Hullo all,
I'm going to do a month of language training in Switzerland in either June or July and I'm trying to decide between Lausanne and Zuerich. This would be my first time in Switzerland and apart from the language course I'll be wanting to do as much outdoor sports as possible, especially MTB.
I understand both cities are located near mountains and I wanted to get the upsides and downsides from people actually living there. Also, is there a MTB community in either of them? (that would make it so much easier to get to know the trails).

Cheers
Amit

PS
though it's in the profile, here's a few words about myself: I'm 27yrs old, Israeli, a student (at Tel-Aviv university), I like outdoor sports & reading.
Feel free to ask me about anything else.

Well, what language do you want to learn? Lausanne is in the french-speaking part of Switzerland and Zurich is in the german-speaking part.

what language do you want to learn?
if french = lausanne
if german = zurich
i don't know what mtb is so i can't help you with that.

I'd like to improve my German (haven't used it in years and by now is very poor) tough I would'nt mind working on my French as well while I'm there. there are language centers in both cities (LSI in Zuerich and Eurocenters in Lausanne) and I figured I'll find [native] German speakers in both places (am I wrong in this assumption?). I've applied for a scholarship to go to France for a month of French language training in a university there (in August and I'll know whether I've got it in a few days) so I don't mind being in a French speaking environment.

I was under the impression that the swiss were quad-lingual and could all speak German (which is one of their official languages) as well as English, French and Swiss.
Isn't this so?

MTB = Mountaing Biking.
I mostly do (strong) XC (Cross Country) meaning Trails, Singles and a wee of technical stuff.
This is why Lausanne is so appealing to me, the mountains there should be great for MTB, a major plus as far as I'm concerned.

In an ideal world, yes, but in reality, no. People study another official language for a couple of years, but most don't speak it fluently. My advice is to choose the language you want to learn and live in a city where it is spoken so you can practice it while going about your daily life.

A browse/search through these forums will answer this mis-conception.

The German-speaking Swiss do not speak high-German, they speak various dialects of Swiss-German. High German, though one of the official langauge, is a foreign language here. Frankly Switzerland is not the best place to learn German as you will find English is often preferred to high-German in leisure time conversations.

Also, don't expect the French-speaking Swiss to readily or willingly speak German.

merde, there goes my fantasy of combining MTB & hiking with German language training
I guess you can't have both ends, is Zuerich MTB friendly, that is, does it offer any MTB activities at all (It is surrrounded by mountains isn't it)?
and would you know if their "High-German" is any different than the Standard "High-German" spoken in Germany (after all Hoch Deutsch's supposed to be standard, as oppose to all the local dialects)

Thanks,
Amit

First, the mountain biking. I'm also into the cross-country & single track stuff. Unfortunately I've been pretty disappointed with what I've found here, you can read my rant about it in this post.

More specifically, the cross-country riding around here isn't great - the Alps are generally just too steep for it., and when it is not too steep they put a paved road in instead of a trail. So, be prepared for some super steep climbing then some serious downhilling, but not much in between.

The Jura mountains are a little better, and are just as close to Lausanne as the Alps. However, there doesn't appear to be much of a trail network there, and the few good trails that are there, you need a local expert with you to enable you to know about them.

Everything that I've seen and heard about the riding near Zurich sounds like it is better than here. Yes, the mountain there aren't as big as in Lausanne - but that is not a bad thing. There also seems to be a larger mountain biking community there. So, for the mountain biking then I'd go there.

As for the language, in Lausanne it is nearly all French. The next most common language that you hear on the streets is Portuguese, followed by English or German. The German is a mixture, most of the German-speaking people that I know here come from Germany, and so speak high-German. There are some Swiss-German people here, but not as many as you would expect. Anyway, I don't expect that you'd learn much German by coming here unless you enrolled in a specific course, in which (fortunately) you would learn high-German and not swiss-German.

I'm Swiss myself and I hope I'm not insulting anybody here, but most Swiss people speak a rather crappy version of high-German with a strong accent and a lot of "helvetisms" (i.e. expressions which are used in Switzerland but not in Germany). In addition many Swiss people will only speak high-German as a last resort.
If learning proper German is important to you, I suggest you go to Germany. Hamburg might be a good city to learn German. IME people up there have much less of an accent than those in southern cities such as Stuttgart or Munich.

amazing how much information one can get without even getting up the couch!
thanks to everyone who replied; I think I'll follow your advise and abandon my original plan for the nonce. Lausanne will wait, I'll go either to Germany or to Zuerich (I'm still much inclined to come to Switzerland as I've never been there before and it looks just beautiful).

again, many thanks.

PS
if anyone's planning a biking vacation in Israel,or any vacation for that mattar, I'd be happy to help.

Mountain bikers from Zürich would get wet eyes when they read ChrisW's description of the opportunities he had in Canada. Still, you're not entirely out of luck here.

Zürich's holy grail for mtbers is the Many Hill Show. It's not entirely off-road and you'll encounter pedestrians in some parts but it's as dirty and exhausting as it's possible around Zürich.

The Pizzacup people regularly organise races and other events, not exclusively for mtbers, but you might want to keep an eye on their activities. (The Pizzacup itself is a rather exhausting race and the winner gets nothing but a steaming pizza ) - There are also bicycle clubs in town but most of them focus on biking on the roads.

Singletrail maps are available for the region and many other parts of Switzerland. They are based on good maps and the routes are created by experienced people, but don't expect too many ways without a single hiker...