A Swiss With A Pulse

Tag: Alpes Vaudoises

  • How to find purpose: lose your job

    How to find purpose: lose your job

    June 5, 2018

    Less than 4 years ago, I was working in an office – of an organisation I had been employed by since 1994. Things were not bad: my colleagues were cool (well, most of them) and I was making good money. We had free coffee, and I was riding my bike at lunchtime.

    I was enjoying myself and claiming that I was dealing with super important stuff for the future of the world cycling. Oh and I had just started an MBA, with the classic ambition of ‘taking a step up’ in my career.

    Today, I am a bike guide, riding with guests on epic roads in Switzerland and Europe. I also pretend that I am a photographer and a writer. Plus I like to be called by a funny nickname, A Swiss With A Pulse. One day, I will explain where it comes from – it’s a good story.

    So what happened to me? Am I one of these social media heroes who decided to quit the rat race and had the courage to turn his hobby into a job? If you’re expecting me to share my secret recipe, you’ll be disappointed. It was not a fairy tale: I lost my job in miserable circumstances and had to find something else to do, quickly.

    At first, I was shit scared and running around like a headless chicken. But my wife Lillie, the craziest and most supportive wife ever, convinced me that I had another set of skills in me and could reinvent myself. Even if it meant struggling to pay our bills for a while.

    Check out this video as well as the story that goes with it, produced by Switzerland Tourism. Their English is funny but they did a brilliant job capturing the essence of who I’m trying to be and what I do. It’s not about the bike, as someone said: it’s about sharing the life of the community I live in… about enjoying the beauty of the mountains. Eating good food and meeting inspiring people. All the simple and authentic things that make me – and my guests – happy.

    Before, I wanted to change the world; today, I just try to have a positive impact on human beings around me. That’s my purpose, what makes me get up in the morning.

    Click here to read the full story on MySwitzerland, featuring my friends Brooke and Luca.

    Maybe you don’t want to change your life, or you don’t have to. But what you can do is to take a break and do something fun that matters to you from time to time… like going on a big bike ride. Shameless plug: join me on the roads of the Alpes Vaudoises and beyond. We’ll ride bikes, we’ll climb a mountain or three, we’ll take pictures and we’ll eat cheese. Lots of cheese.

    And if we fall short of conversation subjects, we can also talk management accounting, business economics or brand strategy: I finished my MBA between two tours last year. I got my picture taken with a square hat and I‘m now the most overqualified cycling guide in the world.

    Alain

    Riding up Col de la CroixPhotos: Switzerland Tourism

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  • My Strava is bigger than yours

    My Strava is bigger than yours

    January 5, 2018

    We live in a world obsessed by data. We want to measure everything. How many likes did I get on my latest Instagram picture? how many steps did I take today? How many calories did I burn? In cycling, this obsession has a name and it’s Strava. We all know it: if it’s not on Strava, it did not happen…

    I love Strava. It allows me to keep track of what I’m doing. It helps me kick my ass to get better and improve that PR. And with a year that has just come to an end, everyone is sharing a nifty video that shows how many days you were active in 2017, how many kilometers you rode, what was your longest ride and many other metrics. It’s a giant contest, a variation of the ‘mine is bigger than yours’ theme that is running our society.

    So what does Strava have to say about my 2017 cycling year?

    • I rode just short of 10’000km, 9’689 to be precise. If I had not been lazy on a few occasions and stayed home to drink coffee instead of getting out on my bike, I would have hit the magical 10K. And I would be bragging about it.
    • I climbed 170’000m. If you live in Holland or Florida you must be jealous but this is not quite like the 196’000m I did in 2015, the year I rode the Transcontinental Race.
    • I’m getting older and I lose more KOMs than I take these days. Oh well.

    Looking at this data, it would be easy to conclude that it was an average year for me. But no. It felt like a badass year, and I’m super stoked about it. Why? I went to many, many cool places. And does Strava fail to capture this badasseness? Not if you look a bit further and check this nerdy website that uses Strava data to create a map showing where you  rode in a given period of time.

    Everywhere I have ridden in Switzerland in 2017
    Where I rode in Switzerland in 2017. The yellow spot on the bottom left is the Alpes Vaudoises where I live and train.

    If I look at where I have ridden in Switzerland in 2017, I see that I have been to 22 of the 26 cantons of the country. Yes, Switzerland is tiny and has 26 provinces… I only missed Appenzell Innerrhoden, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Zug and Basel Stadt. That’s more than I have ever ridden my homeland before, and it makes me happy.

    Here are some highlights:

    •  taking old and new friends on my home roads of the Alpes Vaudoises. They each documented their ride in their own style: Dan Patitucci with pictures, Mike Cotty with a video and Mike Blewitt with an article in a magazine. How cool is that?
    • two bikepacking trips across the north of the country to check the routes of trips for Grand Tours Project. In March from Zurich to Luzern and in July from the Bodensee to Lausanne. Switzerland is not just about the mountains, the lower parts of the country are covered with a tight network of quiet farm roads that are fun to ride.
    • 17 days on the road between July and October with my friend Luca to shoot pictures for Switzerland Tourism. Expect more stories on this project here and on ALPSinsight soon.
    • supporting Grand Tours Project guests on the best climbs in Switzerland: Grosse Scheidegg, Tremola, Albula, Sanetsch, Grimsel… A year where I climbed the Grosse Scheidegg and the Tremola twice can’t be a bad year.

    Data is great, but it’s only useful if it relates to a purpose. When checking your Strava stats, think of which ones are meaningful for you. Don’t just count the kilometers… It’s all about the experiences you have on your bike. Because experiences are what makes us happy.

    Have a badass 2018

    Alain

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    Road biking above Leysin, Switzerland
    Riding with Dan in the Alpes Vaudoises with the Mont Blanc in the background. Photo: PatitucciPhoto
    One male cyclist riding past a church in the Piano di Magadino in Ticino, Switzerland
    On our road trip for Switzerland Tourism: Luca in the Piano di Magadino in Ticino
    Crossing Lake Lucerne by boat while checking the route of a Grand Tours Project trip in March
    Crossing Lake Lucerne by boat while checking the route of a Grand Tours Project trip in March
    On the Col du Sanetsch with Polly during SUF Camp in June
    On the Col du Sanetsch with Polly during SUF Camp in June

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