2018 was another great year on the bike. Here is a selection of my best photos, from the roads of the Giro to the snowy slopes of my beloved Alpes Vaudoises.
Enjoy and have a fantastic 2019 full of long bike rides, trips to new places, good food, meaningful moments with your friends and families, and time away from your screens.
The Colle Delle Finestre is one of my favorite climbs in the Alps. I work as a bike guide and rode it with a group of clients just before the famous Giro stage won by Chris Froome. No cars were allowed ahead of the race so it was just us, the snow and the dirt road.A memorable day on the Giro d’Italia roads, witnessing the epic battle for the maglia rosa. Tom Dumoulin and Thibaut Pinot tried everything but Chris Froome was just too strongIn July, I took a group of friends on the Tour des Alpes Vaudoises, a 4 day tour in our local mountains. Here near the top of the Col de la Croix.The Nufenen (2’478m) is the second highest paved pass in Switzerland. Its north side is a relentless climb amongst dark peaksSunset ride in the Swiss vineyards. Photo taken at the start of the climb to the Col de la Croix in the Alpes VaudoisesClimbing Passo Sella in the Dolomites on a clear October day with a dust of snow on the surrounding peaks. Road cycling at its bestMy last bike trip of the season was a holiday. I explored the Strade Bianche in Tuscany and got to enjoy some fantastic sunsetsAfter a long road cycling season in the Alps, we found new motivation by scouting the dirt roads above Villars-sur-Ollon on gravel bikes with LucaWe were treated to a beautiful autumn in Switzerland this year. A great opportunity to explore the small roads around our hometown of Gryon with LucaWhat do you do when it snows but there is not enough white stuff to go ski touring? Just ride your bike and enjoy the views
To stay up to date with the new posts on this blog, follow me on Facebook, twitter or Instagram.
Nobody on their deathbed has ever said “I wish I had spent more time at the office”. Chances are you’ve read this somewhere, and the popularity of this quote suggests something to me: there are many people out there who are bored by their job and wish they were doing something else; that’s scary. Until robots replace us, we humans will spend a large part of our life working. Some would argue that this will happen very soon, but I believe that the deathbed meme will keep making rounds on the internet for a while.
I can’t complain much about my work: guiding bike tours, taking photos and writing are all about sharing experiences that make people happy. There are worse jobs. I can also climb a mountain on my lunch ride, or go for a quick ski. But the fact that my wife thinks that I work too much and that I should spend more time doing other things should ring a bell. Maybe I should think of the deathbed story a little more and revisit what we like to call “work-life balance”.
The good news is, I already have a great coach for that. His name is Graham, and I’m lucky to have him as a friend. Most of us are weekend warriors; Graham is a week warrior: he goes on adventures during the week so that he can be with his family on weekends. This guy has it figured out, and he has a good life.
Graham the week warrior
Graham keeps coming up with fun ideas for micro adventures that involve biking, skiing or running up and down mountains. Most of the time my answer is a variation on the theme of “I would love to come but you know, I have too much work. Have fun!” He shares A LOT of pictures on social media, as if to remind me that I could have been with him, you know, had I not been so busy.
Yet on a recent Tuesday, I finally decided to join him and his usual partner in crime Kate on a ski mountaineering day trip to the Col des Ecandies. I should also add that I am lucky to live in the Swiss Alps… where you can leave home at 8am, go for an adventure in the high mountains and be back by 4pm.
Here’s how my day went:
Woke up and had breakfast with my son Ben; prepared ham and cheese sandwiches
Dropped Ben off at daycare
Met up with Graham and Kate in the valley, drove to Champex-Lac
Started skinning up Val d’Arpette in the shade, looking up at the sun drenched peaks
Chatted and joked on how it must be nicely warm up there
Stopped for pictures
Got my left hand very cold, swung my arms like a mad man to get the blood back into my fingers (this trick is supposed to work)
Repeated the process four times and finally gave up
Kept stopping for pictures
Got to the top – in the shade. Ate my ham and cheese sandwiches with my right hand, which got very cold in the process
Skied down in a mix of awesome powder and horrible wind blown snow – all in the shade, of course
Got back to the car park where we felt the sun on our faces for the first time that day
Started feeling my left hand again sometime during the drive back
Got home, had a quick nap, then picked up Ben from daycare.
Getting to the Col des Ecandies – in the shade
Once I was on my skis, I never wondered if it was a good idea to be there rather than in front of a screen. There was nothing outstanding about what we did, but I will remember that day for the rest of my life; not the hours I would have spent crunching numbers on a spreadsheet, emptying a bottomless email inbox or checking my social media feed. And I made my wife happy too for ditching work for a change.
We should all be so lucky to have a Graham in our lives. And if we don’t, then be the Graham.
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.
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
To stay up to date with the new posts on this blog, follow me on Facebook, twitter or Instagram.
Riding with Dan in the Alpes Vaudoises with the Mont Blanc in the background. Photo: PatitucciPhoto
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
On the Col du Sanetsch with Polly during SUF Camp in June
To stay up to date with the new posts on this blog, follow me on Facebook, twitter or Instagram.
What a year. I wrote it twelve months ago: 2015 was the beginning of a new journey. It continued in 2016 with many ups, and a few downs. Where shall I begin?
Certainly with Grand Tours Project. Starting a cycling tour company from scratch was a huge challenge. Did we succeed? Virtually nothing went according to plan, but that’s the norm for every start up company. What matters is that we ran a bunch of kick-ass tours and saw big smiles on the face of our guests. Just read their stories on our blog: Beth at the Giro, Kath at the Maratona dles Dolomites or David in Sardinia. Huge thanks to Keith, Grand Tours Project’s founder and Chief Purpose Officer, for his support and guidance throughout this first season.
Une photo publiée par Grand Tours Project (@grandtoursproject) le
My personal highlight was to (re)discover my own country. Switzerland is not on the radar of many cycling fans; those who believe they can only reach nirvana on the legendary passes of the Tour and the Giro in France and Italy. But a new trend is emerging: there is an appetite for exploring new destinations, and the Swiss Alps are a fabulous playground for cyclists with breathtaking landscapes, challenging climbs, perfectly surfaced roads and little traffic.
Throughout the year, we ran tours, helped with media trips, wrote stories and shot pictures on Swiss roads: the Grosse Scheidegg, the Tremola, the Sanetsch, the Col de la Croix (my home climb) and many more. The incredibly positive feedback that I got convinced me: this country is a hidden gem and I’m now on a mission to share my passion for cycling in Switzerland with the world. You’re going to see a lot more of it soon… you’ve been warned!
Une photo publiée par A Swiss With A Pulse (@aswisswithapulse) le
Not so long ago, I was afraid of sharing personal experiences. “Who would find them interesting?” said the introvert in me. I started, slowly, with photography. And much to my surprise, I found an audience (thank you, Instagram). Then I added words and started blogging on A Swiss With A Pulse. It was freaking hard and I struggled to post on a consistent basis – I still do. But I enjoyed it and found out that some people were actually reading my stuff. in 2015, CyclingTips gave me the opportunity to share my Transcontinental Race adventure in words and images. I could not believe the feedback I got: people from all around the world were inspired by my story. It was not something superhuman, never done before or fictional. Just what I did, what I saw, and how it changed me. This is when I discovered myself a true passion for storytelling, which has grown ever since.
Over the last twelve months, I’ve worked with a bunch of brilliant publications and brands to share what I love and do best: ride my bike in beautiful places and meet cool people on the way. This included riding a gravel bike on the Strada dell’ Assietta with my friends Jacqui and Dan, following Beth on the roads of the Valais region, discovering Sardinia with the locals, making a bunch of new friends in Mallorca, telling all about my favorite Swiss roads and bikepacking from San Francisco to LA. You might have seen some of these stories if you’re a reader of Cycling Plus, Vélo Magazine, RoadBIKE Magazine, Adventure (China), RIDE Cycling Review, Road Cycling UK or ALPSinsight. Thanks to them, as well as Scott, Rapha and Apidura, I’ve been given a platform to inspire people to get on their bikes, go for an adventure and create meaningful memories for themselves.
Finding time: a post on the Apidura blog
An article about cycling in Switzerland for RIDE Cycling Review
Gravel Biking on the Strada dell’Assietta for Adventure (China) – photos: PatitucciPhoto
To no surprise, I rode less this year than in previous years. And that’s fine. Because I had to make room for all these cool new things I’m doing, and for family time with our little Ben. Still, I had an awesome bike adventure in California, rode the Maratona dles Dolomites, explored the Strada dell’Assietta and discovered Sardinia. Not bad for an ‘off’ year…. Fun fact: I was looking at my calendar the other day and found out that the month where I rode my bike the most was… December with 22 rides. Why? No snow, sun and dry roads. In other words, sensational riding conditions. And I live in a ski town where I should have been shredding the gnar from my doorstep. It was the same twelve months earlier. With climate change, alpine resorts need to rethink their model and cycling is part of their future. You read it here first (or maybe not).
Une photo publiée par C Y C L I N G T I P S (@cyclingtips) le
Family. Thank you for giving a purpose to my life. Thank you Ben for being the best baby ever and inspiring me to be the best possible dad. Thank you Lillie: you’re renovating our chalet with your own hands and just need me from time to time to carry a plaster board or plant some nails. But all the rest is you. Soon we’ll be moving back into our brand new bedroom and I’ll be so proud of my architect / finance manager / badass builder wife. Thank you Wendy, my lovely daughter. 22 years old? Where did time go? Thank you Mum, I’m so happy to visit you with Ben every Thursday to eat pizza and meringues week in, week out. Thank you Dad. You left us in May; I know you wanted to hold on long enough to see Ben walk, but it did not happen. In your own way, you have been my biggest supporter in everything I’ve done in my life. I miss you so much.
And thank you friends! You know who you are. Life would be considerably less fun without you.
All of the above takes time, in a world where we feel increasingly busy. Busy is the buzz word right now. « How are you? » « Oh, I’m so busy ». But we do so much stuff that we struggle to see what really matters. A few months ago, this is what I wrote on the Grand Tours Project blog:
“most of us complain that only a portion of what keeps us so busy is meaningful. We feel like we are no more than rats in a cage.”
Actually the more I think of it, the more I believe that meaningfulness is the key to happiness. So many things can be meaningful. For me, it’s riding my bike at sunset. The big grin on my guests’ face after a day riding up and down mountains. My son making his first steps towards his mum. As opposed to the view of an overflowing email inbox or the latest cat video on Facebook.
So I’ll make a new year’s resolution: in 2017, I want to find time to live more meaningful moments with the people I love. That’s pretty catchy. What’s yours?
Alain
The best way to check if I stick to my new year’s resolution? Follow me on social: Instagram, twitter, Facebook or Strava
