# The full Swiss experience



## Fiona N (6 Apr 2011)

Inspired by Kestevan's great story, here's the tale of my first Alpen Brevet in Switzerland.

In 1992 I moved to Switzerland for work. It was a pretty eventful year all told: after redundancy from one job, I got another job to start 4 months later in Switzerland but, due to the private health system there and the fact they speak German, in those four months I had to achieve two things - an ankle reconstruction operation and to speak German. The first was carried out (thanks to redundancy money) with admirable speed by a private orthopedic surgeon and the second, rather more slowly, by a fantastic German lady at a castle in southern Germany. So by July 1992, my ankle was good to go (in fact, to start running again) and I could actually speak German (I just couldn't understand German speaking to me - but's that's a different problem). Moreover, to help with the ankle rehab I'd bought a new bike (I already had a rather lovely custom-built steel tourer) - a shiny carbon framed racer at a time when these were pretty much the preserve of racers. it had 52/39 and 11-19 - just what you need for the stiff little climbs in northern Switzerland. So shortly after arriving, the block was changed to 11-23 but I still couldn't get up those hills as I was still pretty unfit from the months of enforced near-inactivity after the ankle injury and surgery. But I worked away at getting fitter over the Autumn and into the winter with running in the woods around work. Then in Spring, courtesy of my membership of the TCS - Swiss equivalent of the RAC or AA - I got a newslettter which advertised 'Il Trittico' Alpen Brevet for cyclists in June. Well, in my ignorance of Swiss Alpine passes, except those I'd visited in my mountaineering trips (mostly well away from any roads), this sounded great. A nice circuit of 100 miles (160km) - well within my capabilities, given that I'd raced of that distance in Australia - over three passes starting and finishing in Biasca in the flat bit of Switzerland south of the Alps. I entered to give myself a definite fitness target for my second summer.

In the interim I tried to join a cycling club - there were a couple of quite well known ones close to work e.g. the Gippingen GP is run by a club about 10 miles away. The problem was the attitude in german-speaking Switzerland was that women over 21 should only be allowed out in the company of their children and/or husband. Since I was over 21 and had neither, and a foreigner to boot, I was obviously a woman to be shunned. So clubs made their disinterest in having me as a member quite clear. So all training was solo in the hills around work and the southern Black Forest - just across the border into Germany. Mileage was no problem but I had a sneaking suspicion that I wasn't getting the climbing in as everything was short and steep (by Alpine standards). 

Anyway, I arranged a hotel down in Biasca for the night before and after (luckily) and went down by train. The morning of the event dawn dry, warm and still - it looked like being a hot sunny day. I equipped myself as I would for 100 miles up to the Balck Forest in June - base layer (good old Damart vest), wool ss jersey, arm warmers, comfortable shorts, helmet, sunglasses and gloves. The bike had a small saddlepack with 2 tubes, mini pump, tools etc. and 2 Kitkats, and 2 0.5L water bottles with water. Everybody in the carpark at the start looked very fit, lean, male, with very flashy bikes and mainly grouped in what looked like clubs. The start at 6am wasn't exactly a mass start but people went off in these 'club groups' at a steady rate so I added myself to the back of one of them and ignored the backward stares.

The ride from Biasca was good but, well, surprisingly uphill as I knew the climb of the first pass, the Gotthard (~2100m), started from Airolo 40 km in. Not only was it a 40 km climb with bits of downhill, it was a steep climb in places - that 39/21 got some use (as I was trying to keep the 39/23 for emergencies). I found I was keeping up with the club group I'd attached myself to pretty easily though and still felt comfortable by the time we got to Airolo food stop. The bananas were way to green to interest me but there were some little sandwiches and other 'real food' things and hot coffee so I had a reasonable break but lost the group and set off up the climb I'd been expecting on my own. 

The first km was fine, not too steep, nice road out of town, fine - 'if it stays like this for 10km to the top, no problems'. I'd only just thought it when the road surface turned to cobbles and uphill rather more steeply - about 10%. This was shattering with the vibrations and having to pick a line all the time, and soul-destroying as it was really at the limit of what I could keep going on. Then, just to add to the atmosphere, the sun clouded over and it began to rain. Gently at first, then hailstones in squalls and finally as I finally nearer the summit after an hour of hard graft, snow. Luckily it didn't settle on the wet road and I wasn't cold with all the exertion but it was not what I'd been prepared for. And I began to wonder if I'd bitten off more than I could chew. 

This thought was compounded by the time I'd got my card stamped and picked up some food and more water -I'd got really cold with the wet jersey and without the exertion and I knew I was going to freeze on the descent. But at the back of my mind were those old stories about using newspaper for insulation - so where to get a newspaper? There's a restaurant with a tourist info place on the Gotthard summit - a nice place to visit for a coffee in nice weather but now looking like a refuge. I asked at the tourist info for a paper - they sold the Saturday rag - but the lady, instead of reaching for the papers stacked behind her, reached under the counter and proffered an out of date one, saying 'you can have these free' - how did she know I wasn't interested in reading matter? 

I survived the long, wet, fast descent into Andermatt with the newspapers shoved down the front of my jersey and stopped to roll them up into a back pocket as I got into town feeling OK if not good but it was a big relief to start pedalling again on the climb out of town. It had stopped raining sometime during the descent and for a few minutes the sun came out strong and hot - everything was brilliant, wet and steaming and against the odds I enjoyed the switchbacks of the climb up the Oberalp (~2000m). Towards the top, the gradient lessened as the road was cut between the remaining snow banks - still about 2m deep - in the broad plain which makes up the summit area. Then there was a flurry of hail, lightening and a thunderclap - and a full-on thunderstorm overtook me and the other dozen or so riders around me on the road. Ahead the road disppeared into a tunnel before the true summit of the pass so we made for that to get out of the torrential rain and gusting wind. There were already upwards to 50 cyclists huddled in the tunnel entrance - I didn't see any point in waiting by the entrance and road to the exit end of the tunnel to wait the storm out. Others seemed to decide this was a better idea and followed so then there was a crowd at the other end much to the consternation of the drivers. 

I decided it was daft waiting for an unknown period (for what - avoiding lightening?) in the cold and wet - not to mention danger from cars - when there was a (hopefully) warm dry summit cafe about 1 km away. I made a dive for it, dropped the bike and ran inside to find the place crammed with other cyclists. It wasn't a control or official food stop - that was about 30km away at the start of the next climb but, as another cyclist told me, that was only a picnic spot so there was not much shelter and it was better to stay here for the duration of the storm. Besides if you decided to pack (there was no broom wagon), it was a downhill run back to Andermatt where the train would get you back to Biasca. Once you descended from the Oberalp towards Disentis, you had to finish as there was no easy way back to the start from that side of the mountain. I was pretty tired, cold, completely soaked, of course, and there was another 30km descent then a 20km climb and another 40km descent back to Biasca - all this effort and I wasn't even half way round. The newspaper was sodden - I wasn't sure whether it would make much difference as it was rapidly falling to bits. I dithered. My informant said what I needed was a jagertee - not sure what that was although it sounded like hot tea which sounded like a good idea although a few more calories wouldn't go amiss so it was jagertee with a side order of hot chocolate with whipped cream. 

Jagertee turned out to be black tea with rum and sugar which lifted the spirits amazingly and there were no more thoughts of packing. It was back out into the elements - bright sunshine again - for the stunning descent of the Oberalp. This is one of the most technical descents in Switzerland on a major pass - a narrow old road with steep, tight, hairpins stacked vertically on the mountainside amongst the rock outcrops. The adrenalin rush was so extreme I never noticed the cold - totally in the zone, I descended like a maniac overtaking sluggish cars and cautious cyclists into the long steady descent of the Disentis valley. I was at the feed station in about 40 minutes to find what looked like a town festival - BBQ and drinks tent, cyclists lounging in the sun all over the place - it looked more like the finish not a feed station at the foot of the final climb of the Lukmanier Pass (~1900m). 

This side of the mountains was another place - warm and sunny with no sign of the recent storm. The Lukmanier valley is just a gorgeous place with the river crashing down, sometimes in amongst broad Alpine meadows, other times in a ravine with waterfalls and green pools. The road winds it's way up, steepening for a climb to a small town built on a prominent spur but generally at a gentle gradient. It needed to be - my legs were on fire, the least effort send my heart rate rocketing and the lactic acid flooding my muscles. It was midday (yes - all that suffering at it was still only midday) and the sun was really beating down. I was hoping the suncream I'd applied before the start hadn't been washed off or rubbed off by repeated application of arm warmers but there wasn't much I could do about it anyway. I just plodded upwards. In the scheme of things, I wasn't doing too badly as I was occasionally overtaking other cyclists, mainly real veterans, and the club groups were pretty much fragmented as people progressed in their own little bubbles of solo pain. Despite the distractions of the scenery, it went on forever. I'd run out of water and hadn't got any idea really where the summit lay - somewhere above but the valley gave no clues, no obvious 'headwall' or col ahead. 

Then just when I was really wondering why I was doing this, the road went into a series of big wide hairpins, sadly upping the gradient as it did so. I was dying, everything hurt, the little voice was saying 'get off and walk' and suddenly the veterans were coming flying past me (well, flying is perhaps exaggerating, they nosed past like the trucks on the motorway) and I looked up to see the maw of an avalanche cover (sort of semi-tunnel build on the hillside). There was no light at the end of the tunnel but all the cyclists in view were going for it. There must be something ... so I managed to drag up an extra gramme or two of energy and willpower from somewhere and joined the slow motion sprint into the avalanche tunnel. 

It went up for about 500 torturous metres - then down - the summit of the pass was actually inside the avalanche tunnel so all of a sudden we really were hurtling down the start of the descent. Nothing but nothing is as good as knowing the climbs are over.

I stopped for some water at the last feedstation, besides a lovely mountain restaurant terrace packed with lunching tourists marvelling at the spectacle of all these crazed cyclists popping out of the end of the tunnel. It was pretty tempting to sit in the sun and not on the bike for a while but if I did I might never get going again - I'd pushed my muscles to the limit and knew they'd stiffen up as soon as I stopped and there was still 40km to go - it sure couldn't be 40km of all descent...

No need for the newspaper on this descent - I reluctantly consigned it to the rubbish bin and set off with a biggish group of guys from an Italian club judging by the jerseys and hearing them shouting and singing - they'd be there when I arrived seemingly having a full lunch organised from the back of a van. The people at the van had handed out gilets and jackets to the riders so it all seemed very professional. On this (possibly shaky) evidence, I decided they must be a good club and thus good descenders (not entirely sure about the link but brain probably wasn't functioning 100% lucidly at this point). I'm pretty fussy about who I descend with as I'm naturally inclined (adrenalin junkie) and physically equipped (compact, heavy) to go downhill fast and there's nothing worse than slow descenders getting in your way when you want to play. But these guys were just superb, holding perfect lines round every corner, swopping the lead between them when there was some pedalling to be done to keep the speed up. As I just got mixed in and, I guess, they saw I could ride in the same way, it was just a complete blast riding in a pretty tight formation of about 20 at times over 90 kmph down the big open curves of this fabulous descent. 

And it is almost 40 km of downhill - there's just one long flat on the outskirts of Biasca, just right for setting up the sprint at the town sign. So we blasted into town at about 60kmph all across the road (it's near enough to Italy to get away with that sort of behaviour) - I've no idea what I was using to power my muscles at this point, I'd gone beyond pain into pure endorphins. By shear fluke of choosing the right wheel (and nobody keeping an eye on the whereabouts of the unknown lone female) I came round my 'lead out' as he flagged to win the sprint much to the absolute delight of the spectators at the finish yelling out 'Prima donna'. It doesn't, I think, get much better than this for cyclists 



Epilogue - the club coach came over to talk to me in the refreshments tent at the end and asked about my cycling. He was looking for women to race for the club as, in many interclub competitions, women riders are needed to score in events. So I ended up training and riding with the club for the rest of my time in Switzerland. That first Trittico I did in just over 8 hours total time. The final time I rode it, it was just under 5 hours riding time (in perfect conditions) with an hour for lunch at the top of the Lukmanier - and that's the way to do it


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## Globalti (8 Apr 2011)

What a fantastic story Fiona! I felt the cold and wet and so much enjoyed your description of the last descent then your well-timed sprint! I had a similar (though much smaller) experience in the Cape Argus last month where I found myself riding the last 8 kms in a small group, doing through and off and summoning up the energy from somewhere, the four of us blasting through the suburbs into Cape Town on adrenaline alone. Quite a thrill!


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## Scoosh (8 Apr 2011)

Just BRILLIANT !  - and, like all good stories, it has a happy ending




- in this case 2 !






Very interesting to hear of the difference between the Italians and the Swiss-Germans. How is your Italian now ?? (meaning the language but .......



)


No wonder a gentle 200k around the Borders doesn't faze you !


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## ColinJ (8 Apr 2011)

Fab! 

That post might just have killed off any future Riders' Tales. How can we top that? 

Ben - if you do turn up tomorrow, ask Fiona to explain to you why she needed the reconstructive surgery. Oh, and how she got back from Australia! (She told me on the Rochdale to Blackpool ride.)


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## Tynan (1 Jun 2011)

loved that, very well written

'only 12 o'clock'

yuk yuk

and bravo the chaps at the end letting you win


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