nathand

I lived in Lausanne, Switzerland for a year (about half an hour east of Geneva). The entire city is on a hillside rising up from Lake Geneva. For decades the main metro line was a rack-and-pinion railway; more recently the metro was extended further uphill and replaced with a rubber-tired system, because it's much too steep for standard steel wheels. A flat map really doesn't give you a good sense of the topography. That said, I biked everywhere there, but just going from my dorm across the city to the university was a 200m descent. Occasionally drivers would cheer for me as I was climbing the last bit on my way home.