The Mexican Story

Following is an extract from the book "The 4 Hour Work Week" written by Tim Ferriss, a very simple explanation of why bigger is not necessarily better...

The Mexican Story

American consultant was at a pier in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied only a little while.
The consultant then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?
The fisherman said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked the Mexican how he spent the rest of his time.
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor.”
The American consultant scoffed, “I am business consultant and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.
“You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”
To which the American consultant replied, “15-20 years.”
“But what then, senor?” asked the fisherman.
The consultant laughed, and said, “That’s the best part! When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public. You’ll become very rich, you would make millions!”
“Millions, senor?” replied the Mexican. “Then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

Discovering Briancon

No work today, it's Sunday!!
Go up and out on the bike early keen to finish the challenge, nice and easy ride on the flat for 22kms and mission accomplished...at last!!!
I had decided on a road trip (in the car for a change) for today with the historic township of Briancon the destination of choice. The weather was a complete contrast to yesterday with hardly a cloud in the sky and the mountains looking magnificent with all the new snow.
The drive over included part of what I had ridden earlier in the month over Col du Lautaret, much easier in the car, then it was down the other side to Briancon, about a 80km trip over.

Briancon is the highest town in Europe, I spent my time there exploring the Cite Vauban of Briancon, a medieval old town that was a military city in the eighteenth century and is surrounded by fortifications. It was very easy to spend a good half day there wandering around in absolute awe of the structures, views and history.

Waking up to snow falling

This morning I woke up and looked out the window to see snow falling, quite amazing really considering the fact that summer starts next week. Anyway it was a good excuse to have a bit of a sleep in as well as a good opportunity to catch up on some more work.
I worked away up until just after lunch and then got tempted by the break in the weather to get out on the bike, another motivation was the fact that I had signed up for an online challenge to complete 813kms of riding between 13 and 26 May and I still had 123kms to go with only today and tomorrow left.
I headed out and found a couple of new hills to challenge the legs and then added a nice scenic traverse along another balcony type road that was more or less on the opposite side of the valley to the one I rode the other day.
Didn't get back until after 6pm and managed to clock up 104kms for the afternoon, leaving a mere 20kms to do tomorrow to complete the challenge.
Good day all round really!!

La Berarde - don't look down

Firstly for all you critics, I actually put in close to an 8 hour day of work today, ok maybe closer to 6 hours. Very inconvenient meant that I didn't get out on the bike until about 2pm, I'd decided to ride out to La Berarde which is a bit further on from the ride I'd previously done to Venosc, a good bit further on as it turned out.
The climb up to Venosc wasn't too bad and I'd done that one before but then the climb out of Venosc was a nice steep tough one, then a short bit of flat stuff beside the river before another tough climb up to St-Christophe-en-Oisans, after which the grade lessened off somewhat but still uphill. What a spectacular road and scenery though (again). another narrow road that seems to hang over the edge of the mountain, this one however didn't have any guardrail or wall of any sort so it was a case of "don't look down".
Another great ride and some more spectacular, remote mountain landscape!!!!

More about the bike and lifestyle rather than "working from anywhere"

Ok, so I have to admit that this blog has now become more about the cycling and the lifestyle here in the French Alps, all I can say in my defense of this is that you can only write so much on the working side of things, the bottom line is that the actual "Working from Anywhere" is working and working well.
Needless to say that today started off with some work, as I said what more can I say?
Then I'd picked out a 100km loop that was partly some of a route that I did the other day but in reverse and the middle part of the route a different direction. The route was named in the guide book as "Le tour du Plateau Matheysin par la Morte", this route started off going up Col d'Ornon the opposite side to my 93km loop that I did on Saturday, then moved back on the reverse direction as this ride until just after Valbonnes where it turned up towards La Morte and the ski resort of l'Alpe du Grand Serre.

the ski resort of l'Alpe du Grand Serre

The climb up to La Morte wasn't too bad or it could be a case that I'm just getting used to all the climbing, I stopped for some much needed lunch at  l'Alpe du Grand Serre, I would have stopped sooner but couldn't find anything open, a bit of a trap in these parts, you never know when they will be open.
Then it was a very exciting 12km descent into Sechilienne, as mentioned many times before the descents are an absolute thrill, roads are mostly smooth with lots of sweeping corners and the odd hairpin to keep you on your toes (or brakes). It was back to the highway home, a lengthy part of which is a gradual but consistent uphill so its a bit of a tough drag to finish, I was feeling pretty good by the time I got to my turnoff though so decided to keep going into Bour d Oisans to my favourite bakery to treat myself to coffee and cake before heading home, adding an extra 15kms to my trip, ended up 119kms for the day.
Certainly clicking up the km's, I've now covered close enough to 1000kms since I've been here and even more telling is I have now surpassed 20,000m of climbing, thats 20km's of vertical gain in 17 days!!!!!

Climbing up a rugged snow lined mountain

A bit of a hazard on the way!

I got up and into some work nice and early after yesterday's rest day off the bike, this had me finished early and set to get back out in the mountains for the best part of what was looking to be a stunning day.
Going through my handy cycling route guide (an excellent production provided free by the Tourist Information centre), I thought I'd put together a combination of a couple of the routes to cover a bit of extra ground.
A very good choice in the end that had me riding up a very rugged and narrow mountain road, climbing up the Col de Sarenne, from here it was a descent into Alpe d Huez on a snow lined road, breathtaking views on the way. I got to Alpe d Huez and had flat tyre which was easily fixed, then it was a coffee and baguette at the Indianna Bar & Cafe at the top of Alpe D Huez.
Next was a the exhilarating descent down the hairpins as far as la Garde-en-Oisans where I turned off to follow another mountain hugging road through Auris-en-Oisans, another spectacular road, a bit of climbing (yet again) but well worth it, passing through little tunnels on the way.
It was then a descent onto the main road back to Bourg d Oisans, stopping for another coffee en route back to Allemont.
A very nice 90km loop for the day, another great adventure in the French Alps.

Sunday is rest day

Feeling a bit weary from all the hard kms on the bike so attempted a rest day, hard as it is to resist the temptation of getting out there in mountain paradise. I was tempted to travel over to Valloire to watch Stage 15 of the Giro Italia but with all the road closures I would have had to travel half way around Europe to get there, so a rest day it is.
I thought I'd share some interesting observations on some of the things they do differently here, most of which I think are great:

In the Supermarket:

Huge range of fresh produce

• You bag up,weigh and put the price sticker on your own fruit and veggies while you shop.
• Wine, spirits etc are all available on the supermarket shelves mixed in with all the other items, and they are so cheap!!
• The range of fresh food is phenomenal, meats, cheeses, salamis and so many other delicacies, quite overwhelming.
• They don't have plastic bags at the checkout, you either bring your own bags or buy a recycleable one at the checkout (its taken me a bit to get used, finally remembered to bring my bags back last time).
• The checkout, the checkout staff don't bag your items, they simply scan them and toss them down the counter for you bag, combined with the fact that they don't have to weigh anything it makes for a very efficient and quick process.

Hours of Business:

This is one area where think the French have really got it right, not such thing as 24/7 trading here unless its an unmanned service station.

Not only do they not trade 7 days a week but some shops take a few hours off during the day, a small supermarket down the road from me is closed every day between 12.30pm and 3.30pm, a bakery might close for part of the later afternoon. 

Many shops are closed on Sunday and if they are open on Sunday they may have another random day off during the week, sometimes you never know sometimes its advertised (or maybe I just understand the French writing).

Also you'll find shops closed for several weeks or days at time while the owners have holidays.

Oh how I wish it was like this at home, I really hope they hang onto this tradition.

No household garbage collection

Rubbish:

They don't seem to have a household garbage collection as such, instead there large bins situated everywhere for you to place you garbage and recycleables, they seem for recycle conscious with the separate bins for each recycle type. Not a bad system I say.

Cycling:
Cycling is a big thing in France, especially in this cycling haven, the infrastructure and acceptance of cyclists is something to behold. There are cycle lanes on most of the main roads, there is signage advising motorists to give cyclists 1.5m clearance and the big one is that motorists actually respect this. Motorists will slow down and follow a cyclist until its safe to pass rather than get impatient and try and dangerously squeeze past.

and the motorists respect this!!!

It really is quite refreshing and I haven't witnessed a agitated motorist anywhere!!

That's just the few things I can think of for now, I'll keep you posted on any others as they come to mind