Cambridge to Andermatt

Once more into the breach...but this time it's different!

After the "challenges" of the Danube ride last year, I really felt that I wanted to do a long-distance self-supported cycling trip which didn't involve nearly dying on multiple occasions. I thought about doing the other half of EuroVelo 6 which would have gone from the Atlantic to Budapest or maybe cycling round Spain...although Spain in August might have been a hot and dangerous mess.

I settled on cycling from the source of the Rhine all the way back to Cambridge. This is broadly the Eurovelo 15 route and (a) is downhill all the way and (b) Lichtenstein and Germany aren't likely to be as challenging as, say, Serbia and Bulgaria. However, this year the trip was going to be different. Rather than doing a solo, self-supported long distance cycle, I was going to do a self-supported long-distance cycle but with my lovely wife.

Two bikes, two beans and two people this time

I have often said "there isn't a friendship or a marriage which would survive two weeks of self-supported cycling". Let's hope that our return to Cambridge isn't just a short stop before the divorce courts...

In an effort to avoid some of the most egregious (and pointless) hardships of the ride, I upped my Booking.com game and also planned the route in much more detail. I was keen that we didn't end up either sleeping in some 1.5 star youth hostel or, possibly worse, grovelling along the side of a high speed dual carriageway while 18 wheel trucks thundered by. Neither of these outcomes would be conducive to marital harmony. Along with the solid four and above hotel bookings I've also planned each stage to be a little shorter.

I've even taken a spare pair of socks in order to up my sartorial game a little too.

As always, logistics dominated the week before leaving. We were going to do the same trick as I'd used on the Danube ride: pack the bikes in a recycled box which had been used to deliver new bikes to Primo Cycles and when we get to our start point in Andermatt, we would make up the bikes and then dump the boxes. As always Stephen at Primo was fantastically helpful. If you ever need a bike or help with bike stuff, go and see him. Support your local bike shop.

Two people, two boxes, what could go wrong?

We left from London City Airport on a BA flight. After my disaster with Ryan Air last year I wasn't willing to go through the budget air wringer again — although, to be fair, BA managed to screw up pretty badly last year too.

Much to our surprise, everything went incredibly smoothly.

Spot the bike boxes

The flight was on time and apart from having an exceptionally irritating family right behind us, it all went well.

No drama in Zürich either. Passport control was quiet and our bike boxes appeared relatively quickly. We had thought of taking the train to Andermatt but the train would have been four hours, three changes each of which would have required lugging a giant 22kg cardboard box around stations and across platforms. We took a taxi which was comfortable although somewhat funky inside.

The taxi of luuuurve vibe was somewhat unexpected

The hotel is pretty nice. It is very new and has a little bit of a feeling of not quite being finished yet. As always with Radisson hotels, there is always a vague Scandi vibe going on. Just a touch too much blond pine or too many uncomfortable but trendy chairs.

The only thing left to edge us over into a drama was making up the bikes. Once again, everything went smoothly, the bikes have survived and seem to be fully functional.

The bikes are ready to go.

Regular readers of this blog will have been waiting for the hotel to be a building site, the bikes to have been broken in half by burly Swiss baggage handlers, an outbreak of Ebola…but no. The first day was surprisingly and reassuringly smooth.

So…ready to roll tomorrow. Everything kicks off with what, it turns out, is the “Queen Stage” of the entire trip. Most of the ride is going to be pan flat but although tomorrow has 2,200 meters of descent (woo hoo!) it also has 700 meters of ascent which is the most we will do in a single day. Probably best to get it out of the way when we’re still fresh.

More cycle stories tomorrow and less boring successful travelogue. If you’re bored, here’s a picture of a Swiss Mountain dog who is at the table next to us in the bar. Nice dog.

All we need is a cuckoo clock, fondue and some Toblerone and it’s a Swiss flush.

Until tomorrow when it all kicks off properly.

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