Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen preparing for a long ride like Paris-Brest-Paris, I need to make sure I can cover a lot of ground as fast as possible and with the lowest heart rate possible. The whole game is to be in a functioning mode where you burn energy that you consume and you don’t start digging into your […]
Author: Marc Olivier Meunier
Marc has spent the past few years putting oil on the fire of a hyper growth ad tech company. At Smartly.io he was in charge of scaling the support and its culture. At Eficode he is now leading an engineering team and running operations. He leads by example and puts a lot of emphasis on diversity and inclusion, constantly working to create a safe environment. A warm leader with a passion for memorable experiences and innovation.
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My new ride – Cervélo C3
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis is my new Cervélo C3. I say new because I just got it, but it’s a second hand bike. I’ve never, and probably will never buy a brand new bicycle. I’m very happy with the idea of giving a second life to a bicycle. Equipment on board So it’s a Cervélo C3 with Ultegra […]
300Km Ride report
Reading Time: 6 minutesThis is a ride report for a 300km Brevet. This Saturday 8th May 2021, I did my longest ride to date. 318km Oh wow, what a ride… Lessons learnt: Be more aware of calorie counts. I’ve burnt about 9000 kcal during that day. And that means eating a lot! I did eat more regularly than […]
Long ride equipment
Reading Time: 2 minutesComfortable or Fast? I’ve been riding long distance with the wrong bike for too long. My ride is a BMC Team Machine Ultegra Di2 with Dura Ace C24 wheels. It’s a race bike. It’s aggressive. You push the pedals and it wants one thing: going fast. The problem with a race bike is comfort. Full […]
Espoo 200KM Ride report
Reading Time: 2 minutesTemperature was cold. Very cold. We got snow for the first 80km. Then some clearer sky. Then rain for the last 50km Some lessons learnt: Mud guards are necessary. Nicer for other riders. But also prevents my back being full of mud. I was keeping some of my food (gels) in the back pocket of […]
Going cycling for a long ride
Reading Time: < 1 minuteA while back I’ve shared my list for getting ready to cycle long-distance on the Facebook group called Solitary Cycling. The comments were a mixed bag. From people who enjoyed my list and thanked me, to people who had no idea what long-distance cycling meant and thought I should “just ride” and improvise if something […]
Training for Paris Brest Paris 2023
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe first thing I’ve been doing for training is to tell everyone I know about my plan. I want to build a lot of peer pressure so I feel accountable. Given how crazy this project is, I am pretty sure nobody would be really sorry if I wouldn’t pull it off. But some people believe […]
Rynkeby, here I come
Reading Time: 4 minutesIn August during a ride, my buddy Karl told me there is this bicycle team that orders a lot of bicycles, and joining them would be a guaranteed way to get a nice bike for cheap. I was not really excited because the team orders Bianchi bikes and they are not my favorites. Not sure […]
Reading Time: 7 minutesEDIT: I have been now working at Smartly.io for 5 years. Going from 40 employees to more than 400 today. My mission today is to scale the way we do customer support to the next 1000 employees. Our ways of hiring have changed a lot. The story below is not really a good reflection of […]
Reading Time: < 1 minute
Just saw a great video from Pr. James Paul Gee from Arizona State University.
When learning new words we need to have an image, an action, something tangible to associate to that new word. If you have nothing but a synonym or a definition or even a translation, you don’t really grasp the meaning of that new word.
In order to understand this, go to a video game shop and buy a brand new video game. Go home and start reading the manual. See if it teaches you to play the game… You will most likely not understand anything this is about. It will like a sequence of unrelated words with no meaning whatsoever.
Then start playing the game for some time.
Take the manual again and start reading. You should be able to understand everything it says. That’s because you can now easily associate the words on the manual with the actions you’ve just been performing.