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Travel
Cycling for Cheats
Fourways’ panting cyclist, James Clarke, rides again
Odd to think of Fourways
Gardensbeingthespringboard
for a major expedition from
Africa to explore Darkest
Europe. But this was the nerve
centre for the ninth annual
cycle-mounted expedition to
explore Darkest Europe.
Ispeak as the modest !L*E*A*D*E*R! of
Tour de Farce IX that, last September,
involved four retired daily newspaper
editors and Alan Calenborne from
Lonehill.
The six of us (all retired) have done all sorts
of stupid things in the past nine years: cycled
1 000 km down the Danube; traversed France,
crossed Italy, invaded Spain, done Portugal,
followed the Thames to the sea…
For Tour de Farce IX we chose Switzerland
having been assured by the Swiss that nearly
all 6 300km of cycle track in that country are
flat. And so it came to pass. The western flank
of Switzerland is as flat as Holland.
But even if it wasn’t flat it wouldn’t really
matter. Not anymore. This is because there’s
been a revolutionary leap forward in the
development of the bicycle.
We discovered the E-bike – the most dramatic
advance in cycling since the demise of the
penny-farthing.
Hills are anathema for me. I even pant going
up Camdeboo Road. And in Catalonia in 2007
my companions waited an hour for me at the
top of a pass in a freezing wind blowing off the
Pyrenees. I was suffering from a pinched nerve
and as I slowly hobbled up to them I heard
Harvey Tyson, one of my companions, shout,
“James! This is not a race!”
With an E-bike that mountain would have
been a doddle.
I first clapped eyes on the E-bike at SwissTrails
cycle depot west of Zurich. It was love at first
sight.An E-bike can be ridden as a normal road
bike but it has a 1.5kg loaf-sized battery which
can push you 50km assuming you never switch
it off. There’s a spare in the saddle bag. I never
used more than half its power but when I did it
was as if somebody was behind me pushing.
For the first time in nine years we were able
to ride in a peloton and chat to each other.
We are normally so strung out we need cell
phones to communicate.
I still had to pedal but by occasionally engaging
the booster I was able to keep up with the
fastest. Three of my companions insisted on
riding ordinary road bikes throughout the nine
days – including Harvey who turned 82 during
the ride.
Switzerland has thousands of kilometres
of surfaced and precisely-marked trails for
walking, hiking, canoeing, cycling – even
skating.
We began our tour by going 170km from
Baden (a short drive west of Zurich) south to
Morges on Lake Geneva – four blissful days
Fourways Gardens | Issue 1 2011 • 25
following the Aare river valley and the shores
of glacial lakes though chocolate box scenery.
From Lake Geneva we turned east and in a day
crossed the Alps and over the notorious Furka
Pass in deep snow. This was a doddle – mainly
because we went by train.
We used a luxurious “Panorama coach” with
wrap-around windows so we could enjoy
winding down the spectacular St Gotthard
Pass between snow-capped peaks to the warm
Italian-speaking canton. The St Gotthard rail
tunnel is, in a way, Europe’s aorta. By 2017 it
will be a morning’s ride from Paris and Berlin to
the Adriatic with trains travelling at 270km/h.
We ended our railway journey in the warmth
of Locarno an amphitheatre of a town looking
down on the palm-fringed Lake Maggiorie
which is mostly in Italy. Fresh bikes were
waiting at Locarno station ready for us. One
can order bikes at any station through Swiss
Trails (Jaisli@swisstrails.ch) the company that
organisedourbikes,routeandaccommodation
– and drop them off at any station.
Our bags were already at the Hotel Esplanade
set back from the town in large forested
grounds. It was rather more splendid than
the 3-star B&Bs we normally use but it was
offering 3-star rates in September.
For our nine days in Switzerland we never saw
our suitcases except when we found them
in our hotel rooms – all part of the deal that
we had with Swiss Trails, which organises
accommodation from ultra-cheap hay lofts
(seriously) to hostels and hotels or a mix of
each.
Swiss Trails is part of a highly innovative
government project unique to Switzerland –
called SwitzerlandMobility (www. myswitzer
land.com/switzerlandmobility). It’s a Federalbacked
national network catering for nonmotorised
traffic such as hiking, cycling,
mountain biking, etc and it coordinates the
entire web of routes.
There is now one seamless network of travel
modes requiring just one magic ticket – the
SwissPass. The SwissPass (for tourists only)
is an open sesame to Switzerland’s well-oiled
network of trails, trains, boats, postal coaches,
trams and buses. It enables one to jump on and
off any form of transport anywhere, anytime –
even with bikes.
And believe me about Switzerland being flat.
James Clark