collideous

May 04

Friday Visit To The Chasseral

Apr 30

Last Ride Of The Month

The cool thing about keeping track of your rides, is that you often end up pushing yourself harder and going farther. Despite the meteorological disaster that April has been, I was close to the 500 km mark (without counting my daily commute) with just one more day left to reach it. I left the office the minute the clock showed I had done my hours behind the desk and headed straight home to do one last ride in April. A climb to the top of the Chasseral brought my distance ridden past the magical 500k mark to a total of 529 kilometers and 15’384 meters of climbing. Altogether it took 29 hours and 34 minutes or 8 bike rides and 3 running sessions to reach those numbers. Tomorrow’s training session will consist of carrying laundry up and down four floors. 3 or 4 loads should take care of the dirty laundry that accumulated over the past week. The Alize could use a break too. After rides in snow and rain, the bike is in dire need of some maintenance.

Apr 28

Road Ride To The Montbautier And Back

I got up around 6AM this morning to be out the door no later than 7AM. I had some errands to run between 11 and 12AM and needed to absolutely be back. This left me with about 4 hours of riding time. Back in March I mapped out a loop that I wanted to explore today. Time was going to be tight, but there were always possibilities for shortcuts. I left Biel and instead of looking for shortcuts, I flew right by my turnoff to climb the Jeanbrenin pass and continued to the small village of Cormoret. I wanted to take the 6.5 kilometer long climb up to the Mont-Tramelan. It’s a one lane road far away from everything. Paved all the way with the exception of a half mile stretch somewhat midway, this is one of the sweetest climbs out of the Vallon de St. Imier. The first part of the climb right outside of Cormoret is fairly steep, then it mellows out for the rest. Once I reached the Col du Mont Crosin, I turned right and headed to Tramelan. Here, I wanted to check out the climb to the Montbautier, a place I’ve never been. Again, absolutely amazing. A killer descent followed towards Le Fuet. Following my planned itinerary, I now headed to Sornetan. Right before I reached the village I heard continuous gunshots and soon after I reached a barrier. The road crossed the line of fire and was therefore closed. A quick look at my iPhone also showed that I would not be back home in time if I continued my loop. I made a U-turn and climbed back to Le Fuet and continued to Tavannes. There was a last climb ahead, the Col de Pierre Pertuis, a road I really don’t care to do because of traffic. But now that there’s a tunnel with the Transjurane, only a few cars drove across the Col. I did the remaining stretch to La Heutte, then had another somewhat ugly stretch of road ahead - the three highway tunnels to Biel. I gave everything my legs had left and surprisingly kept up with the cars to my left. There’s an 80 kph speed limit as far as I recollect, so either drivers were going slow or I was going pretty fast.

Back home, I jumped into our car to pick up cat food at the vet, then drove to my local bike shop to pick up my wife’s rear wheel with an Alfine hub. The wheel at hand, I finished assembling her bike so that we can head out for a maiden ride this afternoon or tomorrow. On one of the coming weekends I’ll be back on those roads to do the whole loop without time constraints. This first part to Sornetan is a fantastic road ride. The second stretch to Moutier, Champoz, Sorvilier, Court and the tough climb to the Grenchenberg is just as scenic, adds a bunch more miles and a whole lot more climbing. Should be epic!

Apr 26

Tour De Romandie Stage 1

Someone forgot to tell April about global warming. This month’s been one of the coldest and wettest Aprils I remember. Just like last year, the Tour de Romandie crossed some of my often ridden roads and just like last year, I took half the day off to watch the peloton race through the Jura. This year, I had a companion in jk and we rode our road bikes through the St. Imier valley to stop by the road at the second category KOM in Les Bugnenets. We battled a stiff headwind until we reached Sonvilier, then climbed the Montagne de l’Envers to reach Les Pontins and our perch from which we waited for the TdR right across the Les Bugnenets ski resort. We were both adequately dressed for a chilly ride on a cloudy day, but we quickly froze to the bones waiting for the peloton when the weather gods unleashed gusty winds and rain on us. A little bit higher up the hill those rain drops were snow flakes. Contrast that to the same time last year, when I rode across the Chasseral after watching stage 3 of the Tour de Romandie. I hope May will once and for all take care of the snow on our local mountain peaks. My legs are itching to do more climbing.

Apr 23

Training With FiveFingers On TenToes

The past weekend was marked by some very unpredictable April weather. One minute the sun was out, the next it was raining. Looking south from our balcony the sky generally had a friendlier blue, across the Jura to the north it remained threateningly grey for most of the weekend. On Saturday we picked up my wife’s new 29er in the morning and stocked up on groceries in the afternoon. Sunday was spent preparing a few modifications for the new 29er - more on that once it’s done - and some gardening on the balcony. Later, I switched the TV on to watch Liège-Bastogne-Liège but couldn’t warm up to the race. I grabbed my running gear and my Fivefingers to head out for a short run that turned into a steep hike to “La Face de Rondchâtel”. Hiking steep and rocky terrain “barefoot” was an amazing experience. The trail needs to be carefully scanned and every foot step needs to be well chosen. It’s a great training for balance and coordination, too. But caution, the slightest mistake on sharp rocks could result in bloody feet or worse. My sore calves this morning are an indication that I need more of this type of cross training. A hundred kilometers or more on the bike? Piece of cake! Ten kilometers in Fivefingers? Ouch, some regular training is needed to get there.

Apr 17

Chasseral Calling For Change Of Plans

When I set out for an evening road ride to take advantage of the only sunny day this week, I wanted to do a simple loop across the Plateau de Diesse. I zipped through town to reach the lake, then left the main road in Vingelz to begin a sweet climb to Gaicht. The Tüscherzberg road to Gaicht is an old, one lane road. The pavement is slowly turning to gravel and there are more potholes than anyone can count. What it lacks in pavement quality it more than makes up in quietness and solitude. It’s rare to meet anyone on that somewhat forgotten stretch of road. Once the road pops out of the forest, one gets to rest for a few minutes until turning into the next climb to the Twannberg. I reached that popular little mountain and was greeted by the Chasseral who was back to be fully coated with snow. Plateau de Diesse loop? Heck no, the winter being back to the Chasseral called for a climb to the peak. I launched into the climb at a steady pace and climbed and climbed until everything around me was white. The road got narrower with every meter I inched forward. At the sharp hairpin turn right above the tree line the climb was over. A van that tried to get up the road right before me came back down in reverse. I stepped to the side, then rode that few remaining meters of uncovered road. A few photos later, I was on the way back down from the mountain and suddenly realized how cold it actually was. My glasses fogged up to the point where I had to take them off. Once in Nods, I took the same way back to the Twannberg but then turned left to head to Magglingen. Taking this way has two highlights, first the Hohmattstrasse with a fantastic view of Biel and the lake. Then there’s the long descent into town to finish the ride. Another fantastic training loop that fits well into the hours after work.

Apr 13

Train Before The Rain

The whole week’s been pretty crappy weather. Nothing but rain, rain, rain. Not the type of thing that invites to take a bike out for a spin after work. The rain was needed, though. Nature is about to explode now that everything got a healthy amount of H2O. I used the bad weather to work on my Niner, which suffered in four days of mud the past weekend. It needed new rotors and pads and everything else needed to be freed from dirt. Amazing how that stuff finds ways to creep into everything. The Niner’s still fully disassembled. Another couple of hours of work and it should be ready for better days. Today was the first day that roads had enough time to dry. So, as soon as I escaped the office, I slipped into my road gear and left for a short out and back climb to the “Zentralplatz”. At the top of the climb, I had to hurry to turn around. Dark clouds were arriving from east. It rained almost immediately as soon as I zipped downhill. Luckily, only the first couple of miles. The forecast for the weekend doesn’t look all that promising. Time to wrench and time to tie my running shoes.

Apr 06

Strava’s Pseudo-Privacy

Nigel Wynn at Cycling Weekly touched an interesting topic with his post about ride mapping sites potentially being used by bike thieves looking for high-end bikes. Cycling Weekly has been told of several incidents where thieves have appeared to target a particular address, turning up fully equipped with cutting equipment and getting away with thousands of pounds worth of cycles. Strava, for example, allows you to hide the position of a specific address on your ride maps, like your home, by setting a masked area around it. Anyone looking at a map of your ride is not shown a selected area around the address - 100, 500 or 2000 meters.

How good is that privacy mask? Well, whoever paid a little bit of attention in geometry class will quickly realize that it takes just three points (start or end point of some logged rides) to figure out the masked address. Short explanation: the selected distance in the privacy settings of Strava forms a circle around a rider’s home address, or any other address the rider chooses to mask. When the rider logs a ride on Strava, start and end points of his rides from home will sit somewhere on that circle. A thief now just needs to sit down with a ruler, take three points and connect them to form a triangle. At the half-point of each edge, he draws a perpendicular line. Where they intersect, he’ll find that high-dollar carbon bike.

I tested this with data-points from some of my rides and the lines intersected within 50 meters of my house. Knowing the times a rider’s training - a piece of information also obtained from Strava, a thief can just sit at nearby street corner to figure out exactly which house to hit for that pricy bike.

What can you do to better protect your location on Strava? Set your mask to 2000 meters and always leave and return to and from your home on the same route. That way, start and end points of all your logged rides will be at the same place and it’s impossible to triangulate your home. Obviously, a thief could always hang out at such an endpoint at a typical time you train and follow you home. But that’s the risk you take putting information about your activities and whereabouts into the social media cloud.