the gears and I experimented with a variety of gradients and surfaces. Through this trial I got to understand how e-bikes work. Gaining momentum E-bikes are great for helping you get up to 25 kilometres an hour and after that, if you have the strength then you can ride the bike at over 25 kilometres per hour for as long as you last.
Hermance is a place where I have dived frequently and so it is only natural that I hard to ride from Geneva to Hermance on a bike. The ride is an easy and pleasant ride. It takes you out of Geneva and through the fields to the East of Geneva before taking you down to Hermance where you have a good view of the lake. The ride back takes you through a few villages before getting back to Geneva.