Tour of the Alps 2006

A version containing pictures we took will appear in the Trento bike
pages later. This is the wreck.bike version.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tour of the Alps 2006
----------------------------------------------------------------------

At noon Sunday, 09 July, I flew with Virgin Atlantic and Swiss
Airlines from San Francisco via Heathrow, to arrive Monday afternoon
In Zurich. I took a through train from the ZRH airport to Schwyz
where my friends, the Dierauers, picked me up for the short ride to
their house in Ibach, home of Victor Inox, aka Swiss Army Knife.
Edith and Turi Dierauer have been my gracious hosts for many bike
tours, as were the senior Dierauers before them.

I unpacked my bicycle from my Nashbar soft-bag and assembled it
installing the right crank, turning the fork and bars to the front and
installing the rear derailleur and chain. Amazingly the Dierauer's
house from last year was gone and a new airy and modern house stood in
its place needing only final landscaping. After a great dinner I got
a good night's rest in preparation of getting on the road the next
morning, jet lag and all. Richard Mlynarik, my ride partner, had
spent time with his wife in France and would arrive in the morning.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Tuesday, 11 July (Ibach - Goldswil (BE)); 144km, 3200m):

Richard arrived as planned and stowed his extra bags in the garage
before we got going to Brunnen (435m) on the Vierwaldstettersee (aka
Lake of Lucerne) to take the Axenstrasse along the east shore into
Canton Uri (William Tell country). The end of the lake is at Flüelen
where the Reuss river, that is fed from the Klausen, Susten, and
Gotthard passes, enters the lake.

http://www.schweizerseiten.ch/info/axenstrasse.htm

The Axenstrasse is hewn into the vertical granite walls above the
lake, as it alternates between ledges and tunnels in the cliffs, a
barrier that was only passable by boat in ancient times. Below the
road, the Gotthard railway lies almost entirely in tunnels from
Brunnen to Flüelen. Meanwhile, the freeway tunnels deep in the
mountain for the entire stretch with no view of the Alps.

This road can be appreciated best from a bicycle because that way one
can use the original tunnels and narrow road that are more exposed and
give a panorama, shown in the web site above, instead of the current
road with longer tunnels that leave no view of towering snow capped
peaks and the lake. We passed the noted Tellsprung, where Wilhelm is
said to have jumped to shore in a raging storm to escape from
Austrians who had taken him captive.

http://www.picswiss.ch/Historie/g-hip3-7.html
http://www.bartleby.com/26/6/
http://www.kulturschweiz2004.ch/geschichte/200jahre.asp

In Altdorf, Richard took pictures of me posing in front of the Tell
monument where he stands proudly, bigger than life, in bronze, son at
his side, with crossbow (Swiss trade mark) over his shoulder in front
of a mural of the Alps of canton Uri. We rode up the valley past
Erstfeld (472m) the north portal of the huge SBB 57km Gotthard base
tunnel that is nearing completion.

http://www.tell.ch/schweiz/telldenkmal.htm
http://www.neat.ch/pages/e/index.php
http://www.neat.ch/pages/e/aktuell/p....php?jahr=2003

The climb toward the Gotthard pass begins abruptly on a stone-arch
bridge over the Reuss at the SBB hydropower plant in Amsteg where the
valley becomes a steep and narrow gorge. Our road wended its way
along the granite walls while the double track SBB, in order to not
exceed a 2.7% grade, uses helical tunnels to gain altitude on its way
to the original 16km Gotthard Tunnel. As usual, traffic was light,
because most of it stayed on the four lane Autobahn that remains
mostly out of sight in tunnels and avalanche sheds. To our benefit,
in spite of regular vacationer's traffic jams, most drivers choose to
wait patiently for traffic to move rather than trying the old highway.

In Wassen (916m), where the road to the Susten pass takes off, we
settled for a hearty grocery store lunch, it being before noon when
stores close.

http://www.wassen.ch/

In Wassen, the Susten road starts with a classic tunnel-into-the-wall
above the Meienreuss with a nearly uniform 8% grade to the Susten
Pass. After the curved bare rock tunnel we crossed a stone arch
bridge over a waterfall of the Reuss and entered another tunnel
followed by more tunnels to climb into the Meiental above the narrow
gorge that had, in earlier days, required arduous climbing over higher
ground. The modern Susten Pass was completed in 1946 with a uniform
grade that, above Meien village, is visible as a sloping contour line
to the summit.

The Susten Pass is not well known for its great vistas and many
glaciers, probably because it has no ski areas, but I choose to call
it the glacier highway of Switzerland. After a 200m long summit
tunnel, a large parking lot in front of an all day cafeteria allows
tour busses and to cars stop in front of the breathtaking panorama of
the Sustenhorn (3503m) and several other glacier covered peaks of
nearly equal hight above the Steingletscher that ends 360m below,
where the road passes the Steingletscher Hotel.

The road runs down the north side of the Gadmental, across from the
glacier, passing through rough bare rock tunnels and along spectacular
cliffs on its way to Innertkirchen in the Haslital. At Innertkirchen
we crossed the Aare river and climbed the Kirchet (pass) of four short
traverses between narrow hairpins to rise over the narrow slot, the
Aareschlucht, through which the Aare river leaves the Haslital to
reach the Brienzersee.

http://www.paloaltobicycles.com/alps_photos/s21.html
http://www.aareschlucht.ch/englisch.htm

Just beyond the Kirchet we turned off onto the road to Rosenlaui where
one of the great Swiss glaciers lies behind a similar narrows in
granite walls. As we passed the Reichenbachfall at hotel Zwirgi, we
listened carefully for the last utterances of Holmes and Moriarty as
they went over the falls in Conan Doyle's works. The watering trough
at the waterworks came in handy on this warm and sunny day. This is a
steep but rewarding climb as it levels off just below the Rosenlaui
Glacier with the backdrop of the magnificent Wetterhorn (3701m). We
dropped in on Andras and Christina Kehrli, the proprietors of Hotel
Rosenlaui, to say hello and down a delicious afternoon dessert before
heading up the road to the end of the public road at Schwarzwaldalp.

http://www.evo.org/sherlock/europe/r...ach_falls.html
http://www.paloaltobicycles.com/alps_photos/s38.html

The climb from Schwarzwaldalp (1454m) to the old bus turn-around was
steep as always and required a bit of extra effort, but then the rest
of the hill with its 12% grade went all right. The restricted road is
smoothly paved but is only as wide as the bus that generally does not
slow down for bicyclists, something that is stated with a picture of a
bicyclist at the beginning of the road. The road climbs scenically
through meadows with grazing cows amidst wildflowers on its way to
Große Scheidegg (1961m) at the foot of the glacier crowned Wetterhorn.

wrote:
A version containing pictures we took will appear in the Trento bike
pages later. This is the wreck.bike version.

Hi Jobst,
out of curiosity.
Where did you lodge at Bonneval S/Arc?
Nice move of yours to take the (steep) shortcut to Rosiere!

Sergio
Pisa

Sergio Servadio writes:

A version containing pictures we took will appear in the Trento
bike pages later. This is the wreck.bike version.

Out of curiosity, where did you lodge at Bonneval S/Arc?

La Pastourelle, Bonneval Sur Arc (F) ,76.00 Euro

as it says in my M/C statement.

Nice move of yours to take the (steep) shortcut to Rosiere!

I did that once before with Jeanie Barnett.

Jobst Brandt

wrote:
Out of curiosity, where did you lodge at Bonneval S/Arc?

Not where I stayed this year. By the way, I passed there when the road
up tp the pass was still officially closed; they were still working on
the snow banks. Just magic to do the ascent in a car free environment!
I am particularly fond of Bonneval S/Arc and of that side of the
Iseran.
For those who have never been there, in 'downtown' Bonneval to drink
from the fountain often yoiu have to struggle against the cows
gathering there.

That day I went over the Piccolo to finally end up in Aosta, but I did
not take the shortcut we were talking about. I preferred the long
boring climb from Seez. I did that hoping to pick some wild cherries
from the side of the road, since there are so many such trees all
along.
How stupid! The season was way too early for that.

Cheers

Sergio
Pisa