Spring is here, so a lot of people are probably getting back out on their bikes again. Last summer, my wife and I had a lot of fun participating in a mass bike-ride around Lake Geneva, in which over 1,500 people took part. Unfortunately, we'll have to miss the event this year due to a wedding that we're going to that weekend. However, I'm wondering what other events there are like this in Switzerland, so please post a reply if you know of any others.

Here is a list of the ones that I am aware of:

Cyclotour du Leman: Bike tour of Lake Geneva. May 27th, 2007. Distances of 60km, 110km, 180km (start in Geneva, Evian, and Lausanne, respectively, all finish in Lausanne), all extremely flat, but new for this year is a 120km course that takes you up and down the Jura mountains twice (Geneva - Lausanne). All the routes stay on paved roads, but you can use a mountain bike if you wish.

Journée Lausannois du Velo: Lausanne Bike Day. June 23rd, 2007. Mountain bike routes of 10km, 20km, or 30km; road routes of 50km, 100km, or 160km. All routes start and finish at Chalet-à-Gobet, the top of the hill above Lausanne. The road routes head north towards Lakes Neuchatel and Murten, and loop back sooner or later depending on the distance.

Slow-Up: A series of local events in which the roads in the region are closed to all motorized traffic, often making a loop of 20km - 30km. More geared towards families than to serious riders, no specific distance is necessary, and I believe any form of non-motorized transport is allowed (rollerblades, bikes, scooters, etc). There are 14 events all over the country from April 29th (Lake Murten/Morat) to September 23rd (Lake Zurich).

I hope other forum members will be able to add events to this list and we can all have a great season of riding!

Thanks for the list. Are you aware of any in the northern half of Switzerland? I've entered L' Étape de Légende in September, and need to get as many miles under my belt as possible before then! I am tempted by the Cyclotour du Leman though.

Sorry Termite, I'm not aware of any events outside my area of Switzerland, which is why I started this thread. The Cyclotour du Leman is certainly worth doing - a not-too-intense ride through really great scenery.

L' Étape de Légende looks interesting. Here's the official site, and here's where you can apply for a place if you're living in Switzerland (is this how you signed up, Termite?). Quick run-down: It's organized by the Tour de France organizers (ASO) and runs over a classic stage in the Tour de France's history. This year (the inaugural event) goes from Strasbourg to the Ballon d'Alsace on September 23rd, 2007. It is 185km long with about 2600 metres of climbing.

This is supplementing L'Étape du Tour, which is extremely popular as it covers one of the current Tour de France stages just before the real Tour gets there. This year L'Étape du Tour is on July 16th, 2007, and goes from Foix to Loudenvielle; 196km over five Cols in the Pyrenees - a VERY serious ride. Here's the official site and apparently they're still accepting applications from people in Switzerland on this site, but good luck getting into that one, and if you do then it will probably cost you a lot.

The slowUp events are all over Switzerland, including the northern parts.

yesterday I did a tour around the Zurich see, it was around 80-100 Km. The views around Rapperswill are very good. You could try that if you wish to have a instant go with your bike. one more route I recommend is from Rapperswill to Sargans ( along the route 13), I did that last year and felt that it was fabulous.

100km nice!¨I do around 60 in one go on my mountain bike 100km should be my new target Looks like I can start biking again as the sun is out!

You can go across on the car ferry at Meilen to Horgen for a short loop...

dave

60km over rough surface considered a SHORT loop these days? I guess I need to work on my fitness

Having done a little more research, I've discovered that this type of event is way more popular than I imagined. The name for these kinds of events is "cyclosportives", "brevet", or "radmarathon" - stick one of those words into Google and you'll get lots more info. I found some good indexes of events around Europe at: cyclosport.com (in France), cyclosport.com (outside France), sportingtours.co.uk, cyclomundo.com, veloventoux.com.
Good indexes for Swiss events are at cycling-matters.com and datasport.com (select "cycling" from the "Sport" drop-down menu).

Of those in Switzerland, here are a few highlights:

Gruyère Cycling Tour: Formerly known as "La Pascal Richard", this event starts and finishes in Bulle (canton Friburg), and goes over the moderate Alpine passes where cantons Fribourg, Bern, and Vaud meet. Distances are 85km, 125km, or 165km, with 900m, 1700m, or 2900m of climbing, respectively. Held on August 26th, 2007. This one is around my local riding area, so I'll definitely be aiming for it.

Alpenbrevet: Based around Andermatt, this is the most serious event of those that I've looked at. The biggest route is 266km with 6600m of climbing over the Susten, Grimsel, Nufenen, Lukmanier, and Oberalp passes! The less insane can opt for one of the 160km, 120km, 102km, or 32km routes with 5000m, 3500m, 3000m, or 900m of climbing, respectively. The 102km (3000m) route is for mountain bikes. It'll be held on August 11th, 2007.

Züri-Metzgete: This is held at the beginning of October each year around Zurich. It is 68km long, with 700m of climbing.

L'Alex Moos - La Cyclosportive Valaisianne. Three moderate loops to choose from of 73km, 94km, or 105km, with 100m, 1100m, or 1400m of climbing, respectively, around Sierre, Sion, and Crans-Montana. Held on August 1st, 2007.

There is one in Switzerland that is even longer than the Alpenbrevet, called the "Wysam 333", which does a 333 km loop through the Swiss Jura mountains. You can decide to do it in either one day or two, but this event is not being held this year, you'll have to wait until 2008 to take on the challenge.

There is also: La Classique Genevoise (around Geneva in June), the Gerolsteiner Classics (one in June in Appenzellerland, and one in September around the Austrian-Swiss-Liechtenstein region), and Bison Franco-Suisse (around the Vallée du Joux region in the Swiss and French Jura in August).

If anyone has any experience with any of these events, then please let us all know about it.

I just discovered one more, the La Printaniere in the lower Valais (Wallis). The options are 98km with 1000m of climbing, 69km with no climbing, or 15 km with no climbing (family ride). Unfortunately, we just missed it, it was June 17th 2007, but maybe someone will find this info useful for next year.

In other news, it looks like the Zurich Metzgete has been called off this year (2007) due to lack of sponsorship .

The website www.radmarathon.com shows a big road cycling event each month May thru September in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. I'm planning to do at least the two that are closest to home:

Engadin Radmarathon: July 6, starting in Zernez. Choice of 211 km (3,827 m of climbing) or 97 km (1,325 of climbing)

TirolWest Radmarathon: August 3, starting in Landeck, Austria (a little over 2 hours from Zurich). Choice of 220 km (4,490 m of climbing) or 157 km (2,900 m of climbing)

It would be fun to get a group of EF'ers together to do the Engadin one (at least to meet up at the start and finish!).

I would also personally recommend LaMarmotte in France. With 174 km and over 5,000 m of climbing, ending at the top of Alpe d'Huez, it is a day you will never forget! Plus we had no problem signing up (compared to how it sounds for L'Etape).

Same day as Etape (you meant July 6th I believe). However much closer to home. Will let you know if plans change.

Not sure any cycling fans here (not a very popular thing to admit these days) but I understand the Tour de Suiise is having a time trial up Klausen Pass this year. Anyone interested in riding up and watching the time trial? I assume one can ride up earlier in the day. If any interest will post more details later. It is June I believe.

June 8th to be exact.

http://www.tds.ch/nncs/radsport/2007...756000000.html

That sounds cool, there are certainly enough English Forum cyclists to make up an event for this. Also on the Sunday before the route is Langnau to Flums, which I think will cover the Pragel Pass, which is also a nice ride.

The 2008 Tour de Romandie route is also available on their website and runs from April 29th to May 4th. The vague map on that page isn't overly informative, but the pdf linked to from it suggests that its going to be a very mountainous route this year.

It's normally a pretty good race that a lot of top riders use as training for the big three-week tours. In 2006, we watched the main mountain stage of the race, which finished in the ski town of Leysin. A rider I'd never heard of before sprinted away from everyone else halfway up the climb to take the stage - his name was Alberto Contador. In the final time trial around Lausanne, he lost a bunch of time to Cadel Evans, who won the TT and took the overall lead. We posted some photos from both of those stages on our photo-blog here. The end of the 2007 Tour de France was extremely similar, with the same two riders involved, but by then Contador had improved his time-trialing enough to hold onto the overall lead.

We'll probably try to get to at least one of the two stages on the weekend:
Saturday, May 4th is from Sion to Zinal (at the top of a side valley in the Valais), 127km with 3,500m of climbing.
Sunday, May 5th is from Le Bouveret (near Montreux) to Lausanne. Those towns are only about 40km apart, but the route is 159km with 1,800 metres of climbing, so they must be going over one of the passes in the Vaudoise Alps.

Thanks for the info! I'd love to check that out too. I noticed that Klausen Pass is actually June 21st though (it's the 8th stage)...

1. ETAPPE SA 14.06.08 LANGNAU I.E. - LANGNAU I.E 146 KM
2. ETAPPE SO 15.06.08 LANGNAU I.E. - FLUMSERBERG 197 KM
3. ETAPPE MO 16.06.08 FLUMS - GOSSAU SG 154 KM
4. ETAPPE DI 17.06.08 GOSSAU SG - DOMAT-EMS 171 KM
5. ETAPPE MI 18.06.08 DOMAT-EMS - CASLANO 187 KM
6. ETAPPE DO 19.06.08 AMBRI - VERBIER 193 KM
7. ETAPPE FR 20.06.08 GRUYÈRES - LYSS 171 KM
8. ETAPPE SA 21.06.08 ALTDORF - KLAUSENPASS 25 KM
9. ETAPPE SO 22.06.08 ALTDORF - BERN 165 KM
TOTAL 1409 KM

Hillseeker and I have been adding to the list of cyclosportifs for 2008. We have put together a table that lists the events in and around Switzerland and includes all of the important information in one place: date, location, distance options, number of participants in last year's event, registration deadline, and other comments.

I tried several methods of putting the table directly into this post, but there is not enough control of the formatting to do so. Instead, I gave the table it's own web-page. So, please visit it here.

We eagerly welcome suggestions of additions or corrections to this list, so please respond to this thread, providing as much information as you can.

Another tour for NE Switzerland is the Bodensee Radmarathon which this year is on the 13th Sept which consists of a 220km,a 150km and a 80km tour.
http://www.bodensee-radmarathon.ch/strecke.do

sorry it's all in german

Cheers Southie

Thanks for that Southie, I've added it to the list. I got most of the necessary info from their site despite my bad German, but I didn't notice anything giving stats on the number of participants in previous years - do you have any knowledge of that? Have you done the event yourself?

Chris, thanks some additions, unless I missed these:

http://www.alpen-challenge.ch/ August 23?24


Zuri metgete is back without the professional men and on a different course

http://www.zueri-metzgete.ch/content/view/3/10/ September 7th

For a good list of cyclosportives in English all over Europe and cyclosportive talk go here, but you must register
http://www.cyclosport.org/forum/login.asp

For an interesting site from a gent who has done many cyclosportives and has vast stories of them go here.
http://www.flammerouge.je/content/0_home/home.htm
For another weekend of events, there is the Gerolsteiner Tour Festival in germany from Ma 16th to 18th
http://www.tour-festival.de/

Off on the bike now, gorgeous day see you later.

To be honest, no and no, but would like to one day.
Cheers