et alia

I discovered a glorious new climb on my road bike one evening:

The route out wasn’t particularly inspiring in the 5-6PM traffic, but the salita over the lake was well worth the moto scoppio. Next time I’ll consider taking the train out the first 10km, as it would make the ride both more pleasant and easier to fit into the day.

Those who follow professional cycling will know that the Tour de France started this weekend. The best way to watch cycling is to be cycling yourself on an indoor trainer: and so I’ve set up my Zwift in the cellar (where I keep my real bikes) and augmented it with an extra screen so that I can run both the Tour and Zwift concurrently:

When it was set up in my previous residence’s turreted office, this Zwift station was aptly dubbed the ‘Power Tower’. I like this real rhyme much better than the ‘pain cave’ (common and colloquial nickname for an indoor cycling setup these days), even if the latter is inarguably the more appropriate to my new setup’s elevation and aesthetic. So the Power Tower it remains! I will be pushing watts (paltry compared to the pros) on this thing for many hours over the next three weeks while I watch Tadej Pogacar make winning races look like child’s play, despite all the world’s other best riders being in the bunch.