Bike riding.

Geneva has some bike paths, but they seem disconnected and are so variable in their presentation that it's hard to keep up a steady pace on them.

Some paths are marked

They sometimes share the tramway which must be disconcerting when a tram comes up behind. I managed to find myself on a tramway that was exclusive to trams. It was difficult to get off it, so I decided my best ploy was to impersonate a tram and continue on. While the passengers who boarded were a bit inconvenient, I managed to make a direct route to my destination.

Marc Andre and myself on a ride

Another creative effort was losing my path to my secret border crossing, resulting in me being perched at the top of a steep slope looking down at my intended path. 

You can't really see it here.. but this is steep.

To gain access legitimately meant a fair bit of backtracking, and the descent was on moist terrain, and very steep. It looked challenging. I love a challenge and hate backtracking. I forged ahead carefully, using the bike with brakes on as a sort of wheel frame, and all ended well when, with a sigh of relief I reached level ground. As I approached the border I noticed a helicopter patrol. I was a bit conspicuous in my fluoro safety vest, so I resolved to shed it on the return trip. The strafing from the helicopter was an added incentive. My resolution paid off.. later that evening they were still overhead as I crossed the border in camouflage gear, holding shrubbery above and with my face blackened. I threw in a few commando rolls for good measure.

Approaching the border. Lights off and camouflage on.

Me testing the camouflage. I'm the third grapevine on the right.

One day we ventured out to Yvoire, and old village on the Lake of Geneva. Hadrien led the way, and with Nik also taking the lead, I streamed along in their wake.

 I had a despairing experience on this trip with the bike jumping a cog in all gears. I couldn't identify the problem and Nik tuned the gear changer in an attempt to fix it. No improvement, and my fear was that the internal gears on the hub changer had become stripped. I tried to carry on, but progress wasn't encouraging and decided to pull out of the ride. A last investigation revealed that the problem was a stiff link in the chain and some repeated flexing of the joint fixed the problem. in retrospect I realised that the occasional slippage had been present from when the bike was new. With the chain freed up, and with Nik's tune, my gear changing was better than it had ever been! Thanks Nik.

Yvoire is pretty