We weren’t in a hurry today, only leaving the house at 8:06am. The roll down to Andermatt from Hospental was easy, and the ride up the cobblestone street to the start of the pass even that late in the morning was quiet and traffic free. Oberalp is by far the easiest climb in the area, and two days of hiking and given us sufficient rest that the climb didn’t feel at all challenging.
At the top, we took pass photos and agreed to meet at Disentis/Muster to decide whether we would rather do Lukmanier. The warmth even at 2000m in elevation made me relatively certain that we would end up riding down to Ilanz. I also realized that from Donat-Elms, we didn’t have to take the train all the way to Andermatt! We could get off 2 stops early, saving some money, and then ride down both sides of Oberalp! Coming back from Biasca, however, would be a longer train ride and wouldn’t give us that opportunity.
Riding down Oberalp pass was fast and easy. Unlike many passes, this one is designed such that you get a clear view of the road for miles as you descend, letting you plan your braking around visible traffic. We zipped down very quickly before the road flattened out and descended to Disentis. In Disentis we regrouped and ate some food—it was warm that there was no doubt that we were going to ride down to Ilanz and then take the adventure path to Bonaduz.
Riding down from Disentis to Ilanz is about 30km along the highway. We didn’t want it to get any hotter than it had to be because it was already warm and Ilanz was low, so we took the main road. At first this was fine as the downward trajectory meant we were keeping up with car traffic. After about 20km, however, we stopped losing elevation quickly, but Mark had caught Boen and I by that point so we just drafted him. Both the GPS and road signs kept trying to get us to try the Swiss bike route, but I knew from past experience climbing in the opposite direction that the Swiss bike path had a tendency to turn into dirt, while the road tended to be smooth. We did have to turn off and use the bike path here and there to avoid construction on the main road. I did notice that the last 5km into Ilanz the bike path started looking more reasonable and made a note to try it next time.
Once in Ilanz we stopped at the water fountain at the same time as several other touring cyclists, one of whom was dipping their head into the water. I guessed that they were from some cold country and weren’t used to the heat but I was wrong—they were from South Africa! It turned out that one of them was planning to do the entire EuroVelo 15 route as a fund raiser. They had started in Andermatt, and planned to ride to Chur today, and then to the Bodensee and henceforth all the way to the North Sea. They were going to immediately ride on, but upon seeing that we next made a stop at the supermarket for ice cream they joined us.
We weren’t as fast as they were at eating, but once on the bike we quickly caught them and then passed up on the climb—we weren’t carrying as much weight as they were, and we were much more used to climbing as well. The canyon ride from Ilanz to Bonaduz has been a highlight in the area, taking you away from the busy main road and snaking up the canyon. To my surprise it wasn’t very hot, and once past the initial unshaded climb from Ilanz actually had a reasonable amount of shade.
“I’ve always wondered whether there are places where you can get a good view of the river canyon that we’ve ridden through, and it looks like this is it!” Indeed, after we passed Versam, the road took us through a narrow spot in the river Canyon where a quick walk to a viewpoint gave us grand views of the valley and the other side of the river.
After that, the road descended swiftly into Bonaduz, where we followed the bike path signs to Reichenau-Tamins. Unfortunately, even though I’d asked if we wanted to stop in Bonaduz to buy food for the train ride, nobody heard me and we ended up at Reichenau-Tamins train station having just missed the train—the next one was not for an hour. Google maps told us that Tamins had an open grocery store where we could buy lunch, but when we headed there it was a stiff hard climb. In fact, once at the bike/ped tunnel we gave up riding and just hiked up the stairs and bought lunch and then went back to the train station to eat it.
The Rhine scenic train that picked us up was late, but that must have been according to plan. Because many of the stops along the route were “on demand” stops—passengers or would be passengers have to push a button at the station or on the train for the train to stop. Otherwise, the train would just barrel past the station. I don’t know how the SBB planners decided how much time to allocate, but by the time the train rolled into Disentis it was on time. The transfer to the Andermatt/Oberalp rolling stock was directly across the platform, so it was a very easy switch. This switch was necessitated by the requirement for cog railways to climb the pass, so this next train was a lot slower. We joked that we would have a race with the train to see whether the bikes could descend faster.
In fact, when we got out of the train and started riding, they actually had to hold our train so that the train climbing from Andermatt could reach the station first. We rolled down the pass and never looked back—the train never caught up to us. Once we rode through the summit gallery and the descent started in earnest, the train never came within sight. At the bottom of the pass we rode down the cobblestone street and back to Hospental—it was clear that not only was skipping the last 3 stops beneficial for saving money, it was also far faster!
Once back at home, we took showers, did laundry, and chilled out. Bowen and Xiaoqin returned but nobody felt like cooking, so we ate out at the same restaurant we ate at when we first arrived. After dinner, I took the kids out to the Hospental tower for a look see.
The tower (or Turm) had its own beautiful hiking trail around it, as well as stairs all the way to the top where we had views of the surrounding mountains. After the descent, the kids ran off with their much faster descending speeds and I was left walking after them. The path back to the house led past several residences, and in one of them there was man sitting in his backyward. He saw me and told me that my kids were fine, and that American parents hover over their kids too much and he’d been here in Hospental for many years and never saw a kid got lost or get into trouble.
We then chatted for several minutes about the heat, the dangers of cycling in the heat, and how the Swiss had rejected a referendum to keep the population of the country under 10 million the week before, which he thought was a good thing. “The crazies always want something. The good news is that here in Switzerland they can’t bring this up for another 10 years or so.”
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