Hello,

I'm fairly new to Switzerland- I moved to Bern last September (from Arizona) for grad school and am now living in Zurich. I am hoping to find some other cycling enthusiasts out there...anyone into cycle touring? I brought my road bike with me and have grand plans to do a couple of the national cycling routes, the Rhine route to the North Sea, a bit of France.... In my free time of course.

I would really like to find someone - or a couple someones - who is game to cycle about 60-80 km a day (whole trip, any leg of a trip, whatever works for you) and explore along the way. I'd also like to find people in the Zurich area who are up for weekend rides, any length, just for fun. It's a lot more fun to cycle with someone than it is to cycle alone!

If pedalling is your favorite way to spend time, give me a holler!

Erin

It's funny how in the first 10 posts half are about cycling long distances... Not sure if you saw my post: Cycling long distance in April?

Incidentally I wouldn't mind doing this trip with someone else so if you have 3 weeks to burn on cycling, let me know :-) (I am moving to Zurich soon btw)

Hi Erin! Welcome to Zurich!

Pedaling is definitely a fave pasttime of mine. I've only done a touring-type trip once, in the U.S., and it was a blast, so I'd be interested in doing some here in Europe as well.

And I'm sure we will be doing as many rides on the weekends as we can once the weather warms up again (I admit I'm a warm-weather cyclist!). Plus weeknights too when the daylight is longer.

I agree - It's much more fun to bike with others!

Hi Erin

New in Switzerland myself also just last week - living in Wetzikon with fiance which has some great great cycling including a very large bike shop called Velo Plus. Im interested in meeting up for bike rides also at some point. Weekends are best from my point of view - particularly Sundays when there aint much else to do here!

Best wishes

Dan

Hi

Please keep me in the loop as well, even though I'm in Basel I'd like to get involved either for weekend trips or longer (a couple of us nearly managed Schaffhausen to Basel in a day last summer which was a great trip).

BTW.. a road bike's no good for the 'national' bike routes.. you need a decent off roader as they're mostly tracks in the woods.

Great! Thanks for the tip, ipoodle. I'll have to check the routes, as my road bike is pretty much limited to roads. I was looking at this site the other day:

http://www.cycling-in-switzerland.ch...rn_change.html

It tells how much of the route is unpaved...looks like it's usually only about 50 km or so out of the total. Does this seem right to you? I can bypass 50 km; 300 km is a different story.

Anyway, I'll be away for the next month, but after that I am DEFINITELY game for some weekend trips, weather permitting. (Yeah, I like it dry and at least moderately warm too!) So keep an eye on the forum and let's put together a cycle toward the end of February!

Hi

Looks like you'll be out shopping for a new bike

You couldn't take a road bike (or a road 'tourer') on those those routes, they're mostly trails.. so you don't need the world's greatest mountain bike, but something with fat tyres and decent suspension would be a must.

The sections of unpaved surface on the cycle routes that I've been on have accounted for less than 10% of the distance, and have all been pretty tame - of the wide, curshed gravel variety. I agree, a racing bike with 23mm tyres, an aggressive riding position, and a stiff frame wouldn't be ideal; however, I'm happy on them with a touring bike with 28mm tires, drop handlebars, strong brakes, and a cushy steel (cromoly) frame. Fat tyres and suspension would be complete overkill for the parts that I've found, although you could certainly use that kind of bike quite happily.