It never fails, as soon as I comment about the rainy weather here in Zurich we're assaulted with day after day of 90+ degrees and sun. It's very pretty, but very hot. And the Swiss have a cultural aversion to air conditioning, seriously, so things are a tad uncomfortable! It's Summer in Zurich! I'm also fighting off a head cold, probably brought on by over-training mixed with dramatic swings in temperature, so I've been taking it easier the last couple days. I've been watching a lot of the
Tour de France and trying to sort through the German and French commentary to make sense of the action; Levi is certainly a long shot to podium at this point, but it's really interesting to see how it all is developing. I have to admit to being a big fan of
Rasmussen (aka "the chicken") and his climbing-centrism; anybody who has raced/trained much with me knows I'm lousy on bike descents, but I really like the ups. I heard it said once that "anybody can climb, it's going down that takes the skill" and I suppose there's truth to that . . . but my heart really goes out to Rasmussen as a guy who so clearly embraces the lactic acid from all the climbing and sticks it to the "big Tour contenders" in those mountain stages. If I designed the Tour course I'd have uphill finishes for every stage! It looks like Contador for
Team Discovery is another one of those pure climber types . . . so I'll be rooting him on too.
I know there are a lot of map geeks out there who might be interested, so I'm posting my route and map from a recent trek/run I did out here. A trek/run means I generally run the flats and downhills, and trek the uphills unless I'm feeling really ambitious. Anyway, here's the map (beware: clicking on the map will prompt a 1 MB download):
Now, I don't have a cool topo-program for Switzerland (yet) so you've got to make do with a digital photo from my map case. It took around 3 hours and total to 12-15 miles. My route, shown in red, ran generally clockwise from the upper right corner (there are arrows on the route to indicate my direction). The climb up to the Falletsche feature, the crazy set of contour lines in the lower center of the map, is dramatic and a good challenge. I don't know if some giant meteor made that pocket in the mountain or what, but it is very cool. When I get my bike out here, lots of fun climbing will be had!
One of the cool parts about this route is that it visits several small and, a bit, stereotypical Swiss towns. You know:
manicured lawns with flower pots as borders and decorative woodwork. I half expect the
Keebler elves to pop out and offer me a cookie as I'm running through these places! So, I thought I'd include one of my photos of a village taken from the ridge line:
Finally, it's not all exercise out here. Jill and I had a drink on the lake the other day and this was our view:
Now that the sun is shining you can really see the Swiss Alps in the background. I'll be making some day trips out to those Alps, of course, probably budgeting one day each week for that kind of longer adventure. We're nearly settled here and I can probably start that this week or next. By the way, Jill has coerced me into taking sailing lessons with her, so we'll be spending lots of time on that lake
outside of a kayak!