Day 45: Wil to Wurenlos

September 1, 2013

This day broke down into just a few distinct segments. We set off, of course, looking for mythical Switzerland. After a while we had to admit maybe we had reasonably found it. As we looked around we could see villages nestled in green, Swiss brown cows, houses with half timber and flowers, and a well marked bike path, mostly paved.

Starting the day with some pretty unexciting scenes, excpet maybe the miniature cars.

Now, our rather sketchy route map showed a split, in which one could go to and around Winterthur or one could apparently shortcut by way of Kyburg. We came to an unmarked fork in the road, with the choice of going straight up what looked like an 18 percent paved grade, or along a gravel path by a river. We pulled out the GPS and decided the straight up was the "shortcut". A man came hiking down the hill, and confirmed that this was the way to Kyburg. It turned out to be 1.3 km long. The slope was just such that we could barely push our heavy bikes. Just a little steeper and maybe we would be at a standstill. At the top of the hill is the teeny cluster of buildings, the main attraction being a schloss built sometime before 1264.In 1264 the Habsburgs took it over, and the City of Zurich bought it up in 1424.

At first we said Oh, look how they are watering with cans. Then we realized WATER, an actual roadside service!!

Cows in the meadow, our favourite type of shot

Naturally we were a bit tired from the long push, and found a bench for lunch. A swarm of wasps then found us, attracted by our lovely meat and cheese sandwiches, so we beat a faster than normal retreat. Not fast enough, though, as Dodie got stung, again, in the same place! She is being brave, but it hurt and it looks terrible.

The retreat was actually uphill for another km or two, but eventually we descended.

Though our route map had shown Kyburg as being on route, there were no Route 5 signs up there. These route signs are pretty critical, because Switzerland features a veritable rat's nest of small towns and small roads. Its very tough to find your way through it unaided or with anything but the most precise map.

So we descended "blind" and worked our way toward Effretikon, which seemed to be on route. We were puzzling over direction signs at an intersection, when a road angel materialized from the pavement, as is their habit. This was Simon and a better equipped angel would be hard to find. Simon was a local who had cycled long distance (down the Rhine, along the Donau, in Albania), and was on a bike too. So, he knew exactly what we meant by Route 5, and with a little help from an iPhone app with the Swiss routes, knew where to find it. To make sure, Simon guided us most of the way, patiently waiting while we cranked or pushed up the hills. Finally he repeated for us the final necessary turns, and left us to it. And... we found it! There was no way on earth we could have done that without him. Thanks Simon!

So ended phase 2 of the day.Phase 3 involved going around Zurich. The Route 5 seems to go out of its way to keep you from being bothered by any services - like food, water, or lodging. To achieve this, it steers wide of most towns. With Zurich, the drill was to stay north of the city, while swinging around just south of the airport. So in fact we did not see Zurich. What we did see was big roads, airport stuff, and lots of light industry. The Swiss charm rating for the afternoon was therefore 0.0 . What we also did not see, even so close to Zurich was the aforementioned food, water, or lodging. On water, we had filled up at somebodys garden hose, and in principle we had bought food yesterday (plus one bakery treat at the one bakery we found, early in the day). But, Route 5 slipped up and let us see just one food service: McDonalds, near the airport! Probably this did not even register as a restaurant on the route planners' database so it slipped by!However some grease was just what my body was asking for, so in we went.Time was short, because of the other factor - no place to stay, so this needed to be something quick and small. That was a good thing, because they seemed to be askiing something like 10 francs for a Big Mac (Maybe that's about 10 dollars)and I don't think that was the meal. So we got one cheeseburger and small fries, 6 francs. Dodie said her half made her feel sick, but for me it hit the spot.

Feeling a bit bolstered was good, because shortly thereafter I got first one then two and three painful twinges in a knee. I swear, I was doing nothing (not speeding up a hill, standng on the pedals, or etc) to provoke this. I immediately slowed down and geared down, though. I did not want to find out hard way whether this was a glitch or a trip ending tear. What I did want to do was stop and let the thing settle down. But where to stop?

We were just getting ready to launch one of our desperate night rides, since the only camping we thought we knew of was many kms away. However, through some trees we spied what could have been a house., or maybe a shelter? It just had a too large picnic table in front to be a house. So in we swung and had a look. Shuttered windows, no signage to indicate what it was. No verboten signs ... sold!

So here we sit at the big picnic table, tent pitched behind the building. If the Three Bears do not come home, we are golden. And, the knee is gratefully resting. I expect it will let me know tomorrow if we stopped in time.

The road up to Kyburg. You can just see dodie up at the top of the frame. Roads never look as steep as they are, in a photo

Actually McDonalds has done little adjustment for local conditions, preferring to remain aauthentically crappy. (though overpriced here)

We see lots of cats in the fields, plus a few hawks, like this one.

A unique VW fountain. We had tijme to photograph this because the signs totally failed at this roundabout.

The closed up lodge. We found it just in time.

Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 2,971 km (1,845 miles)

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