Friday Photos and memories of Switzerland

This Friday’s photo is more of a Throwback Thursday shot. The picture was taken on the bike during my trip to Switzerland last year. We were heading south out of Gstaad to head back over the Col du Pillon back to our accommodation in Leysin, having already ridden out over the Route des Mosses in the morning.

This 50(ish) mile ride was probably my favourite day’s cycling of all time. Despite the fact that we started fearing that our plans would be washed out by fog and rain, by the time we got off the mountain side at Leysin, where we were staying, to our starting point at Ormont Dessous, it was clear and dry. The scenery was simply breathtaking, all day long.

We had originally planned a trip to Mt Ventoux but one of our group was already signed up to do the Cyclotour du Leman (sportive round Lac Leman or, as you may better know it, Lake Geneva) and we decided this sounded fun so went there instead. We stayed in Lausanne for two nights and added on two nights in Leysin to get a taste of riding the Alps themselves. Much as I still want to do Ventoux, I don’t regret the decision at all. All 3 days of cycling were fantastic as well as challenging.

The Cyclotour du Leman consisted of 109 miles of open road cycling round the lake. We started from Lausanne but there are options to start from Geneva as well. As you can imagine, the sportive provided some incredible views all day long. There were several thousand riders but, once out onto the open road past Lausanne, it thinned out nicely. We were able to take advantage of group riding in the early stages which bumped our speed up significantly but after a crash (not us) and an acceleration which broke our elastic band, we detached and carried on at a more leisurely pace through Evian, Geneva and back to Lausanne, finishing in a shade over 6 hours. I thoroughly enjoyed the day although I was very tired at the end (I don’t think the 12 hour drive the day before plus a second very early morning helped). It’s an annual event I would highly recommend to anyone – they even give you a jersey!

After a well deserved decent night’s sleep, we headed up into the mountains, stocked up with food and, after one particularly hair raising moment involving a three point turn and a thousand foot drop, picked up the keys to the chalet we had booked. We had a short but steep climb up the Tour d’Ai (or at least as far as we could get on road bikes) in the afternoon which provided more amazing views.

Day 3 was the circular ride through Route des Mosses and Col du Pillon. I had taken some time to plan this route as we wanted a reasonable length ride in the mountains that wasn’t impossibly steep. Easier said than done in the Alps but this seemed to work well and had the advantage that the two climbs are ‘known’ in the cycling community and therefore had kudos value (I know that’s sad but I’m shallow)! The two climbs involved were of about 5 miles each (ignoring the approaches) with average gradients of about 4 or 5%. This doesn’t sound much but it was hard work for a man of my stature.

What made it so, so worthwhile were the descents. The ride down from Mosses was just amazing. Probably 8 miles of pristine tarmac and very few cars, weaving around the gorges and mountain sides. Heaven. I could do that ride every day for the rest of my life and die a very happy man. The descent after the cable car station on the Col du Pillon was just as great although I was so blown out by the climb up (I was having a bit of a moment) that I didn’t enjoy it quite as much.

I’ve included a selection of photos from that ride below but, suffice to say, I would recommend getting out to the Alps and doing some cycling to anyone. It’s an experience not to be missed. I’m absolutely serious when I say that if I could persuade my family to move out there and find a job that would pay well enough to cope with Switzerland’s eye-watering prices I would move there tomorrow.