Today I filled in a survey with the premise “Impact of automated vehicles on walking” and it gave me an opportunity to share my views on this topic. The short version is that I’d rather see more bike sharing opportunities, and more safe routes for pedestrians between villages and towns, than self driving cars.
The reason for this is simple. It takes a few seconds to unlock a publibike, six minutes to get to Nyon Station, and then catch a train.
Yesterday afternoon I was convinced that I would have a short easy walk, just to get out of the house. In reality I walked from Nyon to Bonmont and back along roads, but also farm paths. I walked this route because I decided that going for a walk would keep me cooler than if I stayed in my apartment.
At first it was going to be a short loop, but eventually I thought “If I walk slowly it doesn’t matter how long I walk for so I modified my course and walked towards Cheserex.
It’s good to browse Komoot because sometimes you find nice hikes to enjoy. Today I drove towards Vallorbe and specifically Juraparc. Juraparc is a park with bisons, wolves, alpacas, goats and bears. I saw the goats, the alpacas, the bison and deer. I didn’t look for the bears and wolves.
The hike itself is quite short but it starts with an “alpine” section that almost a scramble. It may feel dangerous to proceed beyond this point but in reality the more challenging part is quite short.
For many years I could go to work by car so I did, because I had a parking. When I worked for other employers I took the train for a simple reason. Parking near work would cost 36 CHF per day whereas taking the train would cost about 14.50 CHF per day. I stopped using the car to commute for a simple reason, the cost of parking
20min just had an article about how the Swiss are bad at leaving the car at home, to replace it by the car, and for me there are two reasons.
Yesterday I was reminded of why I stopped wearing the Garmin watch, replacing it with Casio watches instead. It’s because Garmin, Suunto and Xiaomi don’t count walking as real sport. Imagine, you’re wearing a watch twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, every day, and charging it every month with the Garmin Instinct, and every few days with the other devices, and you see the absurdity of certain trackers.
Yesterday during my walk I bought a new clam shell cap. It’s the type of cap that you can take off, fold and put in a pocket. The one I had before this one was used daily for years, and eventually became bleached by the sun and sweat. It went from dark grey to light grey. What I really appreciate is that aside from the colour fading it’s fine.
Trail Glove 7 Today I noticed that my second pair of Trail Glove 7 are worn out.
I have walked in London, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Lausanne Florence and other cities for many hours at a time. I would often walk in London until I got too tired to continue, and then I would catch the tube back to somewhere I knew, and then I’d walk some more.
I did the same in Rome and Paris. When you take the tube, or the Metro in Paris or Rome then it’s easy not to know how close places are.
A year or two ago there were road works along a bit of road. Now the road works are back, on the same bit of road. Due to it being spring, and due to rain being quite enthusiastic this year, the route (pronounced root, not grout), is impassible. It’s not impassible because of mud, but because of long grass. In the past I would have walked through the long grass to get from A to B, or I would have walked along the river side walk, but because I wear different shoes than before, and because I don’t want ticks, I no longer walk that route until the works are finished.
For a while now I have been wearing a Casio and an apple watch or a Garmin and an Apple watch, or a Casio and a Garmin watch or a xiaomi smart band and a casio or a xiaomi smart band and… it goes on.
A Break of Routine The reason for which I’m flying between so many devices is two fold. I have too many devices. There was a time when I went climbing, hiking, cycling, diving, swimming, on via ferrata and more and I was happy with just one watch.
Twice in the last two weekends I have done linear rather than circular walks. By linear I don’t mean that I walked from A to B. I mean that I started walking along a loop but when I saw that the routes I wanted to walk were either crowded by couples or people with dugs I will either turn around, or walk across a field to a parallel path that is less crowded.