Showing posts with label alpine climbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alpine climbs. Show all posts

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Alpine Death Ride

After seeing my bike my landlord decided we should go riding together culminating eventually in this "death ride", maybe it isn't quite as bad as the californian version, but more than tough enough for me.

So we caught the train from Zurich heading south at 630am to "beat the rush", and avoid cycling through the hottest hours of the day. Both of which didnt turn out to be necessary, but as the train ride was a good 2 hours, it gave us time to relax, digest, and mentally prepare for the inevitable.
Susten:
Susten was the first pass we climbed, it wasnt easy, but since our legs were fresh, and the sky was pretty clear, the climb flew by. At the top
That says 2224 meters folks

Grimsel:
Grimsel was a long tough (15 miles, 6200 vertical feet) climb up from Innertkirchen. It was never really very steep, but it just kept on going, with 3 false summits. I had also eaten through my gummybears at that point so my energy was dipping
Yeehaw!
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Eating lunch at Grimselhöhe was one of the most satisfying things I even done even though it was only simple pasta with tomato sauce


Furka:
In comparison to grimsel, furka wasnt so bad, but we were already wiped so it crawled by. The road was pretty constant except for one evily steep stretch in the middle, and the false summit. Coming down there was a perfectly swiss scene of cows crossing the mountain road and blocking traffic
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Finally between Andermatt and Göschenen there was a memorial at Teufelsbrücke (Devil's Bridge) to the russian soldiers who died there coming up from the south to attack napoleans forces in northern switzerland.
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Susten, Grimsel, and Furka Pass Ride

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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Verbier First Alpine Ride

So I was reading lance's twitter and he said he climbed Verbier and it was a great post-flight climb. So, I, having nothing better to do, decided to go try it out for myself, then I could bask in glory as I watch stage 15 of the Tour de France and they all suffer through it.
I also was able to enjoy one of the best pizzas I have ever eaten. It was called Provencale, and it had gruyére cheeze, goat cheese, cucumbers, olives. The restaurant was called Fer à Cheval, definitely worth the sweat. Plus the decent was wonderful, I nearly overtook cars.

Verbier Climb

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Fast forward to July 19th, I managed to make it out to Verbier again to watch the finish, my photos are pretty terrible (I forgot my memory card); although, my view wasnt really much better. The energy though at the stage was incredible. So many people, 10s of thousands, had all descended on this little town of around 3000 to see the riders come through. It was fantastic. And to watch the riders crawl by one at a time was pretty fun as well.