Warning: long post

Dear cycling friends,
I am unfamiliar with planning and nuances of cycling in Switzerland, so I would appreciate any tips/guidance on a holiday I am planning for myself. Note: this is not a hardcore biking trip, but a normal sight-seeing holiday into which I am squeezing in as much cycling as possible without torturing myself. As of now I am alone for the biking part, but I might get lucky and pick up some company along the way, or at stopovers.

Proposed itinerary:

2 April Thu: Zurich to Lucerne. Approx 50 km

This leg seems manageable. After the first 25 km or so, I enter National Bike Route 9, and just follow it to Lucerne. Overnight halt at Lucerne Youth Hostel.

3 April Friday: Lucerne to Interlaken. Approx 65 km. National Bike Route 9.
Overnight halt at Interlaken Youth Hostel. Park the bike there.

4-5 April: Non-biking day
4th morning: Catch train to Chateau de’ Oex. Join a Zurich-based friends’ group which will be reaching there by train. The plan is to celebrate some private event there with snow hiking and relaxation.
5th Evening: catch train back to Interlaken. Overnight halt at Interlaken.

6 April Monday: Depending on body condition, return to Zurich by train, or cycling full or part way. I am not reserving accomodations for return leg, to stay flexible.

So, the route is Zurich-Lucerne-Interlaken-Chateau and back.

I am using the standard Switzerland biking map available from the Swiss Post; I could only briefly make out the altitudes on the route, but not much. As I said this is not a hard core biking trip. I don’t mind stepping off the bike and pushing it for the uphill sections I encounter on the way. Now I have some specific queries/concerns:

Is the Lucerne to Interlaken section doable by bike now? I mean, does it have some mountain passes which aren’t open at this time, is it that high, or is it more like our Uetliberg in terms of topography? Will it be more than 5 degrees colder than Zurich? Will the road have snow, in which case cycling may be impossible?

Can any of you post the altitude-distance graph such as the ones Patrick posted recently, for this route?

Given that I won’t be biking steep uphills, and given that I am not too comfortable on my road bike, is it better that I use an upright touring bike? Don’t want to bother myself renting a touring bike unless it is worth it.

And this one is just in case: Suppose me and bike are in good shape; body and soul are willing: does anyone know about the Interlaken-Chateau section on National Bike Route 9? Does it entail mountain passes, or can I attempt it on bike as well?

I would appreciate your suggestions/pointing to aspects which I, coming from a tropical country, may have overlooked. Also I have intentionally not looked at weather forecasts becos it is so hard to predict, and I will plough on in rain or cold (I will have flashing light and flourescent bands, warm clothes and a firm resolve)

Thanks!

p.s. apologies for any trolling readers who might not have found anything useful after such a long-winded post; as I said it was addressed to my cycling friends

Looks like a very manageable trip. Personally I would opt for a cycling vacation in the mountains instead, but given the season it is too early for such a trip. I don't think you should have any trouble with the first two legs on any bike. The return looks a bit long unless you've trained for that distance... especially if you're not on a road bike.

In my experience the national routes are in general great, but unfortunately they tend to have a lot of unpaved parts so if you are on a road bike you will need to prepare the routes carefully to avoid those portions (they are dotted lines on the national bike route maps). Also it can be very difficult to follow the signs. Be prepared to lose the path a number of times, backtrack, and figure out where you are (if you don't see any more bike path signs at intersections, you have probably gone off track). Also use www.mapmyride.com or google earth to plan out your route and see how much elevation change there is... a lot of climbing up and down without training for it can quickly lead to bonking and make it a very unpleasant trip.

edit: you should be able to find a route that doesn't include mountains / extreme climbing. If you follow a route near the train tracks it should be relatively flat. There is not too much terrain to worry about between zurich and interlaken... should be obvious when looking at google earth how to get there without going over the hills (and the snow is up in the hills, generally not in the valleys).

Don't forget to get the Bike registration/Insurance sticker, bring with you tyre/tube repair kit and rain clothing, ( you never know )

There is an special bike sticker, you can get it at the train station for 30CHF or at the TCS, that covers you on bike trips, insurance covers, dammages to your bike and transportation back home for you in case of accident.

About topography.

go to http://maps.live.com

install the 3D view module

Calculate your route with the "Get Directions" tool.

go on 3d view, use the "Tilt down"/"Tilt Up" tools you'll be able to see the mountain profiles.

http://maps.live.com/#JnJ0cD1wb3Mucn...nJ0b3A9MCU3ZTA=

Don't know it personally but don't see why it would be a problem.

I don't know the cycle route, but have driven it many times. I imagine that there is quite a bit of climbing involved. How much you pack for the trip will play a part in how easy/difficult it is to get over the passes. There are some nice lakes along the way so it should be nice and scenic.


Why not take a ride around Thuner or Brienzersee. The scenery around here is stunning and depending on your direction of travel it should be always easy to get a train back to Bern and on to Zurich.

I don't use these maps myself, but isn't there countour lines on the map? I also thought there was an indication of how difficult a climb was on those maps, but I don't own any of these maps so can't comment.


If you go over about 900-1000m on non paved roads in forests you can expect to experience snow. All of the main roads in that region will be open.


Those graphs that Patrick posted he got by doing the ride. Unless someone has done the ride you won't get a height profile. As Salsa said, you might get one online from some mapping software. This might not be as accurate as the ones taken from a well calibrated barometric bike computer though.


I'd be suprised if you didn't have to cope with a steep hill somewhere on the day from Lucern to Interlaken. Bike choice is yours, but if your not used to the race bike then the touring bike might be more comfortbale.


Hopefully your warm clothes are decent technical bike clothes. Trying to ride something like that in jeans and normal everyday warm clothing might lead to a whole world of suffering.

Enjoy.

It's a great trip. But I'm not fit enough for that

There is most certainly a rather long climb between Lucerne and Meiringen/Brienz....it goes to maybe 1100 to 1200 meters starting pretty shortly outside of Lucerne....I have not cycled it but have taken the train to Meiringen to do some of the longer climbs there and if the train is going over the pass mostly certainly you will have to over it on your bike.

I believe it is the Brunig pass, not sure if there is a way to skirt it, but in reality it looks like a relatively easy pass. only 12k averaging around 6% with flat section in the middle. Though weather may be an issue.

http://www.cyclingcols.com/

http://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp...ountainID=5244

Not so sure how nice Brunnig will be on a bike. There is quite a long corkscrew tunnel when you come down off it towards interlaken. Great views over Lungarnersee though as you head up.

http://www.veloland.ch/en/reiseberic....cfm?id=320877

This might be interesting to you. Day 3, the route seems to go off road...so the fun of climbing on a dirt path...

I have biked from Zurich to interlaken-Gstaad on almost a similar route last year.The second leg is definitely great, one passes over several lakes.

Brunnig pass is not a real pass, I mean its pretty easy, u dont feel u climbed a pass, also because its all in the forest.......just before u hit the pass, there is a 13% section on the biking route for over a Km to reach to the lungerer see, that bit is hard . But the only 2-3 km of what you will climb of the real brunig pass has a lot of traffic ...I think there is one off road alternative which is more steep and unsteady.

coming down from the Brünig pass is is a much longer way and I will stick to the main roads here, because the national route really takes one through steep ofroad descents which killed my brake pads in wet weather.

hope that bit helps...best of luck and I envy your riding plans but cant join this time around..

need to dust me bike now

Patrick, Eire, Dakman, Salsa, Rahul,
Thank you very much for a ton of pointers; it was extremely useful and timely. It helped me firm up my plans and prepare my gear. And Malika for the encouragement

I opted to use my roadbike. Just now I got it refurbished, and it is damn comfy now!

So, hopefully, after the trip I will be able to add to the "cycling routes" section with a route for beginners!

Until then,
bye (in this thread),
and many many thanks
and happy dusting of bikes

I received your (the OP's) email about this last week, but was away cycling in Mallorca until yesterday (as I mentioned in this thread), so couldn't respond until now.

I know most of the roads you're talking about between Chateaux d'Oex and Luzern, and have a few comments.

If you're using a road bike then, as others have mentioned, don't follow the national cycling routes, but merely use them as a guide/suggestion. They often take you to roads that I don't consider to be the best option for riding on (which could be for any or all of the following reasons: too undulating, too indirect, too steep / inconsistent gradient, not surfaced). The section around Lake Brienz is particularly problematic - the route takes you along the south shore of the lake along a very steep and unsurfaced track. I've not done it myself, but I didn't like the look of it on the map, and then someone told me what a nightmare it had been for them. I've always gone along the north shore of Lake Brienz, which is a great ride, traffic is not too heavy because a lot of people use the motorway instead.

Coming from the north, the Brunig pass shouldn't be too hard of a climb. Again, there is a motorway to take a lot of the traffic, so you can happily use the other major roads. Towards the top, the motorway traffic will merge with you, making that section not so much fun, but you just have to get it over with.

From Interlaken to Chateau d'Oex will not be very difficult in terms of climbing. After Spiez the road slowly climbs up the valley until it reaches a height of about 1200m between Zweisimmen and Gstaad, a pass called Saanenmoeser (but sometimes it's not even listed as a pass because the approach from both sides is not very significant). I believe the national cycling route takes you along some back roads for most of this route. However, it looks complicated and much slower than the main road, so I've only ever used the main road. There's a reasonable amount of traffic, so I don't take it for fun, just to get to and from nicer riding areas. Plus, if you're riding up from Spiez you'll be on the road for much longer - I would plan my route to make sure that I was riding down that road instead of up, making the speed difference between me and the passing cars much smaller, and the time spent on the road much shorter.

On the last day, leaving from Interlaken, as suggested above, following Thunersee would be nice, then if you want to do some climbing there are some low passes (about 1000m altitude at the top) into the Emmental region, or you could just follow the Aare river to Bern and beyond, and take the train home whenever you've had enough. If you follow it to Biel or Solothurn then note that the trains from those towns back to Zurich are ICN tilting trains, and at this time of year you now need a special bike reservation to take a bike on those. It costs 5 CHF on top of the normal bike ticket, and has to be made 30 minutes before the train leaves; yes, I agree, it's very annoying, but fortunately the ICN's are the only Swiss trains that this applies to.

You asked about altitude profiles. As dakman mentioned, CyclingCols is useful for this, and also try ClimbByBike - just search for the name of the pass and you should be able to get the profile of the major roads going up to it. All the roads that you've mentioned will be open, but if you ever want to find this out for other major passes in Switzerland, then check this website.

I did it on a roadbike coming from Interlaken to Brienz and it totally sucked. Steep downhills on gravely dirt roads, sections I had to walk...going the other way,probably a little better as the downhills will be mostly on the paved parts but still I would not recommend on a road bike. Saying this, it is an incredibly beautiful section that would be very enjoyable on a MTB perhaps

Niranjan, I must say your determination last Saturday during 2hr1/2 of non-stop icy rain was very impressive. I was almost ashamed that this was your first ride with EFers... (I would have warned you off, but eh, I was not nuts enough to go and cycle alone in this weather ).
Judging from this experience, I really don't know what on Earth could stop you to cycle to Interlaken (and back!).
Have a lot of fun!

Hi friends,
Just to update you that I had an amazing cyclo-trip of the Bernese Oeberland and am back (and will catch up with all the EF bike banter and rides soon).

The route I finally followed was:

Zurich - Lucerne - Interlaken - Chateau d’ Oex* - Berne - Zurich
The distances were approx: 60, 75, 80+, 80+ and 140 kms for each of the legs. Actually much of the itinerary was spontaneous, and I used your suggestions just to get a hang of the things.

* At Chateau I spent an extra day and climbed a 2000+ m hill (Point de Cray) on foot. It is about 1000 m above Chateau.

Weather was fabulous (making all my winter/rain gear redundant), and got sunburnt within 2 days. Except the Berne-Zurich leg, all legs were picturesque and I enjoyed to the hilt. Perhaps Interlaken-Chateau was the best.

Each leg seemed to get easier rather than harder than the previous one...Today was the bigggest ride of my life: Berne-Zurich and surprisingly I arrived in Zurich in pretty good shape.

Since I didn't have the bike computer I can't post those technical details. But I will post some experiences/insights I got about this route for reference.

great to hear that your cyclo-adventure went so well! I like that your itinerary had some spontaneity and that you added a climbing stage -- excellent!

Given your experience on a road bike, what you did is quite amazing Niranjan! Thumbs up!

Got to this a bit late, but for the sake of future info, take a look at my blog ( http://www.gps-sport.net/users/Slogfester) for the dates 22-30 May 2008 when I covered parts of this route. Pics and altitude profiles etc. Esp 26 May http://www.gps-sport.net/trainings/D...terlaken_22990

Did you do all this with the yellow bike and the standard crankset ?