Tour de Suisse -
The 4 day Julie since when? Since 3
weeks in Honduras in 1996? Wow. Could
be..
The LHT was a huge success.
I love it. On the second day of the
trip when I was still tired from the
time change, I cycled over Col du
Pillon. It's a 1200m climb from Lac
L?man. After about 1000m the road
steepens to 11%. My bike's fully
loaded. I flipped it into the lowest
gear and spun over the pass.
Incredible. With the bike loaded I
never felt like the high gear was too
low. I still haven't taken the bike
down a steep hill without bags, but I
plan on doing that soon. I rode
Flagstaff and Sunshine Canyon last
Sunday but on my road bike with (for my
first time!) clipless pedals. Oh,
that's another story.
.
I flew in
and out of Geneva. I arrived in the
morning, dropped my bike box at
Isabelle's apartment and pedalled out of
town in the early afternoon. In a daze
I cycled along the lake, entered France,
walked through Yvoire, and found a
fantastic place to camp on a river near
Thonon-les-Bains. Oh, France, what a
wonderful place!
.
The following
day I was sad to leave France but even
sadder to leave French-speaking
Switzerland. The abrupt change came at
Col du Pillon. In Les Diablerets it's
all French. Just on the other side of
the pass in Gstaad it's all German. I
was afraid of this simply by looking at
the names on the map. I confirmed it
during my first conservation in Gstaad.
I spoke French, and the person claimed
not to speak any French. We continued
our conversation in English. I speak no
German. Of my two German phrases,
sprehjer zie english? and
sprehjer zie franz?sisch?, the
former proved to be far more useful. In
actuality I know a few more sentences,
and the one I probably used the most was
ich sprehjer kien
deutsch.
.
Gstaad and Les
Diablerets are situated in beautiful,
high valleys. This area was the most
spectacular I visited. I've added
Les Diablerets to the list of
places I'd like to spend a year studying
French.
.
I pedalled through
Spiez, Interlaken, Luzern on my way to
Z?rich where I saw Andreas for the first
time since he and Brigitte drove out of
Annecy in their Mobility car two years
ago. Julie and I met and Andreas and
Brigitte cycle-touring in Utah in 1999.
It was great fun to see him
again.
.
I spent a few hours
cycling around Z?rich on Friday. This
city must have the best cycling
facilities of anywhere I've ridden: lots
of sign for bikes, lots of bike lanes,
off-street bike paths, signals
specifically for bikes, and lots of
bikes. Yellow lines on the roads are
for bikes; white lines are for cars.
Bikes can pull up in front of cars, pick
their lane (for a left turn, e.g.) and
often leave before the cars on their own
signal. When I gushed about the
facilities, savy Swiss folks asked me if
I'd been to Basel. The bike facilities
there are supposed to be even better
than in Z?rich. Real savy folks asked
me if I'd ridden in Copenhagen, better
than Basel apparently. Oh, I must go
there and pedal!
.
Andreas and I
pedalled together through the Mitteland
for two days. We parted at some dot on
the map called Buttisholz, and I
continued on to Bern to catch the train
to Lausanne for the conference. The
conference went by quickly as expected.
I learned a lot and realize there's a
lot more to learn. GIS is becoming much
more integrated in mainstream IT, mostly
for the better. Ah, that's another
story. Back home I gave a short
presentation at work about the
conference, but we need a more focused
plan forward. Ugh, that job falls on my
shoulders.
.
After raining in the
morning it was sunny when I left
Pascal's house on Friday afternoon.
Quickly I realized I was pedalling
toward a dark storm. It was storming
over Geneva so I dawdled during an
extended late second lunch in Morges.
The following day I had a great sunny
day for my last day of cycling. On the
whole I had exceptionally hot and sunny
weather for September. I suppose my
swim in Lac L?man with Isabelle could be
considered the official end of the
summer.
