Get It Over Wth Early: Day 1 - Andermatt to Fiesch
Most people probably think that jumping on a loaded touring bike for the first time in a year and then taking off to ride over a major alpine pass isn’t a very good idea.
We are not most people. That is exactly what we did.
It was a glorious sunny morning in Andermatt, but a bit chilly, like 4 c! On with the tights and the cold weather gloves!
We got off to a very good start (for us) at 8:30. The grocery store in town didn’t open until 9 and we didn’t want to wait around so we set off west assuming that we’d be able to stop at a store in one of the small villages between us and Furka pass to pick up some ‘road food’. Not sure why we didn’t do this yesterday afternoon when we got into Andermatt and had several hours to kill, but we didn’t.
The first 10 km of the ride was gentle up and downs, cows and sheep lining the road and very quiet traffic. And the two or three small villages we rode through???… locked tight. Oh well, keep pedaling.
The early morning light was beautiful on the mountains and was really outlining the winding road and switchbacks straight in front of us. Yeah! At the 10 km mark we saw a small red sign with an exclamation mark and the numbers … 13 km, 890 m. That’s our next goal, the top of Furka pass.
Even though a 13 km uphill is never fun, the Swiss do an amazing job of building their roads and the grade was never more than 8%, a good work out, but manageable, and the road surface was great.
We were doing very well until after about 10 km of climbing both of us were feeling like we really needed a refuel … except we had nothing to refuel with! The last 3 km to the pass summit was pretty slow but there was a small restaurant at the top, with an even smaller menu. A bowl of soup, some cheese and dried salami (for a small fortune!) and we were good to go for the downhill into the Rhone valley!
The Rhone side of Furka pass was even more scenic, and steeper, than the Andermatt side. Newton’s law of an equal and opposite reaction gave us the payback for the long climb … a really, really fun ride down swooping switchbacks on perfect pavement until we rolled into the main Rhone valley at Oberwald.
The day had really warmed up to the low 20’s and we had a bit of a tailwind as we road a few more km’s into Fiesch. We grabbed a nice and reasonably priced hotel, the Derby, a very good dinner at Des Alps (owned by a Swiss Alpine ski racer and former world champion Daniel Albrecht… aren’t they all!) and then an early night.
Still shaking off the jet lag and today was a good way to do that. There will be more hills in this trip, but none like today!
Had some Garmin issues with satellite connections and didn't record some of the ride. The daily distance of 68 km is from Kirsten's Strava
Nearing the top, and the end of our energy reserves. Dumb move this morning ... rather than wait 20 minutes for a grocery store to open, we took off thinking we would find and open one in one of the small villages on the way. No such luck and therefore no supplemental fuel for the ride up!
Lyle McLeodThat was, and still is, an impressive sight! I'd encourage you to grind it out and make it to the top of the pass, at worst it will be Type II fun, at best high grade Type I Reply to this comment 2 years ago
