Taking your Bicycle on Public Transport
Trains: You can explore a lot further afield on your bike if you use the train to do part of the trip. There's lots of information about taking your bike on Swiss trains, including how to do so without paying anything extra by putting it in a bike bag in the thread Taking a bike on the train for free, and Bringing bicycles on trains, trams, boats, .... You may also buy a day-card to take your bike on the trains for 10 CHF, or a half price ticket for the trip you need to do if that is cheaper than 10 CHF, or if you will travel a lot by train then you can buy a one-year pass for your bike for 195 CHF. Information on taking your bike on a train in other parts of Europe can be found on this website (click on English in the bottom-right, then on “Passengers with Bicycles” in the left-hand panel).

Other types of public transport: You can take a bike on many post-buses for a small extra charge, and on most boats, but the train passes are not valid on these. Some cities allow bikes on city buses if you buy the right ticket (e.g., Lausanne), but most cities don't allow this currently. To take your bike on a plane, you should put it in a bike box or a properly protective bag or case, there are discussions about this in the threads Wanted: Bike bag and cycling travel bags.

If you have a folding bicycle, then it should be allowed on all public transport at no extra fee.

Cycling Maps
There are a lot of good maps available for Switzerland, and for cycling anything with a scale from 1:50,000 to 1:120,000 is appropriate, with the smaller scale better suited to mountain biking. A map that shows contour lines, spot-heights, and/or average gradients is essential in the mountains. There are some cycling-specific maps, but these are not always necessary, see Ken Kifer's page on how to get more information from a map for the purpose of cycling than is initially apparent. There's also discussion about cycling maps in the thread Cycling long distance in April?.

Kümmerly+Frey make an excellent series of 1:60,000 maps intended specifically for cyclists, with road and mountain biking routes marked on them. They can be seen on the Swiss Travel Center website. The other main map manufacturer is Swiss-Topo. They make excellent topographic maps, the ones at 1:50,000 and 1:100,000 are the most useful for cycling, I now almost exclusively use their 1:100,000 composite maps for riding on the roads.

There are also some maps made specifically for mountain biking, including “Swiss Singletrail Maps” and "Bike-Explorer", although neither of these provide coverage for all parts of the country. If you're not sure of your navigational capabilities then adding a GPS to your bike might help. GPS's were discussed in the EnglishForum thread “Hand-held GPS”.

It's good to know what the weather will be like before you go out. So check out the weather web-sites, MeteoNews or MeteoSchweiz. You may also want to look at some webcams to see what it is currently like up in the mountains before heading up there, so try those listed on westwind.ch, Webcam Galore, and SF Meteo. If you want to know about current wind conditions, go to this page at MeteoNews and select "Wind Speed" from the drop-down menu, or this page at NZZ.

Google satellite maps can give you a good idea of what sort of environment and terrain to expect in different areas that normal maps do not show you, and you can also use it to give you navigation directions. You can also plot your route using the “My Maps” feature in Google maps (click on the “My Maps” tab in the top left of the maps screen, or go here for help), or in Google Earth. If you use Google Earth then you can fly around the 3D world with your route clearly marked on it (particularly useful for feeling proud about the size of the mountain or pass that you climbed over). Similarly, you can also plot your route on a site called G-maps Pedometer, and this will also measure the route (in miles by default, or click “metric” in the top left to get it in kms) and give you an elevation profile, which Google maps does not currently do.

Cycling Magazines
It is difficult to buy English-language magazines on cycling in Swiss shops, as was discussed in this thread: "cycling magazines, Geneva". However, the "world's leading bike magazine" called "Bicycling" from the US is available via a one-year overseas subscription for US$40, see this site. Bicycling also maintain a good web-based version of their magazine, and BikeRadar.com is a similar site that is run by the company who produces several British cycling magazines (Cycling Plus, Mountain Biking UK, Pro Cycling, and What Mountain Bike).


About Bicycles

Buying a New Bike
It is not that much more expensive to buy a new bike in Switzerland than it is to buy a similar quality machine anywhere else in the world. However, there are certainly exceptions to this, particularly at times when the Swiss Franc is strong and other currencies are weak. There are local bike stores in every reasonable-sized town which typically have very knowledgeable and passionate staff who can help you to decide which kind of bike would be best for you. To read about different styles of bike, and what would be best for the kind of riding you want to do, see the Wikipedia article List_of_bicycle_types, or this section of the CTC's web-site (the CTC is a cycling advocacy group in the UK). There is also some information in the thread Buying a racing/road bike advice needed, which includes a lot of discussion about the choice of gearing on a road bike. A few different bike brands are discussed in the thread Bike NOT to buy, etc..

Instead of buying from a local bike store, you can buy a bicycle at the big chain stores, where you'll get a slightly cheaper bike but probably worse service from the less knowledgeable staff. Such stores include: Migros Sport XX, Athleticum, and Coop Brico-Loisirs/Bau und Hobby, Aldi, and Decathlon (who currently don't hve any stores in Switzerland). The pros and cons of buying a bike from a department store versus a local bike shop were discussed in the thread Buying new Bike - specs and advice plz. For info on children's bikes, see th thread Buying affordable kid bikes?.

Buying a Used Bike
If you want a used bike then you may occasionally be able to find a local bike shop that has some used bikes for sale (here is info about one in Bern), but this is not typical because it is very difficult to make much money on used bikes. The cycling advocacy group IG Velo / Pro Velo (for more about them see the Cycling Advocacy section below) organizes bike markets in different cities across the country throughout the year, check this page for the next one in your area.

Alternatively, there are several websites that list bikes for sale in Switzerland: velomarkt.ch, veloplus, marktplatz.unizh.ch (Zurich), velomaerkte.ch (Basel), occasionsvelo.ch, veloboerse.info, eumeta.de (Europe-wide site). Plus, there are the online auction sites Ricardo and eBay.

If you want a VERY basic bike then you may be able to find one at a salvation army store (Heils-Armee / Armée du Salut). Visit their website to find your local store. Finally, the “Rent-A-Bike” company (see the Renting a Bike section below) sells their ex-rental bikes for reasonable prices in spring and autumn, see their website for details.

There are several threads on EF about finding a used bike, which is where I got a lot of these links from. The most informative of those threads are "Need a bike - Veloboersen [bike markets] and stores", "IGVelo - 2nd hand bike markets", and Where can I find a used bike in Geneva?.

Renting a Bike
The main bike rental company in Switzerland is called “Rent-A-Bike”. Most of their locations are at train stations, and you can rent a bike for a half-day, full day, or much longer, and even return the bike to a different location than you rented it from. They rent mountain bikes, trekking bikes, town bikes, and kids bikes, but they do not rent road/racing bikes or high-end mountain bikes.

Many bike shops in tourist regions also rent bikes, as do a few hotels and youth hostels. See these threads for more info [Zurich] Where can I rent a decent Mountain Bike?, Re: Renting a bike in Zurich?, and [Zurich] renting a road bike?.

In some of the larger cities, there are places where you can rent a very basic city bike for free (although you'll probably have to leave a deposit and ID). Such facilities exist in Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Zug, Zurich, and maybe others.

Swiss Fun Rent, located near Thun, rent a diverse range of bikes (tandems, electric bikes, kid's trailers, and more standard bikes) plus touring gear (panniers, tents, sleeping bags, backpacks).

Importing a Bike
The issue of importing a bike from abroad, whether bringing it in personally or having it shipped, has been discussed in the threads Importing a new bicycle from America, Bringing a bike into Switzerland... do I need to be aware of something?, Cycle Tour Switzerland Importing my bike, and buying new marathon bike. In summary, if you are entering the country for the first time with a bike that you bought abroad and you will stay here with it (i.e., you are not just a tourist), then officially you should pay Swiss sales tax (VAT) of 7.6% on it if you have not owned it for more than 6 months, and the way to prove this is with an invoice. In practice, you probably won't be asked for such proof or to pay the taxes, and if you want to make absolutely sure that you are not then ride the bike across the border, because then they will never ask about it. If you want to buy a bike from abroad and have it shipped to Switzerland, then the procedure is that the seller should not charge you the sales tax in the country of origin, then when it arrives here you will be charged the 7.6% sales tax on the value declared on the customs form by the seller, plus a processing fee of between 20 and 50 CHF.

Bike Parts
Your local bike shop can probably order any part that you might need for your bike, or you can try the major sports stores which have bicycle sections: Migros Sport XX, Athleticum, and Coop Brico-Loisirs/Bau und Hobby.

However, for a full range of good quality components and accessories then the best place that I've found within Switzerland is Veloplus. They have an online store plus stores in Ostermundigen (near Bern), Wetzikon (near Zurich), Basel, and Emmenbrücke (near Luzern). Their staff generally speak English, but their website is only in German. They also have a very good catalog (500+ pages) which contains pictures of all of their products, and so is quite enjoyable to flip through. You can buy it for 8 CHF, or they'll give you one for free once you buy a reasonable amount of stuff from them. Their prices are not as cheap as other online retailers (see below) but other online retailers are outside of the country and so the advantage of Veloplus is that you don't have to worry about import taxes and the products are delivered to you very quickly. Other online retailers within Switzerland include bike-import.ch and bike-sports.ch, which can have more competitive prices than Veloplus. They are all German-only, but see this page on the Park Tools for the definitive bicycle parts translation guide here (they have an Excel spreadsheet with 450 bike terms in 9 different languages).

You can pay significantly less if you buy bike parts from online retailers in other countries. However, when you add shipping, import taxes, and processing fees to the prices that you see, then you can only really save money if you are buying a reasonable amount of stuff at one time. In general, you will not be charged the local sales tax by the seller but you will still have to pay shipping fees, plus 7.6% Swiss sales tax and a processing fee of between 20 and 50 CHF. However, sometimes items will a very low value will not be charged the sales tax and processing fees, the cut-off for this seems to be about 70 CHF, but there is a lot of inconsistency in this. This is discussed in more detail below in this thread, and in the thread "Ordering eBay from abroad - customs fees?"

If you do want to order from outside of Switzerland then some useful shops that are based in the UK are Chain Reaction Cycles, Total Cycling, and Probikekit. Some German stores have an English-language interface, including Action Sports and Bike-Components. There are obviously many other websites and a quick internet search for any item that you want to buy should turn up loads of sites. However, I don't recommend having anything shipped over from North America as it normally costs way too much money to do so – you can often find similar prices from European stores if you shop around. Once you've figured out how much it will cost to buy online and get it delivered, then check with your local bike shop because they may well be able to offer you a competitive price.

Maintaining your Bike
Some basic bicycle maintenance issues have been discussed on English forum, including: cleaning your bike, flat tyres (plus here), oiling your chain, and worn-out gears. Bicycle mechanics have been recommended in Bern, Basel, Geneva, and in Zurich here and here.

There are several other good websites with information on bicycle maintenance and repair, including Sheldon Brown and Park Tools. Also, there are several cycling forums that each have maintenance sections: for example, BikeForums and CyclingForums.


The third section "Laws and Politics" follows in the next post.