Mountains

Today I went trail running in the Jura near St-Cergue and I found the experience okay. I think that the group stopping regularly helped make this a relatively easy run despite the gradient. Cycling got me used to making hard efforts, not for seconds or minutes at a time but for an hour or more, especially when heading up the Jura.

When I run, my fitness has a positive impact, and because running is more egalitarian than cycling, I suffer less to keep up. With cycling I have a heavier steel frame, heavier aluminium wheels, less efficient group set and rim brakes rather than disk brakes. All of those mean that for every climb I am at a disadvantage. I climb faster than some, but it costs me more.

The hike from Aminona to Leukerbad is a 22km+ hike with 1200m+ of climbing. You begin by catching the cable car from Sierre to Crans-Montana, and then the bus to Aminona, before walking along the road for a bit, before turning right and disappearing into the woods and walking along trails that head downwards for a bit before heading up a “steep” gradient.

During the steep gradient I found myself thinking about the mechanical difference between cycling up a hill or mountain and hiking. When you’re used to cycling up hills, your cardiovascular system adapts, but so do your leg muscles. They have to lift you, the bike, and cope with gradients. In contrast, on foot, the effort is constant. We way the same at the start of a climb as the end, without changing gears. We’re biologically optimised for the climb.

If you’re like me, you might read “driving to the sun” and think I’m speaking of driving to Spain or to Southern France. This wasn’t the case today. Today, as I saw we were in the fog, or in a layer of cloud I decided that I would drive up to an island above the fog. The island, in this case was Pampigny.

You might say “but Pampigny is a village on a slope, not an island. You’re right, of course. Today though, it was an island. If you looked towards the Léman you saw low lying clouds until the Alps, and if you looked towards Neuchatel then you also saw clouds.

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. In the end we did 1100m of climbing over 80 kilometres cycled.

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.

Vision Du Réel is a documentary film festival that takes place every year, or almost. It is an opportunity to watch documentary films on a screen bigger than a laptop or television. Many films are screened with the director/producer but they are also screened a second time. Yesterday I went to watch The Mountains Won’t Move. It is an observational, cinéma verité style film.

There is no narration. There are no subtitles. Almost everything takes place in the mountains. You watch people at work, taking care of sheep, goats and cows. They also spend time speaking about a dog they appreciate.

Yesterday I went for a hike from Le Day down to the Saut du Day before going up towards the Aiguilles de Baume and beyond. In the process I saw six or more wind mills.

The hike is 21.71km long, took about 6hr41 1178m of ascent and 895m of descent.Moving time was around 4hr55min.

To simplify the route, it follows the Chemin Des Crêtes du Jura most of the time. To be more specific it was stage 12 There is a detour to explore a little cave which is not as spectacular as other caves I have been through. I was glad to take a beanie with me to protect my head from impacts with the ceiling. I had considered taking climbing helmets with me.

Yesterday I expected the walk to be physical. I expected it to be around 21 kilometres. I also saw that it was meant to snow overnight. It got me to question whether it made sense to do the hike. I went anyway. In the end I walked 35 thousand steps according to at least one device. That’s a lot of walking, especially in snow that was up to 30 centimetres deep at moment.

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.

View of La Dole and the limestone rock.

Today I woke up and instead of cycling up to see this view and have a meal I decided to do the opposite. I would walk down. Two or three summers ago I walked up and they took four or five hours. Walking down is much easier.

One or two bits are steep and my shoes lost traction. It wasn’t serious or life threatening. The ground is soft and the gradient is simply steep.