August 29, 2019
Enveloped in Swissness
Zurich to Yvonand, with rail assistance
It's been a long haul from Auckland, NZ, despite the best efforts of the lovely Singapore Airlines crew. Arriving in Zurich, a familiar destination for us, feels like putting on your favourite dressing gown and a pair of comfy slippers. With bells attached.
The smartly-attired counter staff at the airport SBB (rail) ticket office are infinitely patient with foreign tourists wanting blow-by-blow explanations of their train ticketing. Those of us in the queue behind follow their example; there are no grumblings as the questions continue at the counter.
What was unfamiliar, though, was entrusting our bikes to the tender embraces of airline baggage handlers, wrapped only in thin layers of cardboard and tape. Previous cycling adventures have seen our bikes travel in well-padded bike bags. But these bikes, the Cannondale and the Rove, are on a one-way adventure of their lifetime.
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All is well though. The boxes roll off the conveyer a little battered but with their contents intact. Not exactly in one piece, that would've been too easy, but Tour Leader has them assembled easily in the time that it takes me to commute across the city to deliver extra baggage to a friendly cellar.
Mission Parkrun #100 (more on this to come) necessitates a train journey from the airport to Biel/Bienne. (What to do if your town straddles the language border between French- and German-speaking Switzerland? Rename it (in 2005) with both. Of course!)
So it is 2pm before we are loaded up up and ready to leave the platform on Day 1 of our European adventure. And what a joy this first day proves to be. The route is mapped on Tour Leader's new GPS device but we are following the well-signposted (well, this is Switzerland) bike routes 50 and 59. These take us along the eastern shores of the Bielersee and Lac du Neuchâtel on a series of off-road concrete paths, dirt tracks and occasional D roads on a warm late summer's afternoon.
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Remember the slippers? Cycling through the suburbs of Biel/Bienne, we're greeted by the sound of cow bells. This, my favourite Swiss soundtrack, accompanies us for much of our ride along the Bielersee.
It's with relief that we roll into the courtyard of Yvernand's Hotel de la Gare at the end of the day. Here, the kind staff welcome us and allow me to mangle their language. A beer and meal outdoors in the warmth of the evening encourages us to assess the locals'driving skills as they negotiate the nearby roundabout. Jetlag hits hard at dinner, though, so we head upstairs in unseemly haste, to the siren call of those downy Swiss beds.
Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 65 km (40 miles)
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