Beyond Research
Cycling, the outdoors, and the occasional data question.
Outside my academic work, my main hobby is cycling, and now and then it overlaps with the day job.
I ride bikes, both outdoors and indoors on Zwift, and I try to put in 8 to 12 hours a week, though the honest average is closer to 8 or 9; a good week hits 12, but life tends to get in the way. Most of it is around Fribourg, where I live: into the hills and mountains when I want to climb, and out toward the Murtensee (Lake Murten) when I want flatter, faster roads. Off the bike, I also hike, nothing too extreme, and go for the occasional run. I log it all on Strava, if you want to follow along.
On the road bike near Schwarzenburg, the Préalpes behind. Spring 2026.
Climbing above Lake Geneva, in the Lavaux vineyards (Puidoux). Spring 2026.
Hiking in the Alps. Summer 2025.
Above Schwarzsee, in the Fribourg Préalpes. Spring 2024.
A run through fresh snow. Winter 2024.
Every outdoor ride, run, hike and walk I have recorded across Switzerland, drawn from the raw GPS traces.
When the hobby meets the day job
Recording every ride for years leaves me with a lot of data, so I tested the obvious question: are the expensive carbon wheels I bought actually faster, or mostly marketing? On 21 April 2026 I swapped my road bike’s aluminium wheels for deep-section carbon ones and changed nothing else. Adjusting for power and terrain, the carbon setup is the fastest of my three bikes, about +1.3 km/h over the same bike on alloy; and in a difference-in-differences against my never-upgraded gravel bike, the road bike gains +2.2 km/h while the gravel bike does not. Compare like season with like season, though, and most of that gap goes away, so I wouldn’t read too much into a few months of data.
