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Tour of the Alps 2006



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 27th 06, 12:45 AM posted to rec.bicycles.rides
[email protected]
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Posts: 3,751
Default 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.

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Tour of the Alps 2006
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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.

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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.
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  #2  
Old November 27th 06, 05:42 AM posted to rec.bicycles.rides
Mike Kruger
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Posts: 453
Default Tour of the Alps 2006

wrote in message
...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tour of the Alps 2006
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks!


  #3  
Old November 29th 06, 06:49 PM posted to rec.bicycles.rides
Ken Roberts
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Posts: 241
Default Tour of the Alps 2006

Thanks for all the careful details, Jobst. You do get to lots of interesting
places few us think of trying, so your posts work as a kind of "guidebook".

The other funny thing with your reports is when I read the passes and
villages and think, "that sounds like enough for a full day", but for Jobst
it's only a full _morning_.

The Susten Pass ... I choose to call it the glacier highway of
Switzerland.


Yes it fits that. My theory of why Susten is not better known is because
Furka fits better with lots of drivers (and cyclists) larger itineraries,
and with the long (fading?) tradition of viewing the Rhone-glacier from the
Furkapass road.

We rode along the north shore of the Brienzer lake to Brienz


I'll think I'll try that next time.

Although the Furka Pass is 267m higher then the
Grimsel, it is not the climb it appears to be ...


Easy to say when you're as strong a rider as Jobst -- but it's true that the
climb is not real steep and pretty well graded.

various trains went by, including a Glacier Express with
air conditioned glass domed cars. Local trains, in contrast,
allow opening windows to watch the scenery.


Yes, it's funny that the Glacier Express customers pay so much money and
miss out of the fun of leaning out the windows.

The Albula Pass (2312m), although now paved, has
remained unblemished by development of hotels and ski
slopes, pristine as it was when I first saw it.


As long as you don't regard power transmission towers as violations of the
"pristine".

we didn't want to ride across the Po valley as in the past,
through Torino traffic and the long haul to Cuneo. So we got train
tickets


Helpful advice to us from long experience.

However, pavement ended at the French border


Same experience I had when I climbed over Colle della Lombarde from Italy
into France.

from Croix de Valberg (1829m) . . . We took the
"back" road, Rt D29, down to Guillaumes (1200m)


I didn't think the descent on the main road was that interesting, so thanks
for checking out an alternative.

Col de la Cayolle ... has remained unchanged since my first ride here in
1960.


Yes it had a very quiet remote feeling when I rode it a couple of weeks
ago -- and almost no cars at this time of year. I think the north-to-south
direction is nicer for riding over Col de la Cayolle, because climbing up
the north side allows more time to contemplate the scenery, and I didn't
find going down the north side to be one of the more fun descents in the
Alps.

we went to a nearby the Champion supermarket


A couple of years ago I waited in that Guillestre store's parking lot for a
taxi (to set me up for a backcountry ski tour).

From the Izoard (2361m), we could see the gap of the
Galibier on the horizon while we made the unspectacular
descent to Briançon (1391m).


Yes, not spectacular -- but I remember feeling that some parts of my descent
of N side of Izoard were kinda fun.

This year the supersonic wind tunnel at la Bourget


I never knew about that ... have to look (and listen) for it.

We started out up the valley riding past the end
of pavement and up to Rifugio Elena (2218m)


Yes -- Reading that, I'm not going to again make the mistake again of
pushing and carrying my bike to Rifugio Elena. The first hill on the hiking
trail was almost more strenuous what it required above the refugio to reach
Col du Grand Ferret.

unpaved Passo San Giacomo, an ancient road that ends on the summit.


I'd been wondering about that pass -- thanks for your report on it.

Splügen pass ... a fantastic experience to descend


Thanks for the tip -- hope I can find an excuse to get there.

The Staulanza is an easy pass ... this route is a scenic
wonder. We descended to Longarone ...


Another new idea I hope to get to try someday. Looks like I could try making
a loop around Monte Civetta, thru Agordo and Alleghe.

east into Slovenia.


This idea of riding some of the roads in eastern Italy toward Slovenia seems
interesting -- thanks for the details.

Ken


  #4  
Old November 29th 06, 09:22 PM posted to rec.bicycles.rides
Tim McNamara
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Posts: 6,945
Default Tour of the Alps 2006

In article ,
"Ken Roberts" wrote:

unpaved Passo San Giacomo, an ancient road that ends on the summit.


I'd been wondering about that pass -- thanks for your report on it.


Isn't a pass that ends at a summit something of a misnomer? I thought a
"pass" was the point at which one passed over the summit and down the
other side.
  #6  
Old November 29th 06, 10:04 PM posted to rec.bicycles.rides
sergio
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Posts: 504
Default Tour of the Alps 2006


Tim McNamara wrote:
In article ,
"Ken Roberts" wrote:
unpaved Passo San Giacomo, an ancient road that ends on the summit.

I'd been wondering about that pass -- thanks for your report on it.

Isn't a pass that ends at a summit something of a misnomer? I thought a
"pass" was the point at which one passed over the summit and down the
other side.


It all depends on what means of transportation you want to consider.
There are a lot of passes that can be climbed and gone over only on
foot.
In fact, I was reading a book about passes over the Alps known to the
Romans, 2000 years ago. There were more of them at that time than we
know of nowadays.

Sergio
Pisa

  #7  
Old November 29th 06, 10:09 PM posted to rec.bicycles.rides
[email protected]
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Posts: 3,751
Default Tour of the Alps 2006

Tim McNamara writes:

unpaved Passo San Giacomo, an ancient road that ends on the summit.


I'd been wondering about that pass -- thanks for your report on it.


Isn't a pass that ends at a summit something of a misnomer? I
thought a "pass" was the point at which one passed over the summit
and down the other side.


You can drive a car that far, but after that there are only steep,
true, single track hiking trails. I call that a road that ends at the
summit. The pass is there and is marked on maps. Ride it. It's a gas.

You can check earlier ride reports on:

http://tinyurl.com/92vpb

Of crossing this pass and other ones that require pushing the bicycle.

See also:

http://www.paloaltobicycles.com/alps_photos/s52.html

How to ski with a bicycle.

Jobst Brandt
 




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