Tag Archives: rant

Waste of money and insecurity

While cycling on PC14,  I discovered it was closed; and they did a detour via a the roads CR103 and CR109, a popular itinerary for trucks going to Kehlen. So I wasn’t very pleased to find which wasn’t announced on any web site. Imagine a family going for a bicycle ride altogether during this sunny Easter holiday…

Detour sign

The fun continues one kilometre ahead, where the main road is also closed, and all the best they have done is to Strikethrough the bicycle detour…

Detour no longer applies

What a waste of money; doing a detour via a dangerous road, and then close the detour

Also, on Tuesday, April 14, the cycling route is also closed between Mamer and Capellen; no alternative road is planned; but at least they have put the sign since last month:

PC14 closure

So let me suggest the alternative way below to go from Mamer to Nospelt, which is technically against the law as the way is market with a (C,2) sign with no bicycle exemption, but:

  • no one cares, they often put this sign even on official cycling routes, and
  • safety first.

Please note the traffic light when crossing Route d’Arlon in Mamer.

Boar(ing) weather

I don’t like to complain and I know that won’t change anything, but we’re only a step away from summer and this weather is a bitch and has been horrific for three quarters.

I usually try to repeat to myself that there’s no such thing as bad weather… but it’s getting hard to positive after having (almost) daily cold showers for weeks, especially when even my underwear was soaking. I need more imagination to find something positive about the weather.

This week I saw frost for the first time since April and that wasn’t nice for cycling as I couldn’t find my winter gloves and the growing plants in the backyard are just dying, now my hands are chapped and the tomatoes plants dead.

Despite this weather, I did some outdoor activities every day wearing a pair of winter boots, some waterproof trousers, a waterproof poncho, a pair of gloves, a fluffy jumper and a scarf isn’t funny anymore. Even on a mountain bike, riding in the forest feels more like a dangerous expedition than having some fun and this will take weeks after the end of this bad weather to improve; I have no idea how I will survive without going to the woods for such a long time! Here are some pictures of my latest hard slogs:
20130522_161233 20130520_143601 20130519_132631

Apparently, it’s not going to ameliorate in the near future as Bad weather in Western Europe likely to continue into June. I’ve been checking daily (when not hourly) the weather forecast for weeks and it always gets worse and I think I’m going crazy because each time they forecast lower temperatures (sometimes below the minimum for a century) and a lot of rain, wind, hail, flooding, and no sunlight. Also, when we reached 10 degrees outside, I had the chance to witness a thunderstorm.

Found on Facebook, the evolution of the temperature forecast on May 25 since 2009:
French weather forecast evolution

If this global warming thing exists, there must be a local ice age here… Please stop air conditioners outside! But there’s something positive, I didn’t see any ticks in the forest this year.