2021-02-06 45 4

Stupid grins

Location

On a strip of lawn, next to a community centre in Lyon.

Participants

Baarde

Plans

The location is 2 km from home. I will bicycle there in the afternoon.

And then go there by public transport.

And then ~~walk~~ run there.

Expedition

The geohash was located in Gorge de Loup, a district of Lyon, on the other side of the iconic Fourvière hill. There are 3 ways to go there. You can go around the hill, under the hill, or over the hill.

🚲 Around the hill

Cycling is my default mode of travel, so obviously I started with that. As I've been living in Lyon for 8 years and know the city relatively well, I decided to try the No Batteries Geohash achievement and turn my phone's location services off. To make sure that I wouldn't get lost, I wrote the turn-by-turn directions on a piece of paper with a sketch of the location.

I walked to the nearest Vélo'v station (I haven't replaced my stolen bicycle yet) and temporarily re-enabled the location services so the app would let me pick a bicycle. Then Vélo'v 42013 and I went north along the Saône river and around the hill, entered Gorge de Loup and reached the coordinates at 13:55, after a 4 km ride.

The geohash was located in the middle of a small strip of lawn, in front of a community centre (currently closed). After recording proof, we went back to the Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon) district and I bid farewell to Vélo'v 42013.

🚇 Under the hill

Vieux Lyon and Gorge de Loup are connected by the Metro D line that goes straight (kinda) through the hill. Perfect for a Juggernaut achievement. After a short stop at home, I walked to the Metro station, took a train and arrived at Gorge de Loup a couple of minutes later. I walked the remaining 200 meters to the geohash, reached the coordinates at 14:59 and recorded proof (again), then promptly returned back home, just in time to watch France beat Italy 50-10 in the Six Nations Championship.

I tried to record a GPX tracklog, but as expected I had no signal during most of the journey. So I had to rely on OpenStreetMap and my knowledge of the layout of the Vieux Lyon Metro station to draw the track. According to my calculations, my deviation ratio was about 1:26.

🏃‍♂️ Over the hill

As Matthew Carley blew for the final whistle, there wasn't much time left before the start of the curfew. Not quite enough to walk to the geohash. But plenty enough to run there. So I put on my running shoes and started running up the hill until I reached the summit near the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière. Then I started running down the hill until I reached the coordinates at 17:43.

After recoding proof for the third time, I run to the Metro station and went back home.