With five hertz and a bit of common sense

Insight of the day: riding downhill is really tiring. Riding uphill is easier. But still tiring. Got it? No? Don’t worry, it all becomes clear, although there’s even a version without any complications at all. At least when it comes to timekeeping. Ultimately, though, this story is all about precision in every sense. Because alongside a genuine mountain-biking adventure in the Swiss mountains, three other things play a key role: a watch called the Zenith El Primero Chronomaster Solo Sport. A gondola station that doubles as a hotel. And the question of what time actually means on a day like today.

But first things first.

Sami Lamaa is waiting in an old Land Rover Defender on the farm track that leads up to the hotel, high above Crans-Montana. It’s not a route for a standard supercar. So the hotel owner is driving us there himself. The journey in the Defender takes 20 minutes. Apparently, Lamaa loves simply listening to his guests on the way. “Everyone has a story to tell. That, too, is an experience.”

But we actually find the story of Lamaa and the Chetzeron mountain hotel itself far more fascinating. He grew up in the hotel run by his father, who was originally from Lebanon, graduated from the hotel management school in Geneva, and initially worked as a chef for his father before going on to run his own business. When the Chetzeron gondola station, at an altitude of 2,112 metres, closed in 2003, Lamaa recognised the opportunity: “Why don’t we open a fantastic restaurant at the summit?” No sooner said than done. Lamaa took over the building, drew up plans, obtained planning permission and carried out the refurbishment. The restaurant opened in 2009, serving gourmet cuisine right on the slopes – a pioneering feat. But Lamaa’s ambitions didn’t stop there. Why not expand the restaurant into a hotel? To achieve this, he sought help from various sources, including China. A friend of his knew some monks there who were well versed in feng shui and had a keen sense of a place’s energy. Out of sheer curiosity, he invited them to Switzerland. It was during the off-season; the gondola wasn’t running, so the only option was to walk. The monks, however, did not take the usual path, but climbed the mountain barefoot. And they were almost impossible to catch up with.

A view from the Land Rover’s window of the steep slopes. Incredible – both the story and the view. Back to Lamaa’s story: once they reached the top, the monks examined the site and concluded that the energy was generally good. With one exception in the north-east. The hotel was later shielded by trees in that area. The entrance, too, is situated exactly where the monks had recommended. The question remains: what would Lamaa have done if the monks had diagnosed the energy as poor for the entire site? He laughs. “We would have gone ahead with it anyway.”

Once we arrive at the hotel, everything happens very quickly. Unload, check in, head to the room. There, the new Zenith El Primero Chronomaster Solo Sport – the reason for this trip – is already waiting for us. In our case, it features a brown ceramic dial, a brown rotating bezel and a date window at three o’clock. The case is made of polished stainless steel, just like the bracelet. Then straight off to dinner. Swiss cheese fondue. Accompanied by an excellent white wine. The El Primero Chronomaster Solo Sport fits perfectly into this setting. And the Chinese monks did a brilliant job. The energy is certainly fantastic.

The next morning. After breakfast, it’s a steep descent. On a mountain bike. The hardest part is keeping your own overconfidence in check.

Gravity releases enormous energy without you having to do much in the saddle. The most important task is to counter your own overconfidence with a serious awareness born of monastic humility and a rudimentary understanding of the energy released upon impact by an object (a mountain bike) – along with the rider – accelerating in near-free fall as it strikes a rigid object (tree). Mass times acceleration would rarely yield a useful result in a kinetic test against the nearest spruce. Pro tip: brake.

What remains to be seen at this stage is just how accurately the El Primero Chronomaster Sport Solo will display the time, even when cycling uphill. It stands to reason that the result will be brutally honest. 

So, at this point: a brief digression whilst we carry on cycling. The El Primero – the calibre that has been at the heart of almost every generation of Zenith chronographs since 1969 – had already taken a famous detour once before. Between 1988 and 2000, a modified version of it – known as Calibre 400 – ticked beneath the dial of the Rolex Daytona, that racing chronograph familiar to every collector today. Rolex called it the Calibre 4030 and reduced its rate from 36,000 half-vibrations and five hertz to 28,800 half-vibrations per hour, which corresponds to a frequency of just four hertz. So anyone pondering brakes and impact energy at the foot of the mountain range is wearing a movement on their wrist whose relative has already proven its reliability on a racetrack.

Speaking of family. The watch’s date display reveals that it’s my nephew’s birthday. A selfie from the mountain is meant to send some positive energy his way. We cycle on. It’s still all downhill. Later, far below, Zenith CEO Benoît De Clerck tells us about a few internal meetings on the topic of whether the Solo Sport should have a date display or not. In the end, they agreed on a Solomonic solution: the watch is available with or without a date display, as an option. A philosophical question.

When you see the massif of rock ahead of you – which you’ll now have to climb on the way back to the hotel – you find yourself wishing you only had to climb a small hill so you could look down from the top of a mountain. The reality is quite different. The hotel is situated at 2,112 metres above sea level. And yes, the e-bikes’ batteries have enough power to take us all the way back to the hotel. This means that cycling uphill is still strenuous, but also easier. The only risk here is that you might overestimate your own abilities and end up with sore thighs.

We’d prefer not to comment on the precisely measured time at this point.

For anyone who’d like to know more about the inner workings of the movement, we recommend the article in the latest ramp 71 – Yabba Dabba Doo!