Ticino

Locarno was our first port of call. Nestled in Ticino, the only Italian speaking province of Switzerland, on the shores of Lago Maggiore, it’s a popular holiday spot for Swiss nationals looking to escape from the chilly mountains for some Southern European heat.

We stayed in Hotel La Campagnola, a small way up the imposing slopes of Monte Tamaro, the site of Greg Minnaar’s 2003 World Championships win. His triumph occured in the bike park around the other side of the mountain but on the Locarno side it’s singletrack paradise.

“Be nice to people, respect your responsibilities and have a good time!”

On the first day we took the public bus to the top of the Alpe di Neggia pass. The ride was free thanks to the Ticino Ticket that comes with any hotel room – just strap your bike on the back at the bottom stop and it shuttles you up to the top. Our goal was the Carbon trail, at 8 km long and with more than a kilometer of vertical, it’s a 30 minute wild ride.

Open turns at the top soon give way to flat-out straights that hasten you into safety-pin switchbacks. Fleeting glimpses of the enticing lake shore rising up to meet you, encourage you to keep the hammer down all the way.

Davos

We’d heard of Davos mainly due to the Enduro2 race that moved from Les Arcs to the Swiss resort a couple of years ago. Les Arcs is one of our top Alpine resorts so we knew we could be on to a winner here.

It was a two hour drive North but what a drive it was! Sweeping hairpins on roads as smooth as a dolphin’s back, then down valleys entombed by daunting peaks to arrive just over the hill from Lenzerheide.

Sitting at 1,500 metres, Davos is a major ski resort that’s yet to feel an influx of British mountain bikers but is well loved by Germans and the Swiss. With six cable cars, 27 marked routes and a separate bike park we were never going to be able to hit it all in the 48 hours we had available but there’s definitely potential to spend a week or longer here.

“IT’S A BATTLE TO KILL SPEED THROUGH ZIG-ZAGGING CORNERS BEFORE DROPPING INTO WIDE OPEN FOREST TRAILS WITH A HOPSCOTCH OF ROOTS TO PICK LINES THROUGH.”

It’s a trail and enduro focussed area with most descents taking more than 10 minutes to complete. There’s no lack of technicality but you’ll feel like a bit of a wally if you turn up with a downhill bike. The highlight of it all has to be the Bahnen tour. A mapped out route that uses a number of chairlifts to get you 10,000 metres of descending over 86km. It can be done in a day if you’re really pushing or spread over two and taken a bit more chill.

This is high Alpine riding at its finest as rocky trails cut through meadows, along ridgelines and down steep rooty forests. It feels totally unspoilt and the trails at the top were deserted when we rode them so early in the season. A highlight comes along at the Rinerhorn ridgeline overlooking Davos itself, hucking in off the fireroad, it’s a battle to kill speed through zig-zagging corners before dropping into wide open forest trails with a hopscotch of roots to pick lines through.

The Bahnen tour overlaps with the Davos Epic trail, Switzerland’s only recognised IMBA Epic trail. At 45km long, it’s a proper backcountry experience that we’d love to go back and hit properly with a bit more time.

Instead, we had our sights on the bike park and the Gotschna freeride trail on the Prince mountain (so-called because Prince Charles’ bodyguard died in an off-piste avalanche testing if it was suitable for the Prince to ride).

The trail is full of wallrides, table tops and some of the most impressive woodwork we’ve ever seen. There are plenty of black options to get loose on and progress. The bike park definitely isn’t the focus of Davos (there’s probably half a day’s worth of riding in total) but as a way to wind down after a long few days in the saddle, throwing shapes and flowing through the tarmac-smooth berms isn’t a bad way to finish the trip.

And so our eyes have been opened to Switzerland. In 72 hours we had everything from summit-to-shore riding to backcountry epics. It’s still not cheap but for the complete riding experience, we’ve not found many spots that offer as much as this.

The Details

HOTELS

Locarno – Hotel La Campagnola
Davos – Hard Rock Hotel Davos

TRANSFERS

Carbon Trail – Autopost bus – travel free with Ticino Ticket, bike extra
Bahnen trail/Gotschna freeride – Lift pass included with a hotel room stay

OTHER ACTIVITIES

Ticino – Boat trips, Ponte dei Salti, great food and wine. More info.
Davos – Wakeboarding, hiking, golf. More info.

Lucerne – rolling countryside in picture perfect Switzerland

The medieval city of Lucerne is the perfect place to commence our Swiss cycling adventure. The canton’s namesake city has a small centre with fairly quiet roads, while the old town is jam-packed with historical architecture. The centrepiece is the Kapellbrucke – an iconic, winding wooden bridge that crosses the Reuss river. It dates back to the 1300s and makes for a brilliant starting point in our search for the country’s best roads.

A short ride west towards the town of Kriens, and the hustle and bustle of the canton’s city soon opens up into lush, rolling countryside. On taking a left onto Hergiswaldstrasse, the road’s gradient starts to creep up. The glass and steel structures are left in the valley below, replaced by fields, alpine woodland and Swiss farmhouses that could easily be scaled up cuckoo clocks.

The road is 16km of twisting climbs and wicked false flats that follow the babbling river Rotbach towards Lucerne’s border with the neighbouring canton of Obwalden. Riding along in the valley, flanked either side by the peak of the Schimbrig to the right and Schlierengrat ridge to the left, there are almost too many stunning, mountain-filled views to take in.

The sound of rubber rolling on tarmac is only broken by the clang of cow bells, while the only traffic we encounter on our way towards the canton’s edge is of the bovine variety. As we pass, the cows give us a funny look, oblivious to the fact that they are standing on one of the best cycling roads in the whole of Lucerne.

At the summit of the final climb of the day, we hop off of our bikes and look back down the valley at what we’ve accomplished – the road snaking its way out of sight behind the tree line in the distance – the legs now suitably warmed up for what is to come in the mountains of Switzerland.

Bern – mountain paradise on the Grimselpass

The canton of Bern is the second largest in the whole of Switzerland, and at is centre is the Swiss capital. Far away from the big city though, in the region’s most south easterly point, lies one of the most famous roads in the world.

The ascent of the Grimselpass from the town of Innertkirchen is 26.5km of pure climbing bliss (if riding up mountains is your thing), with an average gradient just shy of six per cent. Popular also with petrol heads, the twisting and trying Grimselstrasse takes you from 600m above sea level to the 2,164m summit, and past some of the most epic views in the whole of Switzerland – and the country is spoilt for choice. But just because it’s popular with motorised two- and four-wheel machines, it doesn’t mean cyclists can’t pit themselves against an immense climb, too.

Staying overnight midway up the climb, by the Handeckfallbrucke rope bridge, it would have been easy to make this our starting point for the day, but that wouldn’t be true to our task of covering as many of Switzerland’s best roads as we could.

Bombing down the near constant descent, with speeds approaching 75kph, the thought quickly dawned on us that we would soon be making our way back up this very road, albeit at a much slower pace. On reaching the foot of the climb, we turn around and start to make away back up the fir tree-lined asphalt.

“Our legs have already started to numb thanks to a handful of breath-taking kickers, but they are merely an amuse-bouche for what is to come”

Around an hour and 14.5km in, we pass our hotel and into the unknown. Our legs have already started to numb thanks to a handful of breath-taking kickers, but they are merely an amuse-bouche for what is to come. The trees open up to reveal a vast clearing, and with it some respite before the gradient cranks up in earnest.

The road follows a similar pattern up to its summit – tight, testing switchbacks are followed by false flat before it’s repeated all over again. The legs grow more and more weary and the air gets thinner with every metre climbed.

Although this may sound like punishment, it really isn’t, with stunning scenery on hand to take our minds off the aches and pains – this is why we ride our bikes up mountains. Dams, reservoirs, waterfalls and snow-lined apexes are on the menu, and our urge to find out what amazing view might be around each corner helps the remaining kilometers fly by.

A hot drink is the reward on reaching the summit, with the balmy summer temperatures of the valley making way for a breezy chill atop Grimsel. And with that, we have two options – a rewarding descent back to the hotel, or down over the pass and into Valais. On our mission to find more of Switzerland’s, there’s only one option.

A false flat follows (the gradient yoyo-ing between one and five per cent) for close to 3km, and then the real fun begins. Film buffs will recognise the road from a car chase in 1964’s Goldfinger, but fortunately the snipers have stayed at home during our ascent.

Seven switchbacks stand between us and the summit finish at the top of the Furkapass, and each is as energy sapping as the last. Melting snow from the peak of the Furkahorne has formed into numerous, gushing waterfalls, each providing a welcome but all too brief spray as we inch our way up to the summit.

As we round the fifth corner, the finishing point comes into view in the distance, and the lactic acid drains slowly from our legs as summit-fuelled adrenaline kicks in.

The Rhone glacier is a jaw-dropping backdrop as we power our way up the final 150m of climbing, and the view back across the valley to the ride’s starting point in Valais is a worthy reward on reaching the top of one of the most beautiful – and brutal – roads in Switzerland.

Vaud – slowing down the pace in Geneva’s lakeside lanes

After three days of riding some of the best rolling countryside and mountain passes that Switzerland has to offer, it is only fair that we give ourselves and our tired legs a break on the flatter terrain of Lake Geneva to finish our Swiss adventure.

The northern coast of the lake is flanked by the cantons of Geneva, Vaud and Valais, while France lays to the south. With the mid-summer sun beating down, the whole region has a very Mediterranean feel to it – quite a contrast to the German-influenced areas that we had spent the previous three days exploring.

Setting off in an easterly direction from the vibrant town of Rolle, we hug the lakeside road and the kilometers tick by with ease. It has been great to test the legs on some of Switzerland’s toughest terrain, but the more relaxed gradients of Lake Geneva are a welcome change of pace.

“With no set route on the agenda, and the sun hanging high in the sky, we delve into the maze of narrow, twisting lanes to explore this beautiful region”

We dip onto the cobbled streets of the medieval settlement of Saint-Prex, but it’s not long before we are back on the road in search for some wineries. The lakeside soil and warmer climes provide ideal conditions for growing grapes and with less than two per cent of Swiss wine drunk outside of the country, it’s a rarity to see it in the flesh.

After a 30km spin around the shoreline and we reach the village of Chexbres. The landscape is marked by vineyards for as far as the eye can see, the green shoots glistening in the midday light. With no set route on the agenda, and the sun hanging high in the sky, we delve into the maze of narrow, twisting lanes to explore this beautiful lakeside region.

While we’re not scaling mountains, that’s not to say that the roads surrounding Lake Geneva are entirely flat. As we explore the network of small villages, we soon come up against some of the steepest gradients we’ve faced in the whole of Switzerland. Unlike the previous days’ mountain passes though, these short ascents are more reminiscent of the kicker climbs that are common in the UK and are over before we’ve really got going.

On making our way back west to our hotel, it’s hard to think of a better way to conclude our search for Switzerland’s best roads. As well as being the perfect spot for a ‘rest’ day location, the canton of Vaud in the heart of the Lake Geneva region has enough on offer to be considered as a cycling destination in its own right. Like all of the other spots we’ve sampled in Switzerland, the roads are absolutely perfect for riding, while the lakeside views are spectacular, too. Switzerland truly has it all.