Greetings from Zernez

Now you may think that as we were only planning to do some 78 miles, today was going to be somewhat easier than our long rides through France, we'll you'd be mistaken because as we discovered the Alps are rather big and cycling up to and through high Alpine passes is challenging to say the least.

We got away from the Hotel Flyhof at about 07:30 after some more emergency repairs to Graham's rack. Our route took us east along the side of the Walensee into the Alps proper.

We slogged along through Sarga and Grusch into an astonishingly strong headwind at which point Graham managed to find the only pot hole in Switzerland and got the first puncture of the trip - this took some time to fix as the new tube also had a puncture and we managed to lose a vital washer which resulted in all of us on our hands and knees exploring the Swiss undergrowth until the thing was found.

Lunch was in Klosters where of course it had to be Jeremy who asked where HRH stayed when skiing. A rather disappointed waiter said he hadn't been recently which we all agreed was probably a positive aspect of the current round of public spending cuts.

From Klosters to Davos the climbing started in earnest. Then on from Davos up to the Fluelapass at 2383 meters. Now I never thought that I was going to be able to throw snow balls at Chris in June but the opportunity presented itself and how could I refuse. The hotel at the top of the pass was surrounded by snow and was a wonderful sight to behold. Getting up there was hard. I was feeling pretty flaky and breathing very hard by the time I arrived, Jeremy on the other hand who has been rather hiding his light under a bushel when it comes to hill climbing, had already been there for 10 minutes and greeted us with Apple Strudel and coffee - much needed. The trip down to Zernez was a very different matter. Long, high speed sweeping hairpins with no barriers on the edge of the road and lots of surprise roadworks just to keep you on your toes. Anyway, here and safely installed in the Hotel Spoel. Just had a wonderful plate of pasta and thinking about the challenges of tomorrow.

Todays stats:

Total ride so far  713 miles
Total ride today  78 miles
Average speed today 12 mph