A few weeks ago, I completed a bikepacking route in Switzerland: The Hope 1000. It’s an interesting country to visit and I believe my method of travel provided a unique perspective. I’m an American who has occasionally traveled to Europe (Italy, UK, France) in the past and generally enjoys it.
Rural Switzerland: Lawn Mowers who Don’t Eat Cows
The route primarily traverses the foothills of the Alps through smaller towns. The first thing to strike me was how neat and precise forest management is in comparison to the US. Treelines are as crisp as a paper fold, and caches of firewood exist everywhere. I counted 4 pieces of litter in 14 days across these trails. Most of the forest is owned and managed by the federal government. In so much of the flatter countryside, there are roads everywhere. By this I mean there seem to be roads between every field and micro-town, allowing walkers and cyclists a level of route granularity that’s bafflingly inefficient.
After a certain level of elevation, my close-at-hand scenery became exclusively dairy farms. Switzerland has a complex direct-payment subsidy program that rewards these tiny outfits with around 75% of their income (based on elevation, acreage, land management, and eco practices). It’s a hugely influential system, naturally resented by leftist city dwellers. The machinery and effort these farmers put in, though, to maintain these landscapes is significant. I have seen people mowing meadows at grades and elevations you simply wouldn’t believe unless you see them for yourself. Cows essentially won’t eat grasses of a certain age/toughness, and the alpine herbs that make some of their diet unique require all of this effort.
Unfortunately for me, this meant that I had significant dietary challenges for much of the route. Beef is my favorite protein and the Eastern Swiss essentially don’t eat it because their income is tied to the cows staying alive. There’s no side dish at any restaurant that’s not a potato. The main dish is pork schnitzel. Maybe chicken nuggets if you’re lucky? Even the grocery stores are just the size of a small American apartment and almost exclusively stock pork and dairy as calorie sources. I expected great things from the Swiss potato chip company given their reverence for the tuber, and can only tell you that it was truly amazing how unpalatable almost every single one of their products were.
Most of us know first or secondhand that summer in Europe is mostly the entire continent being on vacation all the time. The rural Swiss are at another level. Restaurant? Closed. Hotel? Closed. A restaurant-hotel marked as open Google Maps? Definitely closed. The Swiss expect you to call and see if they’re there, I guess, but that wasn’t realistic for my mode of travel.
There are massive advantages to Switzerland as a location to bikepack, though, and why I selected it for the trip. Clean running water is unbelievably ubiquitous. In the dead of summer, a 2-bottle margin was sufficient for almost every distance. The train travel app and infrastructure systems are mostly great.
Some of the highlights of my trip were provided by an obscure social network ( warmshowers.org ) populated by cycling tourers. These are people who intimately understand what you’re going through and know you’ll want a shower first, then probably food, and then probably laundry. The hosts that allowed me to stay with them were excellent: A super-leftist Unix/Network admin whose eclectically decorated house full of punk rubber ducks and a soviet-era state-produced folding cycle produced the best cup of coffee I had in Switzerland. A kind family of 4 in a suburb of Lucerne, who’d (pre-kids) spent almost two years traveling the world by bicycle and (post-kids) were planning to withdraw them from school to spend a year pedaling to Morocco. They fed me curry, for which I was supremely grateful, given my diet for the rest of the trip.
My greatest single regret was underestimating my rate of travel when organizing Warmshowers hosts. It meant that 2/4 I had organized had planned for me to arrive at a later date, and so were unable to let me stay. My focus on the physical achievement aspect of the journey meant I missed out on more chances of personal connection that I won’t get back.
Bikepacking
It’s exactly what it sounds like. I’m a huge enthusiast of this method of travel stateside. It combines the best aspects of hiking, camping, and cycling together. My excursions into the deep, isolated portions of America with friends where we can carry comforts like beer and folding chairs to our sites for the night are some of the most fun I’ve ever had.
But as a solo, multi-week trek in a foreign country, I think it has some serious drawbacks. Bikepacking has a bit of a competitive and race-driven spirit. Routes have suggested times and metrics. They’re meant to be challenging distances between two points, not the most direct. When you’re exerting yourself at this level and then camping with minimal changes of clothes, you aren’t fit to sit down inside near people (much less at an enjoyable tourism activity like a wine tasting). The line between bikepacking and homelessness isn’t very clear – perhaps it’s just the quality of the machine you’re riding or the power level behind your credit card.
My ad-hoc meetings with Swiss people were excellent across the board. They’re, of course, naturally reserved in comparison to Americans, but I expected that. As a general cyclist, you’re background noise. But I was noticed and engaged with at a few distinct points where my heavy mountain bike was clearly not where it “should” be.
- A beautiful, delicate Roadie on the famous climb to Grindewald, who effortlessly passed me on the way up. I expressed jealousy of her Huge Cassette (entendre not intended) and she waited to congratulate me and briefly chat when I arrived.
- A mechanical engineer, Hans, who was exceedingly proud of his work for the likes of Nestle’s Nespresso division and Lego. He opened our conversation on the hand-over-hand climbing trail with a very polite “It is quite unusual to see a bicycle here” (“You’re a fucking idiot”). We spoke of raising children without dependence on television and how to handle retirement.
- A shirtless backpacker cresting a summit behind me after a gut-wrenching early morning climb was very hardcore. I had downed a pounder beer at 9:30 AM for calories and hydration (swiss farmers often leave fridges/cabinets/cold-water receptacles full of things to purchase via the honor system with cash or twint [equivalent of venmo]). He was armed with simply a paper map and a small pack on a shorter but similarly challenging route. There’s always a bigger man on the mountain. Right after this, we both chucked down the same ridiculously technical footpath, with me on an empty-stomach buzz.
I don’t think I represented the level of American extroversion and chattiness that people expected. This was partially by design because I find our volume level internationally to be profoundly irritating, but also because I felt like shit.
The Physical Challenge.
I took a total of 14 days to complete the route, with 12 being “par”. Per day, I averaged:
- 72 kilometers
- 2050 meters of elevation gain
- 5,000 calories of energy expenditure
A marathon runner will generally use around 2,600 calories for a race. Given, they do it only over 5 hours ; ) whereas my progress was stretched across 7 hours of dedicated pedaling.
Going up was as brutal as you would expect. With camping being the theme of the day, I became acutely aware of the amount of energy I had in my Garmin, cell phone, and everything else. The back 3/4 of the trip was “raw dogged” sans music to save battery after I ran dry early on, and I took fewer pictures to save even more. Historically, I’ve pooh-poohed the use of dynamos for bike touring, but I’ll be integrating one into whatever my next build is. I was hoping for deep introspection, inspiration, and contemplation. Instead, my mind looped around worthless songs and sentences over and over again, a black hole of blankness only interrupted by decision-making to manage water and calories.
Downhill was surprisingly intense. I pushed my bogged-down hardtail to its limits down hiking trails with stone steps. Managing traction across dew-soaked meadows, loose gravel, concrete, and the aforementioned cow shit was a challenge. Some of the fast carving down alpine roads were once-in-a-lifetime experiences. My brand-new tires are probably 75% consumed, and I burnt out a set of pads and my rear rotors a third of the way through the trip – my only major mechanical issue that required a scrambled train ride to a metro with a bike shop that would actually be open.
I had a fairly even split of luck over the two weeks. The first 3 days were cursed by rain. In combination with an unceasing supply of moist cow shit, my drivetrain and hygiene suffered. The final 2 days were affected by an intense GI infection, which is putting it very politely. It persisted for another 2 days of travel home via train and plane.
I ended up losing around 15 pounds. When I reached the endpoint Freddy Mercury statue in Montreaux, I took a picture before walking to the corner of a park and breaking down discreetly for a few moments. I’ve never experienced so much intense and near-continuous suffering for this long. I’m still processing it, days later. I don’t think I’ll do something at this level again.
I finally took a real bath in Lake Geneva for the first time in a week, shivering in the cool water as hundreds of tourists passed by and the sun began to set. It felt good.
For those interested in the scenery, a selection of images. Not a photographer, they don’t do it justice, etc. etc.
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Notes -
Thanks for the write-up, great read.
What was your playlist?
I had two playlists. One I've shared previously, which is roughly my "Best of: All Time" list truncated down to 100 tracks.
The other is a workout playlist that is not perfect but good for cycling:
Arist(s) Name Track Name
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Awesome read.
I didn’t own a car for ten years in South Florida and bicycled 2 hours a day usually.
I always dreamed of doing something like what you wrote. But also reading what you wrote I realize that I don’t think it’s up my alley. It sounds amazing - but I just want a relaxed trip on a road with a pub at the end of a few hours.
What was your most relaxed bicycling trip been ?
Thank you for the compliment, it means a lot.
I don't think we're too different here in my default mode. I enjoy exerting myself this way precisely because it makes the nightly beers taste so much better.
The most relaxed route I've ridden and one that I've enjoyed very much is this one: https://bikepacking.com/routes/chauga-river-ramble/ over 3 days. I could go even more relaxed, to be honest, and rely more on the road. I've considered trying to put together a route for the bourbon trail, and there's also two other bikepacking "gravel growler" routes that stitch together breweries.
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Hardo. Congratulations!
Did you exclusively go to the cheapest hole-in-the-wall farmer's pubs? Entrecote (beef) and cordon blue (veal) are absolute staples in traditional Swiss restaurants, and the restaurants like selling those because the margins are much better than the pork schnitzels.
Grocery stores will have lots of pork, but again, the higher quality cuts of beef will always be available. Yes, the deli meat section will have not much other sources, and small stores might not have ground beef (only ground pork), but there's always a random cut of beef steak. Did you get the chance to visit a butcher shop?
Come on, the Swiss love their risotto rice and their Italian pasta.
Yes, the vast majority of my route passed exclusively through these and mountaintop restaurants. I saw zero risotto for 8 days, and was unbelievably happy with one of the higher-end meals I had that incorporated pasta. I passed through larger towns like Grindewald and things expanded dramatically for the back quarter of the route.
I did not visit a butcher shop either. My cooking utensils were limited to a camping stove. To put it bluntly: I know this method of travel did not give Switzerland the chance to flex its culinary muscles for me, and that I missed out on a lot.
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Niiiiice. I’ll put it on my bucket list.
Is a GPS + phone + I assume relatively well marked bike paths really necessary?
I couldn’t go without music, I’d take a small low consumption mp3 player,. Music can really turn the dull and mundane into epic moments.
I believe a head unit is necessary for smooth travel on a bike (stopping to unsheathe your phone and find out where you are is a massive momentum killer) and I hate mounting my phone. Network connectivity was good most of the time, but not everywhere. The route contained useful POI notes as well for food, hotels, and shops.
My performance measurably dropped without it. I regret not loading my Zune or something, though a bluetooth adapter to the Shokz would have been a dongle nightmare. I won't make the sacrifice again, I'll figure some other methodology out if it's stopping more, a bigger power bank, or a dynamo.
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Nothing much of substance to add, but I enjoyed this quite a bit. Have done a few touring-with-a-purpose trips on pavement, would like to hit the GDMBR and Baja Divide someday.
I've fantasized about the GDMBR myself, and met people training for it out in Pisgah NF. I think what I've learned about myself is that my limit for routes like this is probably 7-8 days. Perhaps with friends it would be longer, but they do slow you down. Would you race?
I might try to throw down some big days, but I don't like recreational sleep deprivation, so not in a real serious sense. Maybe start with the Grand Depart, maybe not. You?
I've done a fair bit of solo travel both on and off the bike, never really struggled, but it's gonna be harder to schedule now that I have a serious gf. Or slow-play my hand and do it when I retire, there's at least one guy in his 70s on the Rigs of the Tour Divide series every year.
Done any interesting distance hiking? I'm contemplating a long trail (CDT or PCT) for next year.
Nothing longer than ~2 weeks and mostly off-trail linkups rather than named trails. I also look forward to @Rov_Scam's writeup.
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I'm in the process of writing a retrospective of my AT thru-hike, so keep your eye out for that.
I'll admit it's the long trail that interests me least (western U.S. supremacist, sorry), but I'll certainly read it. I do find the contrast between "generally close to towns and amenities" and "terribly routed trail with steep ascents/descents over awful terrain" to be fascinating.
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No, I wouldn't, for many of the same reasons (including that I know I couldn't compete). As you mention, it may be fun to leave with everyone else.
One of the people I met training for it was a woman for whom it'd been a dream of for a long time. She was a traveling nurse and so had accumulated the PTO, and was running through Wilson's Ramble with her male boss to get ready. Her bf got jealous and she'd broken up with him because of it. I never really figured out how I felt about that at the end of the day, but I have a family with young children and was able to line this up. ~40+ days and 2 weeks are very different animals though.
Woof.
I think I could manage faster than 40 days, but yeah, that's the rub. I've enjoyed interacting with fellow travelers on previous tours, so timing things to line up with the Grand Depart has a certain appeal.
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Very cool. I sometimes entertain an idle daydream about cycling around the Alps for my mid-life crisis (around as in around the comparatively lower elevation periphery, not around as in through). I'd definitely want a more road based route than that though.
I think that doing it in the lower parts is an excellent idea, especially stringing together hotels and mid-size cities. Do so on the Italian part as well to save money and eat better food... It's a great plan
What was the climate and weather like? Was it a factor in your timing? Obviously winter is out.
Yeah I'd want to complete a full circuit. Cannes, Nice, Turin, Lake Como, Milan, Verona, Graz, Vienna, Salzburg, maybe Munich, Zurich, Geneva, Grenoble, Aix. Peak Europe, minus the peaks.
You can't realistically tackle this route any time other than the dead of summer; the official race is in June. The weather was fantastic and analogous to an American spring. I had rain for the first few days, and then afterwards I was able to set up the tent without the rainfly almost every night.
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Sounds like an awesome trip. Bikepacking has always fascinated me, but I've never been brave enough to embark on a "real" expedition like this one.
I'm a bit surprised that power was such an issue. What kind of power bank did you use? For (American style) backpacking using a power bank to charge devices, then charging that when you have a stop with wall power, is a somewhat common strategy. At 30W even a 15 minute charge while using the bathroom at random chalet or ski-lift should make an appreciable difference. A reasonably compact travel charger should be able to do 60W now, though you might be limited in light weight banks that can handle that kind of power.
I know that drinking directly from alpine melt is very common, but I always used a Sawyer Mini when drinking from streams in Switzerland. I once drank from a stream thinking we were well above cow level, ran into a Chamois 100 meters up stream. I assume they can pick up E. coli or giardia from all the cows. Aquamira might be lighter weight and more compact if you are space limited. For serious GI problems I recommend bring Pepto Bismol when traveling in continental Europe. It's surprisingly hard to get in parts of the continent. Not medical advice, but, it seems more effective when combined with imodium (which is available) than either alone. Again, combine at your own risk, the directions probably tell you not to do that. IMO though, better than having a blowout on the plane.
I guess you were bathing in a touristy part of Montreaux? There used to be a beach oh the other side of Lac Léman in Versoix that I quite liked. It had a roped off swim area and a floating platform. So it's not that weird to swim in the lake, just location dependent.
I realized I didn't see your first paragraph. If you are interested in bikepacking I highly recommend taking the plunge on a 3-night route or something. It is still very hard - I would train at least a month or two beforehand - but a route that's rated a 5 or so on that site is doable with grit. Finding even a single friend to join you will make it a lot more fun.
Anything in particular blocking you or giving you second thoughts?
I've done some overnight bike touring and quite enjoyed it.
The main impediments are:
I realize these are not great reasons not to, but I honestly think I enjoy imagining doing it more than I would actually doing it.
I do quite enjoy casual cycling, but having to drive to a trail for real training is a pain, the roads where I'm at are too terrifying to ride on, and training indoors is the worst. We did do an overniter this summer without any sessions over 90 min in the month before. My taint was not prepared.
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Peptobismol and Imodium can be combined in all but rare instances, usually when you wouldn't want to take one of them in particular (think dysentery, not regular travel shits), different mechanisms of action.
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I was surprised about power being an issue and it was a bit of a self inflicted wound. I had a 10k mAh bank which is a lot. My phone's battery is old, and I came away deeply unimpressed with the Edge 840s battery life. I did use Ebike charging ports at restaurants sometimes. The euro concept of lunch was damaging to pace and time though. The German side was a 1.5 hour ordeal, the French side more.
I drank exclusively from faucets and filtered from streams only once. I think my infection could have come from a couple of different places. I normally have a strong stomach, I must have made a dumb mistake.
And yeah, I was right near what felt like the main strip. No beach but concrete steps into the water. Convenient to change into my unused bathing suit id carried with me.
I understand that mAh is the most common way to quote power bank size, but why do the manufactures insist on quoting it that way? Do they really run the cells in a 1SnP configuration? Or is it mAh per cell times n cells? Why can't they use Wh?
At 10 Ah, assuming nominal cell voltage of 3.6 V, and a 1C charging limit, that probably does limit you to 30W input banks. It's surprisingly hard to find banks that will charge at a full 1C though. A 60W+ charger still might be worth it, they can be pretty compact now. Then you could also plug in your phone, and over a one hour lunch, you should be over 80% on both the phone and bank.
I feel for you on the lunch situation. We once got trapped from 11:15AM-2:30PM in that area. There was only one hostess working a pretty decent sized floor and she decided to work it first in last out for a bunch of multi course meals.
It's very strange, given the high standard of living, but my anecdotal experience is that people from the US often get inexplicable GI things in the Franco-Swiss region. I had a friend who ended up hospitalized. She wasn't even drinking for streams or anything, just eating more or less normal stuff. I wish I knew what we are doing wrong.
You just get exposed to different pathogens than your immune system is used to, it's traveler's diarrhea (which can absolutely hospitalize you if you're unlucky). I would assume all the unpasteurized cheese or cured meat or whatever doesn't help in avoiding trace levels of them which will be nothing to a local but will thrive in an unprepared gut. If you want to avoid it, avoid anything that wasn't cooked before serving, and wash your hands like it's April 2020.
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