At the Zurich airport, I discovered that my luggage, along with the everyone else who had flown from San Francisco via Air Canada, had been left behind in Toronto at the transfer point. While an annoyance, I'd anticipated this in my trip planning, and so had not expected the tour to start until the 29th. I stayed with Shauna Eggers and Steve Moran, who joined me in 2012 on the BVI trip. Also staying there was Amy Platt, who was on sabbatical and traveling quite a bit.
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From Tour of the Alps 2014 |
The 28th, however, was stressful, because I was waiting for the baggage to show up. What I should have done was to just go to the airport first thing in the morning to search for my baggage and pick it up. Instead, I stupidly believed the airport employee and waited for deliver. By 2, I was a bundle of nerves and after helping Hina with her bike, and headed off to the airport. However, at the train station, I checked the website and found that my bike had been picked up by the baggage service. I fatefully made the decision to turn back.
Unfortunately, despite promises of the baggage service, my bike never showed up. I had a disastrous sleep experience that night. Booth Hina and Arturo had their bikes, so Arturo decided to join us in Zurich instead of Sarnen, which was looking very unlikely, and meet us in Zurich.
On the 29th, I woke up early, called the airport baggage service, and asked if there was any way they could deliver the bike by 10am. They said that it was impossible, but I could go pick up the bike myself. I went to the airport, grabbed the bike, and came back, which took about an hour and a half. At 9:30, I hurriedly reassmbled my bike, repacked my saddlebag, and headed off to the train station with Hina and Arturo, with a pack lunch graciously prepared by Shauna at the last minute.
At the train station, we bought train tickets, with me producing my passport to buy a half-tax card. When traveling with bicycles, the half-tax card gets paid off very quickly because the bicycle counts as another person for short trips, and costs 12CHF on long trips. I'd originally intended to avoid trains as much as possible, but starting with a Zurich to Meiringen trip effectively meant that just another couple of train journeys would pay it off. Since Arturo also had a half-tax card, having one myself would eliminate any hesitation on using trains to make the tour better. This would turn out to be a good decision later on in the trip.
We arrived in Meiringen at 1:00pm, and immediately rode off to the Lammi restaurant for a great meal to start the trip with.
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From Tour of the Alps 2014 |
We then visited the Aare Schlutz, something I'd ridden past several times in the past but never got around to visiting. Since it was rainy, the schlutz had lots of water, making conditions to visit it ideal.
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From Tour of the Alps 2014 |
I slept well that night, having had exercise, great food, and other worries eliminated not just through the events of the day, but also because Rosenlaui has no cell signal and hence protects you from distractions.
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