giants of switzerland I part 2
In late june 2020 my wife, Judith had to go to Zürich for a business trip. So we decided to travel together with our car and add some leisure days to the trip. As we've been to the swiss alps in September 2019 and really loved it, we thought let's go in the same region again. Check out giants of switzerland I part 1 here. We stayed at the little town of "Meiringen" which is the perfect base for cycling routes in all directions and also has quite some other fun attractions to offer. The town is the birthplace of "Meringues" for example, there is a military airport nearby so you can watch F18 hornet jets doing there training flights regularly and parts of the Sherlock Holmes stories take place in Meiringen and especially the "Reichenbachfall" waterfall above the town.
Große Scheidegg
We started our ride through the valley towards the lake "Brienzersee" via some flat roads with very little traffic passing by the military airport. As we arrived at the lake we just followed the main road to "Interlaken" that follows the lake on the north side. A bit more traffic here but still a really good road to ride and as there isn't much of elevation it's really nice to get rolling before the climbing starts. At Interlaken we headed south towards the region of "Jungfraujoch" and the legendary "Lauberhorn" alpine skiing downhill. There was a short gravel section as we didn't want to ride on the main road all the time but it was good surface absolutly manageable with our roadbikes. We did a little detour to the town of "Lauterbrunnen" with it's awesome waterfall above the small town. After those few extra kilometers we turned and rode up towards "Grindelwald" from where the actual climb starts but it's already all uphill at that point. At the end of the village there is a narrow road which is closed for motorised vehicles. Only the post bus is allowed to drive on it. They only come from time to time and you hear them way before because they are playing a funny post-horn like melody on there way. Besides that the road is pretty empty. That was also the reason why this loop was top on our bucket list. The climb itself is always around about 10% of gradient and makes it's way up via some alpine fields with mountains and glaciers like the famous "Eiger Northface" just by your side. Once we've made it to the top we've basicly done all the work because from there it goes downhill all the way back to Meiringen. The downhill itself was beautiful but rather difficult to ride because of the narrow, steep road and the sometimes rough tarmac. We've seen quite some other cyclists do the climb from the other side, but we've read that it is the steeper side to ride. On the decent the weather unfortunatily got pretty bad quickly and we found ourselfs in a cloudburst and got all wet but it was actually quite fun to ride in the rain. At the last part of the decent you even pass by the top of the Reichenbachfall mentioned above. The whole loop with the little detour was about 90 kilometers with about 1700 meters of elevation. Here is our route if you like to try it.
Sustenpass
Our initial plan was to ride up the "Grimselpass" from Meiringen then the "Furkapass" the other way as we did last September. Then down to Andermatt and from there ride the Sustenpass back to Meiringen. This would've been a loop with around 120 kilometers and almost 4000 meters of elevation. We thought of maybe doing it in two days tho. But unfortunatily the weather wasn't all too stabile and we didn't have that much time either. So we decided to just ride up the Sustenpass as this one was completly new to us and the Grimselpass we've reached from the other side the year before already. Considering the gradient this climb is way more mellow than the Große Scheidegg. In the first half or more you are basicly climbing on curvy roads through the woods until you reach the treeline and you find yourself in that stunning high alpine scenery with the glacier to your side. The road runs over a few bridges and through several tunnels. There is even a waterfall running down over one of the tunnels. We made the mistake of not bringing our lights with us, but would difinitly recommend to put front and rear lights onto your bike when riding this road even at daytime because in the tunnels you see basicaly nothing and it's also hard for the other roadusers to see you. As we reached the top of the pass we put our jackets on and turned back down towards Meiringen. This decent compared to the one at Große Scheidegg felt like paradise with it's long ramps and not to tight curves. So perfect to go full gas. If you would decend down to the other side to "Wassen" and then ride towards "Hospental" via "Andermatt" for example then you could do parts of our route from september 2019, and ride the "Furkapass", then the "Grimselpass" and decend back down to Meiringen. So there is plenty of options for multiple pass routes around that area. Here is our route if you like to check it out.
