July 1, 2012
Of Kiwis and men with hairy legs: Disentis-Muster - Tiefencastel
I SUPPOSE there's no reason all cyclists should be the same. We come from different places, formed by different events. But in general touring cyclists are friendly, and keen to meet, and willing with tales of roads ridden. And then you find that's not always the case.
We were in a village shop, a small supermarket, and we saw behind us a man of about 30 on a loaded bike, a man who looked as though he'd been away for several weeks and, because there was a campground down the road, could be spending the night in the same place. It was that time of day.
"Hi," I said in English, which in this linguistically crowded area of Europe isn't a bad notion. I was going to add "What nationality?" and then perhaps talk about journeys planned and executed. But he grunted and looked away. It was a shame. Cyclists are so friendly that the slightest rebuff becomes hurtful.
I watched him make his way past the jams and down to the vegetables and on back up past canned puddings and the return run to the cashier. He was probably a sweet boy who was kind to his mother and couldn't pass a kitten without stroking it. But all I saw was a man with cheap and worn shorts, a yellow jersey which had survived too many storms and which now drooped over his backside... and hairy legs. That was the decider. Hairy legs are a sign of mental depravity on cyclists and I present this man as my evidence. He will, for his incivility - and his hairy legs - go the way of yesterday's Harley-Davidson riders. I can be cruel when upset.
But how different all this was from two Kiwis, New Zealanders called Seerah and Indy. Or Sarah and Andy, written down. They were on their first tour, from Paris to southern Italy and then to Greece. After that they will fly back to England and return to New Zealand for good.
"I've not been cycling long," Andy said, his face bright with enthusiasm and satisfaction at what he had achieved. "I was working between Manchester and Liverpool, in the UK, and people there were cycling to work and so I joined them. And then I got the bug."
Andy's visa came close to expiring so he decided on this ride after reading a book of a journey along the same route. Sarah, whom he met in Brazil on a bus-and-backpacking trip, was working in Australia when the summons arrived to join him.
"I'm even newer to it than Andy is," she said with a rueful smile, "but I'm really enjoying it." She is tall and lean, inquisitive and smiling, with little white tips to her teeth. This morning they set off on their first col, turning left out of the camp-site as we turned right. They therefore rode up for hours whereas our route, repayment for all the climbing of the past week, rolled downwards for two hours.
It was a lovely ride on a summer Sunday, starting earlier than most of Switzerland chose to leave its bed. The sun warmed its way over the valley and settled on a covered bridge, wooden,
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
now a national monument which we might otherwise have missed while concentrating on roadworks on the new road.
Just as the traffic began to flow, we turned on to a secondary road on the other side of the valley and sweated casually through hillside villages with steep-roofed churches and municipal fountains. We sat by a pool and plunged our hands, mitts and bottles into icy water which had flowed down the mountain. Our road narrowed and bucked and turned through stone arches cut where the valley walls had protruded on to the road.
And then it was all over. Our idyll ended when we reached a busier road in a village in which nothing moved but the traffic. The power lines increased, too. They are everywhere in Switzerland, running beside mountains and over them. It's a shame. "If someone landed here from outer space," Steph said, "he'd conclude that the country was held together by string."
One busy road led to a still busier one. It is how Switzerland works, because of the valleys. Tunnels on this new and final road were closed, for the most part, to cyclists. That was no great loss but the alternative did entail our climbing high above the road on what must once have been the original track.
"Can you imagine how this road must have been before the new road was built?" Steph asked. Whereupon round the corner came a bright blue car that could have come straight from the pages of Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang. I was pushing upwards on a slight corner, not as far right as I might have been. I heard the car clanking before I saw it. It was descending slowly on huge thin wheels above which polished fenders protruded like huge eyebrows. I waved in apology for being where I shouldn't have been and the four occupants, grinning to burst, waved back to thank me for being there at all!
Tonight we are in Tiefencastel and we have A Special Plan. More after a night's sleep.
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |