TdS-94
or
A recumbent tour around Switzerland on the outside.
When Richard Freytag and I started planning this year's recumbent tour, the somewhat obnoxious idea of touring Switzerland on the outside came up. We liked it, although it was soon clear that we would not manage the complete round in the time we had on our hands so we decided to go for a semi-circle and save the rest for later. After contacting Andreas Fuchs (from the HPV mailing list) in Bern for help with some practical details, it was decided that we would start in Bern and thus get a couple of days of riding in Switzerland before entering France.
We met up in Bern on Saturday the 28:th of May. My train got in first so I'd assembled my bike and had a bite to eat before Richard showed up. While I sat at the "Rendez-vous" spot in the station hall, on my comfortable bike and waited, I was accosted by two people. One was a sad-looking Jehova's Witness who tried to hand me a gruesome-looking pamphlet in German and the other was a man who explained that he, too, had a recumbent, a Lightning P-38. I was delighted and assumed that he must know the two Andreases (Fuchs and Weigel) on the HPV list since they both ride P-38's, but he did not. He did, however, have two other friends with Lightnings. Bern must be a regular hotbed of recumbency.
Eventually, Richard arrived. While he was finishing putting his bike together, Andreas Fuchs showed up and took us to a warehouse where he had arranged for us to store our transport boxes. He then guided us to the youth hostel and took us to a nice restaurant for dinner.
We started out in a light drizzle on Sunday morning to find Andreas' home and to look at his HPVs (a Leitra and a Lightning P-38 which had unfortunately been damaged in a crash recently). We chatted for a while and then Andreas Weigel (also on the HPV-list) showed up too, to take us for a tour around town and to show us a Lightning X-2 which was a very impressive (fully faired) machine. He then directed us out of town and we set out on the bikepaths out of Bern.
By this time the raining had stopped and the ride was nice and uneventful except for Richard continuing last year's tradition of getting a flat on the first day. The weather was warm and the traffic was light. Pleasant riding. We had lunch in the old town of Murten and continued to Yverdon where we stayed in the youth hostel.
The only "dramatic" thing that happened was that I dropped my camera at the roadside when I'd stopped and a family in a car saw this and flagged us down a bit down the way to hand it over. Oh, and in Yverdon I had dinner of horse steak. I figured I would be needing more horsepower soon...
We got a bit of a late start because Richard had some business to take care of. We had lunch at a nice restaurant along the way and continued up past Orbe to the Vallé de Joux. Riding along the valley the rain started and followed us the rest of the way to Les Rousses where we found a hotel that would take us in (most were closed, this being off-season). We had a very good dinner at a nice restaurant and Richard got his first sampling of French Cuisine. He was not disappointed.
We did a brief climb to the top of the range before starting the drop down towards Bellegarde. A small road we'd not originally planned to take turned out to be a very nice ride down the valley. From Bellegarde to Annecy the terrain was rolling and the traffic heavier but we made good way. Unfortunately, the youth hostel turned out to be located on a mountain, 200 m above town, a climb we would have been happier without. "Dinner" was instant hot chocolate and Japanese seaweed crackers, since we were not in the mood to return into town.
We left Annecy along the northern shore of the lake and avoided most of the traffic until we reached the end of the lake where we were routed onto the main road again. Lunch at Faverges where the tranquility of the town was only broken by the farmer driving his tractor back and forth between his farm and fields, straight through the town, towing a tank with semi-liquid pig manure. Can you say aromatic?
Along the valley to Albertville of Olympic fame (last year we rode close past Lillehammer, I wonder what's next? Lake Placid? Sapporo? Grenoble?). Then we started the climb to Beaufort. A bit humid but otherwise not particularly hard (in our low gears). We stayed at a small hotel in Beaufort and had an excellent dinner in their restaurant. The local cheese (Beaufort) proved particularly tasty. Recommended, but make sure you get the summer variety (Beaufort d'été) since the winter variety is much tamer.
We climbed out of Beaufort and up to the Barrage de Roselend, then further up to the Cormet de Roselend where we sat between the snowdrifts and enjoyed the exhiliration of our first "real" pass on the 'bents. But it got cold so we wolfed down our lunchpacks and headed down to Bourg St Maurice. The ride down was fast, enjoyable and uneventful. Richard passed a pair of motorcyclists in a hairpin - his SWB could turn better than they...
We skipped the edge of Bourg and went straight to Seez at the foot of the Petit St Bernhard pass. There we found a) that the pass was still closed. Bummer. b) that all hotels were either closed or full. Double bummer. We eventually got a room at the youth hostel (which was open but completely empty, this being the lowest of all low seasons) and an old lady at a gas station told us that the pass *might* open the next day since the official opening date was Saturday so they'd probably finish the work by Friday afternoon.
The l'Olympique restaurant in Seez served an excellent dinner. The only downside was that the Beaufort on their cheesetray was of the d'hiver variety.
We braved all the pessimists and set out up the hairpins. "Lunch" at
the only open place in La Rosiere (snacks and drinks only) and then on up. A
couple of oncoming motorcyclists waved at us to turn around but
we persisted. At the old hospice by the pass a small crowd had gathered
to watch the work and try to get across. A track over the snowbanks
allowed pedestrian crossing but no easy passage on any kinds of
wheels. And
Down the hairpins into Italy and back into warmth. Soon we had to take
off the layers of extra clothing we'd donned at the top. The riding was
fun and uncrowded until we got to the road junction where we joined the
traffic to/from the Mt Blanc tunnel (Courmayeur - Chamonix, 11 km,
bikes not allowed) and got our first taste of Italian traffic. A
couple of Polizia Stradale flagged us in to look at our bikes.
They asked if we'd ridden them through the tunnel (obviously we were a
pair of Kamikaze pilots) and seemed no less dubious when we explained
that we'd come over the (closed) pass.
In Aosta we drew a quarter-million lire each from a Bancomat but
immediately squandered 170,000 of it on dinner (at a roadside
restaurant that were out of Minestrone) and a hotel room (next to the
main road and with a traffic light right under our balcony).
Down the valley from Aosta one has few route choices. Autostrada
(toll-road, bikes prohibited) or "normal" road. It seems Italians don't
like paying for riding the Autostrada. The toll-free road was crowded.
One of Richard's cleats was coming loose so we stopped at a sports
store for spares. While he was fidling around with that, some guys from
a local garage came over and insisted that we come and pose for
pictures with them and
their friends/families. We're getting notorious.
A bit before Ivrea we could have turned up into the hills to cut across
to Biella. We should have done this, despite the road looking steep on
the map. Because the road we did choose, after Ivrea, turned out to be
the Saturday-night racetrack for the local motorcyclists. While I'll
happily concede that a Ducati is a beautiful machine and their "desmo"
engines are wonderful pieces of engineering, by the third time the same
Ducati rider roared past me up that road, I was getting really
annoyed.
At one hairpin the crowd of admirers were gathered, complete with
"molls" in leather outfits. They regarded me in dumbfounded silence as
I crept past at 5 km/h and I was silently thinking up insults in "pig
Italian" in case the usual tirades of Latin ridicule would start
pouring out. Luckily, they were too astounded to even giggle and this
was fortunate for me since I doubt I would have survived blurting out
Un vero uomo non a besogno a'll motore or La piu grande il
motore la piu piccolo il potenza to a crowd of italian
motorcyclists.
In Ivrea we stayed at a fancy hotel (the only one we could find) and
dined at a pizzeria since the only open "real" restaurant looked like
it was unlikely to accept us on a Saturday night in our cycling attire.
This day we'd planned to go to Como but the traffic and the roads got
the better of us. It seems all the Ginos and Ginas were out on the
first nice Sunday ride for the summer this day. Cars, cars, cars and no
shoulders. By Verano we got confused by the lack of difference between
the "through" roads as found on my maps and the "local" ones which were
often bigger. After asking for directions we finally got back on the
right track but decided to give in for the evening when we found a hotel
in a small town called Vedano-Olena, just south of Verano.
In the restaurant we encountered a family group of an ex-patriate
American artist, Anne Parisi and her son + his girlfriend who were out
to celebrate the birth of a grandson/nephew. They invited us to share
their table for dinner and we had a very interesting conversation, far
too late.
Out of Vedano we had no problems finding our way to Como but there we
squandered a lot of time vainly looking for a laundromat. Our plan had
involved washing our clothes at the youth hostel but that was obviously
out since we'd missed getting there in the evening before. Eventually
we gave up and rode out along the shore of the Lago di Como. At
Bellaggio we took the ferry across the other arm of the lake and
continued up to Colico where we stayed at a lakeside hotel. Dinner was
mediocre. Hotelroom laundry in the bidet...
A pure "transport stretch". Up the valley with minimal climbs. Lunch in
Sondrio where a group of females giggled at the sight of my drying
underwear strapped all over the rear of my bike.
In Tirano we managed to find better maps of the Stelvio which was a
relief since the ones I'd brought from Sweden were a bit too crude for
a climb that slow. We stayed at the Hotel Bernina and at this,
the very last possible moment, Italian cooking finally managed to
convince Richard that it could compete with the French. A very good
dinner, but quite pricey, too. Oh, well.
Talking over our future plans in the hotel room, things looked a bit
bleak. We were a half day behind schedule and if we were to only ride
up to Bormio the next day (getting a half-day's rest before the
Stelvio) we'd be pressed for time to make it back to Bern in time for
my train home. So in the end we decided to make an "all or nothing"
attempt in the next day. We'd go to Bormio for lunch and take the
Stelvio in the afternoon. That way we'd be able to go via trains to
Andermatt and ride over Furka/Grimsel for a bit of more cycling later,
while if we waited at Bormio we'd have to go all the way around the
Alps to the north via trains to make it in time to Bern.
The day started out from the Hotel Bernina at 9. We bought another map
at the bookstore (for future use) and set off for the "big one". The
proprietor of the hotel had told us how to avoid the worst traffic for
the first part of the climb up the valley but about 1/3 of the way to
Bormio we had to go back into that awful Italian traffic. Just when we
thought we'd reached the level of Bormio so the rest should be easy
riding up the valley, it turns out that we'd been climbing 10% grades
to get over the future hydroelectric dam. After the dam we lost nearly
100 m which we then had to climb again before reaching Bormio where we
had lunch of pizzas before continuing the climb. We'd counted on
finding somewhere to refill our waterbottles along the main road
through town but this proved wrong so when we reached the crossroads
where the Stelvio road branches off from the Livigno one, I unslung my
panniers and returned into town with all our waterbottles. I eventually
found a fountain with water a guy assured me was drinkable so I filled
up with this and headed back up. Meanwhile, Richard had slung my
panniers on top of his and was slugging it up the hill. He was doing
pretty good and it took me 100 m of climbing before I caught up with
him. Then, of course, I had to shoot a
picture of him with
all this stuff on his bike.
The further ride itself was uneventful but naturally lots of hard work.
The tunnels and galleries were unpleasant to go up in at low speeds and
one particularly unnerving moment was when we met a big frontloader
tractor that was so big it filled the entire tunnel with its scoop.
Luckily, it came out of the narrow section of tunnel just before we got
there. The switchbacks
seemed endless.
The last bit of the climb, from the Santa Maria (Umbrail) pass to the
Stelvio, the wind started getting really cold and the temperature had
dropped to 0° C so we stopped to put on our windbreaker jackets. Up to
there the day had basically been a scorcher but with snowbanks on both
sides of the road and the sun starting to set, the chill got
noticeable. I was starting to feel tired so I stopped about 150 m under
the top to munch some chocolate and rest a bit but Richard continued
undaunted.
In some places I saw that the melting snowbanks left lots of water on
the roadbed. I counted myself lucky that I did not have to cross those
patches in sub-zero temperatures.
When I finally got to the top I had to loop around for quite a while
before I found Richard. He'd got so carried away with this climbing
business that he'd just continued up to the highest hotel of them all,
the Tibethütte. We left our stuff there and had an excellent dinner
down at the Stilfserjoch Hotel. We looked for Jobst's picture in that
dining room but we could not find it, nor did the staff know what we
were talking about when we asked. Maybe we'd got the name of the place
wrong. It was a bit too crowded at dinnertime for us to go around
examining all the photos in detail.
The next morning we woke up to a snow-covered landscape outside our
window. Over 10 cm on the ground and more coming down all the time.
We had our breakfast and hung around, waiting for the snowing to stop.
After a couple of hours, the fog lifted briefly to show us that the
road had changed color to black. The snow-plough must have passed! We
got on our bikes and dragged them through the snow to the road and set
off down it, only stopping to buy the obligatory Stelvio sticker
in the kiosk and take a couple of
pictures. The
descent was miserable, that's the only word for it. Cold and absolutely
no sights beyond the next hairpin. We kept our speed down both from
fear of ice, lack of vision and sheer cold!
At the customs house by the Santa Maria junction we stopped to check
that the road was clear and then continued the descent. A bit down the
valley the snow turned to sleet, then to rain. My thermometer told me
it was +2° C. They say you can't get frostbite unless it's below 0°.
Maybe not, but my thumbs definitely felt like they were going to fall
off!
After a while, the road turned to gravel and a bit down this I got my
first flat EVER on the 'bent. Finding (sort of) shelter in the lee of a
roadside emergency hut, I started fixing it. I couldn't find my spare
tubes (had I misplaced them somewhere along the way?) so I had to try
and patch it on the spot. Yeah, right! How long does rubber cement need
to set in +2° C rain? Fearing that the patch would be insufficiently
cured (and with brain foggy from cold) I only inflated the tire to a
fairly low pressure and rode off. 150 m later I got a snakebite
flat...
That was definitely a major low. I was too cold to stop again so I took
off my Neoprene booties (to prevent them from getting ruined on the
gravel) and started to walk down the road to try and re-gain a bit of
heat. Another few hundred meters down a house appeared. A Gasthaus -
an inn. Civilisation!
A large bowl of hot soup and some fried chicken later I sat in their
tiled hallway and fixed my flat again (this time finding the spare
tube and inflating it really well) and we could finally roll down to
the town of Santa Maria.
By now our schedule was shot to pieces and there was no way we'd have
time to ride the Ofen pass to Zernez that night. Since our deadline was
closing in on us and the weather the next day threatened to be the
same, we decided to gamble on it being better further west and a day
later so we persuaded a busdriver to let us bring our bikes on the bus
to Zernez where we stayed for the night. Total riding in the entire
day: 19 km...
Next morning we got on the train and shipped ourselves (+bikes) via
changes at Samedan, Reichenau and Disentis to the Oberalppasshöhe. We
chose to get off the train there and ride into Andermatt since the rain
had (mostly) subsided and the descent could serve as a form of
compensation for the miserable one the day before. That straight
section before the switchbacks start is a tremendous stretch of road
and my speedometer logged me at a max speed of 70.0 km/h before I had
to start braking for the hairpins.
Into Andermatt and through to Hospental in no time. Quick check-in at
the youth hostel. Then came the shock: Furka, Grimsel and Susten were
all snowed over! The only ways out were south to Italy (St Gotthard),
north to Göschenen (Teufelsbrücke) or back east where we came from
(Oberalp). Nor would going west through the train tunnel to Oberwald
help since the only way from there would be S/SW to Brig and we didn't
have time to go around towards Montreux to attempt a crossing there.
Gloom!
There was not a whole lot to do. We had to be back in Bern by Sunday so
we got on the trains again. Out of sheer cussedness, we decided to ride
a "horseshoe" to get around to Interlaken to re-join our planned
route.
We rode our bikes down the Teufelsbrücke serpentines to Göschenen. The
road was hidden in the mist and there was no way to see beyond the
next hairpin. It was a very eerie feeling to know that the road
you're riding on sits on a man-made ledge over the side of the cliff
but not seeing the next loop for the fog.
From Göschenen we continued north to Erstfeld. Then we decided the
traffic was getting too intense and got on the trains to Luzern and to
Interlaken via the Brünig pass. At the Interlaken YH we had dinner and
spent a good part of the evening talking with other hostellers. After
several trips into town I finally managed to persuade the
Bancomat to hand me some badly needed cash since the Swedish
computers had apparently been down and I was borrowing money from
Richard. While Richard was making a phone call, I sat on my bike and
waited when a voice asked (in German) if I'd like some information
about Jesus Christ. I waved the man away almost instinctively and then
looked up with a start. It was the same little guy who'd approached me
in Bern, exactly two weeks earlier. Eerie!
This got me thinking of a possible plot for a story, maybe Douglas
Adams or Terry Pratchett style: Shortly before the turn of the
Millenium, Jesus returns to Earth in the Second Coming, only nobody
notices. All the churches are too institutionalized to bother. He
finally winds up wandering around, a small, grey Jehova's Witness whom
nobody ever looks at or takes seriously. The only remarkable thing
about him is a weird ability to teleport instantly between places and
appear with his pamphlets everywhere, as a general annoyance...
An uneventful ride. The only climbs we had in the day were around
Beatenberg where the road rises a bit above the lake. From Thun to Bern
it was "Virtual Holland". The rain had stopped but there was no sun
either. We made good time and were in central Bern by 14.00 despite a
1-hour lunch on the way.
In Bern, Andreas Fuchs met us again and helped us retrieve our bike
transport boxes. I packed mine at the station and sent it off as
registered luggage along with most of my panniers while Richard stowed
his away in preparation for a few more (bikeless) days' stay in
Switzerland.
As an unexpected bonus, when Richard and Andreas returned from the
storage house, they brought with them a recumbent rider they'd
encountered just outside the station. Guido van den Broeck from
Belgium, well-known face from the European HPV championships, on his
carbon fiber M5. He'd been touring the alps, doing 200 km/day and
routinely bagging two passes per day until he, too, got washed away by
the weather. Apart from the facts that he rides a recumbent and has a
water-bottle cage, his performances remind me of somebody...
Shipping the bike sort of marked the end of the ride (unless that
should be considered to have happened in Santa Maria when we got on the
bus) and the evening was spent on dinner and sightseeing in Bern with
Andreas.
The ride concluded on Thursday when I fetched my bike and luggage at
the Stockholm Central station. Total distance ridden: ~1050 km of
cycling, ~330 km of train/bus riding (not counting the distance
Stockholm <-> Bern), 10500 m of climbing total in 15 days. Of those,
107 km / 300 m climbing were in the 4 days at the end when we did a
lot of train/bus riding.
Considerably longer cycling distances per day than I ventured to try on
my upright tour 5 years ago. Part of this is cetrainly due to the
better comfort of the recumbent seat which allows me to remain on the
bike for longer hours without saddle pains but that's not all. We also
climbed nearly three times as much as I did in that tour, both overall
and in daily max. 10200 m of accumulated Avocet 50 climbing in the
first 11 days. 2430 m in a single day. Not too bad for a couple of
loaded tourists on rolling armchairs that all the self-appointed
"experts" say ``Can't climb''.
Ah, yes. Weights? I don't know about Richard and his bike but my Linear
weighs in at ~20 kg (44 lbs) including all the extra junk I've burdened
it with; battery pack, headlight, fenders, lock, racks, My luggage
massed 18 kg and I'm 82 kg myself. That's a total of pretty durn near
120 kg. Pushing this mass uphill at 300 m/h (vertically) corresponds to
a total power of ~110 W (including friction losses).
Well, I must say that the arrival at the Cormet de Roselend is the one
moment that I remember the most. Maybe because it was the first "real"
pass of the ride but also because it was so undisturbed. We got there
and ate our lunch with only a few inquisitive motorists to obscure the
view. At the St Bernhard the hassle of the snowy crossing is the
dominating memory rather than the scenery. The climb of the Stelvio, of
course, was a great experience too.
The picturesque and (relatively) traffic-free ride along the lake from
Como to Bellaggio and on to Colico.
At the risk of incurring the wrath of Italians everywhere, I must say
that the singularely most unpleasant memories (worse than even the 0° C
descent from the Stelvio) are from Italian traffic and drivers. The
roads have poor shoulders, the traffic is dense and fast, the drivers
are uncourteous. I'm sorry, but I've toured Scandinavia, Germany,
United Kingdom, Switzerland, France and Italy. Italy is the only
country I've felt I have no desire to re-visit (by bike) and this is
solely because of their traffic. I'm willing to concede that this
impression may be largely due to poor route choices on my behalf and I
probably will be doing at least short hops around the alpine borders of
Italy again in some not too-distant future, but today I feel like I
will go to almost any lengths to avoid repeating a crossing of the
industrialized north like the one we did.
The descent from the Stelvio comes in as a strong second and serves to
teach us that a) you should avoid staying too long (like over-night) at
a place where weather is known to change so quickly and b) it's not
enough to have weather-proof outer garments if they're not complete. I
had a pair of fleece mitts for cold weather but the sleet soaked them
totally in just a few minutes. A pair of ski gloves (probably for sale
at the top of the pass) would have been more appropriate. Or simply
some plastic bags over the mitts to keep them from getting wet.
Still, if I had to choose between doing it all over the same way or
not doing any more alpine touring at all, I would do it all again -
including traffic and sleet.
All in all a memorable journey and one I will remember fondly.
Saturday, June 4:th, Aosta to Biella (102 km, 680 m climbing).
Sunday, June 5:th, Ivrea to Vedano-Olena (98 km, 580 m climbing).
Monday, June 6:th, Vedano-Olena to Colico (87 km, 510 m climbing).
Tuesday, June 7:th, Colico to Tirano (75 km, 350 m climbing).
Wednesday, June 8:th, Tirano to Stelvio (66 km, 2430 m climbing).
Thursday, June 9:th, Stelvio to Zernez (19 km riding, 35 km bus, no
climbing).
Friday, June 10:th, Zernez to Hospental (14 km riding, 162 km train, no
climbing).
Saturday, June 11:th, Hospental to Interlaken (42 km riding, 130 km
train, no climbing).
Sunday, June, 12:th, Interlaken to Bern (~60 km, ~200 m climbing).
Epilogue:
Monday I got up fairly early and started my 25-hour train journey back
home to Sweden. Nothing more exciting happened than that I got the
opportunity to ride the German "ICE" Inter-City Express train which
rolls at 200 km/h and offers airplane-like features like headset jacks
in the armrests of the chairs. I think they even had video monitors in
first class.
Memorable moments:
Downers:
Torsten Lif
Hägerstenssvägen 109
S-126 49 Hägersten
Sweden
Bern
Yverdon ~90 ~500 ~0.5
Les Rousses ~70 ~900 ~1.4
Annecy 103.9 920 2.3
Beaufort 70.3 632 2.9
Seez 59.0 1372 4.2
Aosta 92.1 1352 5.6
Biella 102.2 684 6.3
Vedano 97.7 580 6.9
Colico 86.9 508 7.4
Tirano 75.4 348 7.7
Stelvio 65.6 2428 10.2
Sta Maria 19.0 36 10.2
Hospental 13.7 48 10.3
Interlaken 42.0 52 10.3
Bern ~35 ~100 10.4
