Two Years Apart
Two photos, two bikes, two years. Same location, same tree, same month.
Road Riding Weekend
Friday evening I left the office totally overdressed in the cycling gear I had put on in the morning. I arrived at home, jumped into some other clothes and ran to the post office. They had another part for the new road bike waiting. I was somewhat confused when the postal clerk handed me a black HP computer box. I never ordered a new PC. Grabbing the box, I quickly realized that there was no computer inside. Based on the weight, it could be nothing more than the Zipp handlebar I purchased from Bikespeed (awesome shop by the way). Back home, I unpacked it and then hurried to get a road bike ride in before the sun went down. With temperatures still around 20 degrees, I left in shorts bringing along arm and knee warmers in my jersey pocket in case it would get cold at higher elevations. I left Biel and headed to Corgémont, where I wanted to climb to the Place Centrale for a return through Orvin. In the valley to Corgémont everything has turned green and a lot is in full bloom. But as soon as I headed into the climb, the forest was still just coming out of winter. Between the Anabaptist Bridge and the Place Centrale, there was still lots of snow sitting around. The dirt trail was wet and extremely muddy.
I returned for pretty much the same loop this morning, except that I continued to Cortébert to do the more western ascent to the Place Centrale. I went hard on Friday and took it easy today. I’m planning to do another ride tomorrow and had no plans to kill myself today. Right out of Cortébert, I met two guys getting a weird combination of gear out of their car. They had carabiners, cords and other stuff that looked like climbing gear but also wetsuits. Maybe there are caves up in that area, I don’t know. The climb this side up was fantastic. In the morning, temperatures were around 5 degrees. Chilly enough to do the whole ride wearing arm and knee warmers. I returned home before noon. Had some lunch and drove back up there with my wife for a short ride on the plateau. The area was full of daffodils and crocuses. Unfortunately, a chilly breeze blew away our plans to hang out and enjoy the colorful pastures. We stopped at La Cuisinière and shared a plate of cheese covered Rösti. Their dessert menu only offered “industrial” ice cream, so we left for coffee and dessert at the Restaurant des Gorges. As always, we got awesome dessert and wonderful Cappuccino. This is a place we’ll be visiting whenever we want to treat ourselves to good food nearby. Tomorrow is supposed to be another warm day - another day to ride.
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Signs Of Spring
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Started the day with breakfast at 7AM and left right after to catch the last few sun-rays before the approaching clouds cut them off. A relatively short morning loop took me across the Twannberg, Magglingen’s Hohmatt, Evilard with a quick return to Biel. Photo was taken in the Falbringe area right outside of town. Nice to see forest floors starting to wake up.
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First Spring Climb
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Keeping it short today: It’s been a super sunny day, windy and a bit chilly, in other words a great day to head out on two wheels to collect a couple of miles and shoot a couple of photos.
Short Out & Back
The weather frog is announcing the return of winter temperatures for the long weekend. I left the office early and decided to get a short ride in as long as the weather was still pleasant. It turned out to be quite a ride. The sun was out when I left on my Trek. As I wound my way up to the top of the climb at 3300 feet it started snowing. Now, that’s not generally all that unusual, but I had only ridden 3 miles to get from a sunny driveway to a cloud-wrapped mountain top. I took a short break up there to enjoy the spectacle of sunrays, dark clouds and the shadows they threw, then returned back to the sunnier lowland.
First Evening Ride After Work
As the sun is out longer day by day, I pedaled home from work on my road bike with the plan to swap bikes and head up into the trails. After arriving at home, I slipped into my mountain bike gear - shorts and knee warmers seemed like enough - loaded the washing machine with some dirty clothes, and then rode off to my usual trailhead. I needed to keep the ride fairly short, but wanted to gain some decent altitude nonetheless. I rode westwards above lake Biel to get onto my favorite singletrack, which brought me to a long and steady climb on a rough fire road. I was quite excited to see my legs working well. I rode a steady pace, not fast yet, but constant without much suffering. Upper body and arms did their part and agreed that I’ll be riding myself into good shape this year. Before reaching the top, I stopped briefly to take a few photos of the sunset. Rested, I climbed the last stretch and navigated to the entrance of a fun downhill back into town. It was quickly getting dark, requiring me to reduce the tempo downhill a bit. Awesome to be able to hit the trails this early in March!
Saturday Ride
For the second time this year I’ve been heading out a different direction riding along the hillside of the Bözingen mountain. During all the years I lived here and while I was riding with a club, I had never gone out that way. Somehow, it just doesn’t seem attractive for bikers to leave town in this direction. It’s a steep and rocky mountain side with some really awesome trails.
The only challenge and maybe the reason this area isn’t ridden as much is that the trails aren’t well connected. Quite a few fireroads climb up the mountain and just dead end. On the other hand, there are some fantastic and sometimes scaringly steep downhill trails. Just venturing out there for only the second time, I’m still discovering a lot and trying to come up with a decent loop. I got the lower portion and the start of the ascent figured out. Unfortunately, there was still too much snow that covered the trails at higher elevations, so I had to forget about trying the reach the top of the mountain.
If the temperatures keep going up and the sun shows her face, the remaining snow should be gone within a week or two. I definitely want to hit these trails again. The singletracks are fun and the climb is tough - a good place to gauge one’s fitness.
