| Re: Road Cycling Routes (route discussions are on another thread)
Route: Pragel Pass from Riedern and Ibergeregg from Muotathal by way of Illgau
An epic glorious day of challenging climbs in the beautiful Swiss mountains, with interesting sites, good company and pretty empty roads.
Date: Sunday, June 14th
Length: 110 km
Time: 4.5 hours to 6.75 hours
Total Altitude climbed: 2,200 meters
Difficulty: Medium Hard
Ascents: Pragel Pass (1551 meters), Ibergeregg (1450 meters)
Traffic: Non-existent on the mountain roads, pretty light overall
Transportation (from Zurich Stadelhofen): S5 to Rapperswil and train to Nafel-Mollis
Highlight: Beautiful climbs with little traffic, the goat procession and great companionship on the ride
Lowlights: The rain, and the freezing tough descent down the steep side of the Pragel Pass
Description in Detail:
It was another amazing adventurous day on the bike on what must be two of the best cycling climbs in the world from the beauty, challenge and sheer emptiness of the roads.
I met Hillseeker and Mr. Hillseeker (Jeff), at the Nafel Mollis train station (an alternative would be to probably start in Ziegelbrucke or Glarus) after they fueled up on some butter pretzels we were off from the station. From the station, we headed up the cycling route 4 for a few kilometers, then turn right over the railroad tracks after Nestal on a small cycling path take a left on Mattstrasse and then after about half a kilometer there is a small cycling path to your right follow this until you hit a busy road of Landstrasse, turn onto this road and the immediately you should see a sign to the right for Klontal, take this road into Riedern, in Riedern you need to follow a road off to the right onto Klontalstrasse, now you start climbing, you are already on a very beautiful carless stretch of forested road, it is pretty steep,maybe 10% for the first few kilometers and a beautiful rapid stream is snaking along the left side, the road continues to climb until you get to the beautiful Klontalersee. This is a wonderful little lake in the middle of the mountains, virtually no one was there the day we were there, there were a few sailboats parked there but nothing else and the water was the beautiful dark blue which I have only seen in Switzerland. No traffic except for A few tractors driving up the road, a taxi passed us at one stage, which was strange but good to know you can always get a lift home if you have mechanical trouble. After a few nice pictures, we continued for the 5km flat stretch along the lake, the road is narrow at points, see need to watch out for traffic coming the otherway, it is here we realized Jeff’s tire was flattening some, and decided to change the tire, I couldn’t think of a more beautiful spot to change a tire. As the lake ends, the climb starts again., this side of the Pragel pass is not super steep like the other side, but is a beautiful twisty road with no cars, no towns, not much of anything but beautiful dreamy scenery on all sides, when you get to final kilometer you go around a couple of small corners and you can now see across both sides of the valley down to pasture land below. The weather was pretty cold up here as the road has flattened out now and thus effort level has reduced, you continue on this flatter stretch for maybe a kilometer and there is now snow on the sides of the road. Most of this road felt like our very own bike path as we did not pass any cars, motorcycles and there was one group of mountainbikers. At the top, we noticed a bunch of people including a person with sound equipment peering over the edge – it seemed the early summer progression of cattle into the high pastureland had begun, this is where the cows are led to the pasture for the summer months, the clanking of the cowbells was a wonderful sound. As we were starting to freeze, we headed on down the descent. I would beware that this probably one of the trickiest descents I have seen as the road is narrow, wet at points, very steep and has many blindspots, not sure how one can speed down this descent with the many blindcorners, I rounded one corner and came head to head with a moped coming up the pass. The average steepness of this descent is over 10% with areas of maybe 15%. Towards the bottom of the descent, a German fellow who was ascending was asking whether the pass was open, suddenly realized I recognized him after stopping for a minute and briefly catching up with a former colleague, I continued on down the pass as was suddenly waved to a halt by a farmer walking up the pass. I realized there was a herd of 100’s of goats being led up the road. I wouldn’t want to hit them at 70kmph. So we stopped along the road for 15 minutes waiting for the goat parade to pass (there were a lot of cute baby goats that hillseeker wanted to adopt for her own little farm in Rushclikon).
We finished the descent into Muothathal. The rain started coming down and we were freezing so we stopped at a café for a lunch. We decided on the Fitness teller, which consisted of salads and a small Schweinschnitzel (I wouldn’t equate fried pork to fitness but anyway). We now continued on rather bigger road making our way to the Ibergeregg pass, we felt a bit rejuvenated and much warmer after the meal. We sped along the road to Schwyz, at lunch we had decided to take a ‘shortcut’ up to Ibergeregg rather than continuing on to Schwyz and taking the main road. After a few wind swept kilometers from Muothathal and right after a big ugly covered bridge there is a sign to Illgau on the right. This is a great road with hardly any traffic which I would highly recommend, you continue on this road, climbing steeply (maybe at 9%) for 3.5 kilometers to the little village of Illgau, there is a longish well-lit tunnel on this road (maybe 500 meters long), in Illgau you continue climbing up and up, the road is mostly the same steep descent and at this point you have some wonderful views back down to village of Illgau, I don’t think we experienced any motorized traffic on this section at all. One continues up this climb following the signs pointing to Ibergeregg, passing a cable car point (Sankt Carl) with a large terraced restaurant, after this point you continue on for another half kilometer or so (we passed through a crowd of local hikers, who chanted Hopp, Hopp, Hopp) as we went through them. I needed that lift. Then at about 1,150 meters, there is actually a short descent and at the end of this ascent at about 1,100 meters you meet the main Ibergeregg pass road. As we were so spoiled by our car free descent, this almost seemed like a let down as there was actually car and motorcycle traffic on this road, the climb up here is quite beautiful though as it is pretty open and you have spectacular views all around, the road is not super steep maybe a good healthy 8% for the rest of the climb up to 1,400 meters, many many cattle grades to go over on this section and some traffic. Once you get to top, there are several café’s and such. We decided to head straight down after a few pictures, the descent is pretty nice, not to steep and not too many technical corners so one can speed down pretty fast, after a few kilometers you are in the ski resort of Hoch Ybrig, you continue on down following the signs to Einsiedeln, we wanted to take a different road into Einsielden but we missed the turn, which is about 500 meters before the bridge over Sihlsee and ended up crossing over the bridge and taking a left and following along the Sihlsee road to Willerzell, we cross the bridge back over to Einseldn by taking a left here, one could take a right and continue around Sihlsee which adds a few kilometers but is very scenic, after the bridge you climb up a little hill and then take a right, following the road all the way from here to Biberbrugg and on to Shindellegi, after passing on taking a train home from Einseldn, the skies opened up on us and we hard hail like pellets pelting us on this 10km stretch or so. From Shindellegi, we took the turn right after Shindeleggi, where the sign points to Zug and more or followed this ridge road all the way back to Rushlikon, where I left the hillseeker clan and sprinted back home through the Eurofan zone, it was a nice feeling to sit on the couch after a long but wonderful adventure in the saddle. And finally I had a nice Appenzeller beer while watching Spain beat Sweden in the Euro 2008. Another great cycling day in Switzerland, us cyclists are way too spoiled here…..
Last edited by dakman; 15.06.2008 at 23:06.
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