Closer to the clouds
You are on a long train journey from Zurich, Switzerland to Berlin, Germany. It takes 8.5 hours, if everything works as planned, which, given that this is a Deutsche Bahn train, never does, but this time around it was not their fault since a wee hurricane in North East Germany foiled the train’s progress. Anyway, you’re not here to write about the Deutsche Bahn but in 8.5 (plus) hours you have time to reflect on the last two adventurous weeks in a country many people may not consider the epitome of adventure: Switzerland.
As always, you waited until everyone in Germany went back to school and then, at the very tail end of the summer, took off to Switzerland. Why you ask? Well…first because if you love massive mountains, Switzerland is the gold standard. The entire country is built into the most magnificent mountains in Europe – the Alps, and while some countries around Switzerland get the scraps, the good Swiss people have the main course. Second, the Swiss took one of your favorite food groups, Cheese, and elevated it to the next level. There are dishes wholly devoted to cheese worship such as Fondue and Raclette (both of which may or may not be French in origin which is entirely beside the point since you can get them anywhere in Switzerland and you encourage the reader to search for a Fondue in certain areas in France like the Provence….but we digress…cheese). Third, but certainly as important as cheese or mountains is the extensive train network which really can get you anywhere in this topographically challenged country. Even though you visited Switzerland many times during your adult life, those visits were always work related and not really an exploration.
And with this you find yourself on an EasyJet to Geneva. It’s an hour and some change flight and it takes you to the West-most point of Switzerland. From there you hop into a local train and in about an hour you are in Lausanne. Why not stay in Geneva? Well…you’ve spent enough time there in the past and the idea was to explore new places. So Lausanne it is and wow is this a fantastic location. The city is walkable, the food is elevated, gluten free bakeries, artisanal ice cream, local train system that is included in the “Lausanne Card” you get from the hotel, and a proximity to apparently the town of Montreux which is famous for its jazz festival and for being the home of Freddie Mercury.
The bottom part of Lausanne is actually a town called Ouchy (not a typo), sitting right on Lake Leman, with an even more chill of a vibe, several beaches and a fascinating hotel that appears to be the next location for Wes Anderson’s film. You spend three nights in Lausanne, enjoying the French side of Switzerland, its cheeses and on a warm afternoon you even take a swim in the massive lake. There are only two directions of walking in Lausanne – up or down and given that the hotel is on the lake, you start the day walking up and the evening walking down. You determine that the town of Lausanne is very livable and very French – both great qualities.
From Lausanne you board the train to Arosa. Arosa is all the way in the east side of Switzerland. It’s up in the mountains at about 1700 meters above sea level and is reachable via a one way train from Chur (the oldest town in Switzerland, spoken as Kur not Chur). The train ride itself is an experience and the 25km up the mountain takes 19 tunnels, endless turns and a massive viaduct. This is also the first time you can remember seeing massive evergreen forest outside of the Pacific Coast of North America. The mountains are covered in these majestic trees and you explain this phenomenon to yourself by remembering that Switzerland did not have to fuel its arms during a war by cutting down all possible forests.
Arosa itself is a ski town that understands global warming and is reusing a lot of the ski infrastructure for summer sports such as cycling. The mountain biking infrastructure is nothing short of amazing, but the locals kept reminding you that they are still building that infrastructure. There are ski lifts in every direction and all colors of trails going down. One of the more adventurous trails starts at 2653 meters above sea level ending around 1000 meters below in Arosa. The whole area is a collection of trails, switchbacks, single tracks, gravel roads, exposed roots and loads of little streams.
It is pretty clear that Arosa lives from sports as the bike shops are plenty and each of them seems to also serve as a ski and snowboard shop in winter. There are plenty of restaurants catering for vegetarians and pescatarians and all sorts of Gluten Free options including pizza. More “exotic” options such as Indian or Mexican kitchens do not seem to exist, but at the end of the day, Zurich is two hours away, by train, and one does not travel to Arosa to have a burrito.
You hire a Mountainbike guide who takes you on two separate days to various trails and actually teaches you how to ignore everything you learned about drop-bars cycling and get into Enduro mode. The rental bike is equipped with 203mm rotors, 29 inch wheels and 2.8″ tires. It has strange head tube and seat tube angles and flat pedals. You learn the three important rules of mountain biking: make yourself wide (the opposite of road riding); look ahead and trust that your bike will handle the way (as opposed to look at where your front wheel is going) and climbing is easy with a ski lift (to quote Tinu the guide, “you already know how to ride up the mountain, riding down is what you need to learn”).
After about half a day of practicing you successfully manage the first trail: Hörnli Trail. Everything in Switzerland has a cute name, but as you quickly learn, adding a diminutive “li” at the end of a name, does not make it cute. You have a lot of fun during the 113 switchbacks going down and, more importantly, you do not fall even once. Looking ahead out of the switchback and towards the “where are you going next” helps a lot and with your knees and elbows pointing out, you have a wee bit more confidence. You repeat the same experience a few days later but this time by riding down from the Weisshorn trail starting at 2653 meters above sea level.
You learn that after every mountain bike day, it’s nice and healthy to have a hiking day and the number of trails to satisfy that need is also endless. An alternative would have been a gravel ride in the area, but you didn’t bring a bike and it’s nice to just hike to a destination such as a farm that makes cheese, have some locally made ice cream, buy cheese and have a picnic in the hotel room as the sun goes down. You also manage to participate in a Yoga class in the hotel every evening and on one occasion get some sauna time.
And just like this, a week in Arosa comes to an end. If you are honest with yourself, you could have stayed there much longer, but life is calling and for some obscure reason Arosa is hosting an old timer car race which starts a day after you leave so you bid the magical town in the sky farewell and take the train to Zurich and from there, after a few nights, back to Berlin.
So, Switzerland for vacation? Hell yeah.
One By Options and Musing
Shimano released their gravel oriented wireless (Di2) One By derailleur this week. With this release we have the following options in the market:
| Vendor | Wireless/Wired | Speed | Max Tooth | UVP |
| Shimano GRX Di2 | Wireless | 12 Speed | 51 | €2012 |
| Shimano GRX | Wired | 12 Speed | 51 | €1589 |
| SRAM RED XPLR eTap AXS | Wireless | 12 Speed | 44 | Unclear |
| SRAM Force XPLR AXS (D2) | Wireless | 12 Speed | 44 | €1942 |
| SRAM Rival XPLR AXS (D2) | Wireless | 12 Speed | 44 | €1424 |
| SRAM RED XPLR AXS | Wireless | 13 Speed | 46 | €3883 |
| SRAM Force XPLR AXS (E1) | Wireless | 13 Speed | 46 | €1970 |
| SRAM Rival XPLR (E1) | Wireless | 13 Speed | 46 | €1435 |
| Campagnolo Ekar | Wired | 13 Speed | 44 | €1593 |
Yes, I’m fully aware that there is also SRAM Apex and that one can have a bigger range on SRAM with a mountain bike rear derailleur. You can also hack an old SRAM Force 11 speed levers with the fantastic Ratio Technologies upgrade kits, but I’m interested in a different point.
What does the table above say about products and users?
The bike rider has a few considerations.
1) Too many options, can’t decide.
2) stick to what you know (“I rode Shimano so far, I want to stay with Shimano in my next bike”).
3) Wireless and 13-Speed seems “better” than wired and 12-Speed (More modern and more is better right?).
The bike industry has two dominant components vendors: Shimano and SRAM. It’s pretty obvious that one of them is trying to pull the industry in one direction in which they have an advantage. The other, larger vendor, which also means the vendor with the more entrenched OEM relationships, can dig their heals and even, take a completely different position. And what does it yield? Confused consumers.
Lets consider when do cyclists buy new group sets? These are the type of purchases that are done when buying a new bike or when there is a very attractive feature in a new group that is just absolutely a must. We also buy new things for our bikes because these new things are now available and we can’t control our wants (N+1 is the perfect example). Cycling in most cases is a spend that’s very strongly sits in the “disposable income” category.
So both Shimano and SRAM released new groups in the last few months. Are they needed? SRAM seems to be saying “wireless and 13 speed at any price point”. This is great for consumers since these groups fit any wallet size (within reason). They are also signaling to the market “we dont believe in wires”. For cyclists who think that “sorry I can’t join the ride today as I forgot to charge my bicycle battery” is not a reasonable position, SRAM has, of course, extra batteries and chargers for sale. Shimano has a solution.
Shimano seems to believe that options are not just in price points, but also technical. Shimano is clearly an engineering driven company. Their engineers are not asking the consumers to decide which technology they prefer or to force consumers into one direction, but rather they provide a wired and wireless options for the same group. Price-wise Shimano seemed to have positioned the GRX Di2 RX827 on the same price point as the SRAM Force group. The group also supports a much larger cassette range (officially up to 51 teeth).
Are these groups actually target the same cyclist or are we confused by Proximity Bias? Both vendors release wireless kits in such close proximity to each other, but are SRAM and Shimano address the same market?
A rider looking for a very wide range for their adventure rig with cables, basically only have a single off the shelf option: Shimano Wired GRX 12 speed. A rider looking for a tightly spaced high gear (i.e. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, etc) can pick the SRAM 13-Speed wireless setup (as long as their bike support the UDH derailleur hanger standard SRAM introduced) or go with Campagnolo Ekar.
From a product perspective, these are a lot of options which yield a lot of decision points with both large vendors trying to grab as much market as they can (that’s their job). These options are likely aimed at OEMs and the typical consumer will make a buying decision based on total package cost (the bike). For the rest of us, loads of options means that we can wax poetics about the cycling industry and we are likely to stick to the groups we have been using forever.
I wish there will be the best of both worlds. I appreciate a “save my climb” gear like Shimano’s 10-51 cassette or the aftermarket options from Garbaruk or Ingrid. On all options with a pizza-size cassette, the spacing in the higher gears leaves me looking for that in between gear when riding in relatively flat topographies. (Typical gears offered are: 10-12-14-16-18-21-24-28-33-39-45-51). It’d be great to have a Campagnolo Ekar like spacing with some changes on the very low end (my own fantasy): 10-11-12-13-14-15-17-20-23-27-35-44-50. It’s a nice “problem” to have.
The Search for a Mostly Slick Black 650B Tire at Around 50mm.
| Company | Model | Weight (g) | Cost (Euro) |
| Rene Herse | Switchback Hill Extra Light (650B x 48mm) | 413 | 87 |
| Schwalbe | Thunder Burt Evolution (650B x 53mm) | 520 | 45 |
| Teravail | RAMPART (650B x 47mm) | 550 | 49 |
| Panaracer | GravelKing | 520 | 40 |
| WTB | Horizon Road TCS (650B x 47mm) | 564 | 39 |
| Donnelly | MSO (650B x 50mm) | ||
| Vittoria | Terreno Zero (650B x 47mm) | 560 | 35 |
| Sim Works | The Homage Tire (650B x 43mm) | 520 | 60 |
| Pirelli | Cinturato Gravel Hard Terrain (650B x 45mm) | 510 | 45 |
| Terrene | Elwood Light Folding 650×47 Black | 462 | 65 |
| Soma | Cazadero (650B x 50mm) Black | 540 | 65 |
| Soma | Cazadero (650B x 42mm) Black | 470 | 65 |
The search never ends, but the list above is a good resource.
Breaking The Routine
Since the global pandemic started, many of us have been working from home, keeping to the same time zone and meeting colleagues on zoom calls. Since the spread of SARS-CoV-2 you fell into a routine that is great for productivity but not ideal for creativity.
So when the crew asked who is up for a session of #CoffeeOutside it was a great opportunity to break the routine and start the day very differently. Instead of the typical morning routine, you got on the bike, packed a coffee kit and field stove, some home made cookies, and rode out to a lake to meet the crew.
The weather was perfect and the lake blue as the sky. Everyone brought food from home such that a smorgasbord breakfast outdoors was formed. 6 coffee kits were set out and a great chat was had by everyone.
On the way home, you feel rejuvenated. It was only an hour outdoors with about 30 minutes ride to the lake and 30 minutes ride back. That little change in the routine, seeing some people in real life, enjoying coffee next to a lake, are all the ingredients of a small change that leaves a large impact. Having a routine is great. One can only break the routine is one has a routine.
Edging to the Edge
Orange, the incumbent operator in France, and Google Cloud announced a partnership that’s worth some closer inspection just yesterday. Ray Le Maistre had a good explanation about the initiative on TelecomTV.
The problem that Orange is trying to solve is that it needs/wants to roll out a 5G network. That network upgrade is astronomically expensive and is a multi-years investment. Orange announced in time for MWC 2018 that it was running 5G trials both in Romania and France for example. It will take time.
What Orange is trying to do is to find ways to monetize the roll out as it is happening. Instead of waiting for a complete coverage, it makes sense to start now, gain experience, see where the business opportunities are and where can Orange innovate. In fact, unlike past mobile technology upgrades, reading from a large network operator that “we need to figure out how to make money and we are asking Google for help” is a pleasant display of humility.
The key to exploring the business model that Orange and Google are trying to build together is the last sentence of the press release introduction: “The collaboration will also pave the way for the development of new advanced cloud, edge computing and cybersecurity services that will open up business opportunities for both Google Cloud and Orange.” This goes back to democratic computing and providing access to application developers at the edge of the 5G network. The statement also clearly points out that this is about both companies’ monetization. Google is not in the charity business.
Google know how to handle the scale and agility required to operate infinite amount of compute power and Orange is banking on two key assets it has:
- License to operate mobile network in France and other countries as well as frequencies allocated to them.
- Brand trust. Orange is a French company which, especially in today’s political climate, is likely to have more trust around data sovernity by the French consumer than Google. Data and AI-based services that can ensure the data remains in France and follow EU and French laws, will help build unique capabilities while leveraging google technologies.
We live in exciting times. 5 years ago, the notion that a European operator will forge strong technical collaboration with an American hyperscalar were unimaginable. In 2020 these announcements are becoming the norm. As someone who cares deeply about connecting people and democratizing compute power, this is a welcomed announcement.