June 18th: Biasca to Disentis

 At breakfast this morning, we hit a snag. It turned out that our fee for the hotel did not include breakfast. “It’s 15CHF” said Arturo. I mistakenly thought it was 15CHF for the 3 of us so assented. It turned out that it was 15CHF for each of the adults and the child could eat free. If I’d paid more attention to the booking we would have bought breakfast the night before and eaten it in our room, but we had a big climb coming, so were in no mood to argue. 

With a breakfast in our bellies, we immediately headed up towards the Lukmanier pass. Arturo had a lot of trouble with his saddlebag, which was an old-style Carradice Lowsaddle, which despite its name didn’t work well for anyone under 5’ 10”. Jobst used a bigger Carradice Nelson saddlebag on all his tours but he was a towering 6’ 4”, while I’d had holes worn through my saddlebags because at 5’ 10” the saddlebag still sagged too low to the tire. There’s a trick to this if you have a long flap, which is to cross thread the closure straps but since Arturo had the standard version of the saddlebag that trick was not available. I’d given him a Revelate Terrapin years before (a bag I’d purchased used from reknown cycle tourist Pamela Bayley) which he’d declared to be superior to the Carradice bags so I asked him why he hadn’t used that instead. “I decided to go traditional on this tour.” He would solve his problem a few days later by threading the saddlebag strap through the saddle rails but until then he’d have to put up with the tire drag from the saddlebag. 

The Lukmanier was a climb that was new to me. It starts off well and gently enough, on isolated village roads that linked villages along the hill sides of the valley. The views were pretty and it was much quieter than the main road which could see below. The villages also had lots of water fountains, one of which had interesting sides that Arturo declared were for clothes washing. Once it got serious, however, the bike path would thread steeply along the hillside at a stiff 12% grade for700m or so, which was a stiff climb!  

At the intersection with the main road, there was a bench and Boen and I sat there munching on the last of our clif shots. The view was remarkable. We pushed on --- the road got busy, but we finally found a restaurant. It was too early for lunch but we got ice cream, which served as a pick me up. After the break, we wound around another set of steep bike paths before returning to the main road for the final push into the national park. 

Swiss National Parks are not to be confused with American National Parks. First of all, while the parks are setup for hiking, they’re not really setup for backcountry camping or backpacking, and the big difference from parks that aren’t going through a national park is that there’s a distinct shortage of services. The grocery stores, hotel/restaurants, and other services that you take for granted in Europe just go missing.  

We made it to the summit and found a National Park kiosk that was closed but at least the bathroom was open. Past that, we approach what would otherwise be a ski town, with a lake, a reservoir, and a tunnel. Remarkably there weren't any pass signs so we assumed that the pass was on the other side of the tunnel. We rode into the tunnel to discover that the tunnel was incredibly long. Stranger still, the pass must have been inside the tunnel, since halfway through the tunnel the road started going downhill and it became quite chilly. After we emerged from the tunnel there was a construction traffic signal and we used the opportunity to put on our warm clothing before descending further.

The views from the Lukmanier descent on the Disentis was remarkably desolate. It didn’t have any trees, just lots of shrubs dotted with rocks punctuated by rivers. I was impressed. At a river intersection we stopped and chatted with cyclists who were staying in Disentis and doing day rides. They happily took pictures for us and then we descended at speed into Disentis valley on the Oberalp side of the pass. 

Just before the trip I’d purchased “Cat’s Ears” mufflers for our helmets and I will say that these make an amazing difference in your experience of descending a pass. Gone are the wind noise. You can actually have a normal conversation at road speed, and there’s no longer any need for electronic devices like “tandem talk” or “tandem com” between Captain and stoker. 

We marvelled at the views, stopping every so often to take pictures. There’s a sting though --- just before Disentis the road takes a dive and then a steep climb back up to town. Once in town I stopped across the street from a Vogl and we bought snacks and while waiting for Arturo I made a call to the hotel and asked if they had room for us. (I knew they did since Booking.com said they had room) Not only that but over the phone they quoted me a better price than booking.com so I grabbed it. When Arturo showed up we rode over to the hotel just a block away and checked in. The bike parking was just across the street in a covered garage. The hotel had great reviews for food so we asked for a half pension. After showers and laundry we visited the Vogl again to buy more emergency food. Arturo also had to buy new sunglasses, having broken his earlier in the day. Paying Swiss prices for sunglasses is an unpleasant experience but in exchange he got multiple lenses, which would make any tunnels much less exciting than with his previous glasses. 

Dinner was scrumptious full of local flavor, and I was happy to go for the multiple course meal. After dinner we walked around what was obviously a ski town. I realized the Disentis could be a reasonable base for a week of day rides, with easy train access to Andermatt so you could ride Furka and St. Gotthard for instance, and coming back to Disentis via train so you didn’t have to complete giant loops. While Lukmanier would only be for hard core cyclists, none of the other passes in the area were particularly steep, and there was plenty of hiking for cable cars and even a mountain bike scene where ski lifts and gondolas could take you up a mountain for you to ride down. Those same gondolas and lifts, of course, would enable hiking should you get bored of being on wheels. I’d always speed by Disentis in the past from Oberalp pass so this was a useful stop. 

We made plans for the next day. I decided that an easy day the next day after the massive efforts of the past 2 days was called for, and we’d do the easy ride down to Chur and then the ride up to Lenzerheide, which was a place I’d wanted to stay at. It would backload the climbing for the day but Lenzerheide was always just the mild climb before Albulapass so I thought it wouldn’t be an issue.