Greetings from Weesen (well Fly actually)

We left the Hotel at 07:30 this morning, a late start after a fine breakfast in the splendid surroundings Grand Hotel Tonneau D'Or’s restaurant and headed off towards the Swiss boarder. Our experience of cycling in France has been tremendous. Everyone we encountered was as kind to us as the wonderful roads were to our increasingly saddle sore behinds. Mind you from the vantage point of a bicycle saddle, you get an appreciation for the scale of the country. With twice as much land as the UK and with a similar population, you can go for miles along straight roads through gently rolling green acres without seeing another soul.


From Belfort we headed west towards the Swiss boarder. As we went through Ballersdorf and Wittersdorf the terrain started to get noticeably hillier with a couple of good climbs giving us a hint of what was to come when we got to Switzerland.

After 40 miles we crossed the boarder and got to Basle at 10:00 for some coffee and very, small very expensive ham sandwiches. On the way into the city we made a quick pit stop at a cycle shop as Graham’s gears were starting to play up, the diagnosis was that his rack attachment had shifted and was starting to interfere with the derailleur, we caught it just before the ‘schicksalsschlag’ apparently, which sounds as if it might have been rather painful.


It was great fun navigating through the streets of the Basle, made a change from the long straight French roads. The Garmin came into its own, ‘pinging’ away at every corner and guiding us serenely through the city, then on another 45 miles to Zurich. We stopped for lunch in Frick and after a painstaking examination of the Swiss-German menu and some very puzzled expressions from the waitress, we ended up with what I think were four sort of ‘meat buns’ and a large bottle of ice tea, interesting combination…


Around Brugg we got our first real taste of the mountains with some exhausting climbs and some wonderful long 40mph sweeping down hills.

Without wishing to descend too far into national stereotyping, the experience of cycling through Zurich was as smooth and accurate as an expensive Swiss watch. The city is interwoven with a network of thoughtfully designed cycle tracks which resulted in an easy journey across the city and onto the South Western shore of the Zurich See. We stopped for a coffee near Horgen and then continued our smooth flat 20mph ride along the shoreline, through Bilten and on towards the Walensee at the start of which lay our destination, the Hotel FlyHof.


Got to the hotel about seven thirty, it’s a lovely place by the edge of the lake with grounds going down to the shore. We hid the bikes in the garden and got ready for dinner. It was an excellent meal with a lovely bottle of the local, light chardonnay.

As I head to bed, it is becoming apparent that the bodies are starting to suffer after all these miles, sore knees, bottoms and hands seem top of the list at the moment.


Off into the mountains towards Zernez via Davos, 2500 meter climbs will be something to look forward to!

Today's Stats

Total ride so far 635


Total ride today 130


Average speed today 15.7 mph