Benjamin Carlier

Terminals and IDEs everywhere#

Developers have a complicated relationship with rest. We are trained to optimize, to ship, to solve the next problem before the current one is fully closed. Taking a break can feel like a regression, like falling behind while the rest of the world keeps compiling.

Our brain is not a machine. You need some time doing something else to get back with more ideas. These come in the shower, on a walk or halfway up a climb.

For me, the antidote to screen fatigue and my problem resolver has always been the same: get on the bike, and go somewhere I've never been.

The south Luberon: a different kind of terrain#

I have never ridden around the Luberon before. There are some beautiful villages everyone knows: Bonnieux, Lacoste, Lourmarin.

I was quite lucky with the weather, sunny days from Saturday to Sunday so I could ride my bike all weekend. The heat is starting to show but it's still quite cold in the morning.

The roads south of the Luberon are a revelation for anyone used to busier cycling territory. They are narrow, well-surfaced, and almost entirely empty. You ride through vineyards and cherry orchards, past mas that look like they haven't changed in a century, through villages so small they don't have a café but do have a perfect stone fountain where you can stop and fill your bidon. I enjoyed a nice coffee at Café de France in Lacoste, nearby the castle, with a nice view on the valley.

I quite enjoyed the Combe of Lourmarin, the climb to Buoux and the roads from Lacoste to Bonnieux especially. These were not so crowded and with a nice surface. I would definitely recommend it for any road cyclists out there.

The south Luberon won't satisfy if you're after epic Alpine gradients or KOM segments. The climbs are short, the roads mostly rolling, the altitudes modest. It did not bother me at all, I'm not particularly designed for steep slopes :).

What the bike gives back#

There is something about the rhythm of pedalling that reorganises the mind in a way nothing else does. It's not meditation, because it's too physical for that, too present, but it shares something with it. After an hour on the bike, the mental clutter of the week starts to dissolve. The unresolved problems, the architectural decisions left hanging, the half-finished refactors, they don't disappear, but they lose their urgency. They find their proper place.

This is what developers miss when they stay too long at the screen: the brain needs input that has nothing to do with code. New landscapes, new sensations, new physical challenges. And when you give some time to your brain, it often comes back to the hard problems refreshed, with a different angle.

Closing the laptop, opening the map#

If you work in tech and you haven't taken a proper disconnection weekend in a while, this is your sign. Not a workcation, not an "I'll just check Slack once in the morning" kind of break. A real one. Two days where the only problems you solve are navigational.

The south Luberon is a good answer. But honestly, anywhere on a bike, or in your hiking/running shoes and somewhere you've never been, will do the job.

The code will still be there on Monday. The bugs too, probably. But you'll come back with something that's hard to manufacture at a desk: a head that's had room to breathe, and a body that's remembered it exists outside of a chair.

One last recommendation if you like hiking, go and do the Saint-Victoire ascent, it's beautiful up there.