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. 

 

Review: Spigen Pixel 8 Pro Case Slim Armor Essential S

 You can't buy the Spigen Pixel 8 Pro Slim Armor Essential S on Amazon. This case looks just like the Spigen Ultra Hybrid Case except that it has a tab in which a kickstand lives. That pull tab works in both horizontal and vertical mode, allowing me to turn the phone into a word processor for typing, or to watch a movie hands free.

The big problem with the case is that it interferes with wireless charging, because the tab is made out of metal (more sturdy). It still charges wirelessly, but not at full speed that the Pixel Stand 2 is capable of. This is not a big deal on a bike tour --- I don't bring the heavy bulky wireless charging stand and just charge with a cable. At home, however, it didn't take a month before I realized that I didn't use the stand much at home and would swap back to the Hybrid case.

Nevertheless, I plan to keep the case and swap back again when traveling. It's just too useful to not have to drag along a full sized laptop on a bike tour!

June 17th: Hotel Handegg to Biasca

 On tour, I have a policy of pushing the breakfast pace. If the hotel said they served breakfast at 7:30am, I’d show up at 7:20am. Usually, they’d let you into the breakfast room even if the hot coffee wasn’t available yet so you could begin the fueling needed to get you up the next mountain pass. I ate like I was eating for two, though neither Boen nor Arturo never reached the levels of hunger I reached during the trip, they ate too. Boen would have hot chocolate for breakfast today, but after this he realized that he didn’t actually enjoy hot chocolate that much and stopped asking for it. 

The climb from Handegg to the Grimsel summit is a series of stair steps, each step taking you to the reservoir/power generating dam up in a series. All through the ride on this day we would be passed by heavy equipment trucks. I’d assumed that this was normal summer road construction season traffic but once past the first set of dam I saw that they were building another dam and power plant! It never fails to amaze me that European democracies never lost their ability to build one amazing civil engineering project after another while California and the USA despite continuous water shortages and the recognized need for green energy cannot seem to build with the same scale the Swiss or even the Italians can.

 

Each level of reservoir was pretty and granted you relief as well as a nice view of another set of hotels and lakes, but getting to the top of Grimsel pass took my breath away, for the summit lake was almost completely frozen. I’d never seen it this way before in past years, and it really brought home to me how much late snow fall the Alps has had this year.

 

From the top of Grimsel pass you can see Furka pass a couple of hundred meters taller, with the big drop to Gletsch down below. I showed Boen the view but he showed no sign of dismay, knowing that the Furka was closed. “Look at that Arturo, it looks ridable!” Indeed, there was no snow on the road all the way to Hotel Belvedere. On my single bike I would have risked riding over the Furka, trusting my ability to posthole across the pass if needed in exchange for a car free ride. With a tandem and a 9-year old in tow that was not a possibility so we put on all our jackets and warm weather gear and headed down at full speed towards Gletsch. The descent is a delight, with every hairpin engineered by the Swiss to be almost flat --- you only need to brake on entering the hairpin and nowhere else, going at full speed between corners. 

Down at the Gletsch intersection we ran into a trio of cyclists on modern bikepacking bikes working on a bike. “Do you know how to fix STI shifters with a cable jammed in them?” one of them asked me. “No. Once a cable has broken inside an STI shifter the shifter is dead and gone for good. STI shifters are not designed to be taken apart and repaired. That’s why I use bar-end shifters. You can try flushing with lots of oil, but I’ve never effected a successful repair on STIs.” Not being able to help, we headed down Furka pass.  

I’ve only descended the East side of Furka pass only once, but I remembered it was an easy descent and I was right, with smooth corners and steady grades, it didn’t take 30 minutes to end up at the Oberwald train station despite the Garmin directions mistakenly sending us on a dirt path that ended up at the wrong side of the tracks from the train station. Arturo helped me carry the tandem up the flight of stairs and we were still 10 minutes ahead of the next train to Andermatt, giving us time to buy train tickets for this short segment. 

Arturo took a look at the train and observed: “Hey, all those sports cars that passed us earlier are also on the same train!” Indeed, cars that would normally also head over the Furka were forced onto the same train we were, and the train has the capacity to take cars through the tunnel! 

Onboard the train with us were several cyclists from other countries and a couple from Switzerland. All of them wanted to exit the train on Realp to minimize time on the train and avoid the climb from the Hospital train station. I told them that there’s usually a headwind from Realp to the Hospital intersection. “I’m impressed! I live in Switzerland and I don’t know about the prevailing winds.” “Well, we might be early enough that the wind is a non-issue.” Nevertheless, I’d take a climb over a headwind any day, so we watched as others unloaded in Realp and got off in Hospental as planned. 

Out of the train, we filled up our water bottles at the water fountains in town but neglected to eat luch at any of the open restaurants, reasoning that there was one at the intersection with the St. Gotthard pass road. Well, that restaurant was closed on Mondays, so we ended up eating our emergency food instead. “St Gotthard is a much easier climb than Grimsel. Just avoid the butt massage on the old road.” 

We rode up the hill. This was Arturo’s second day and he was lagging a bit, but tandems cannot slow down, especially since our tandem has a higher low gear than his low gear, so we had to maintain our pace. The skies were cloudy but not more than 2 drops of rain fell on us during the first part of the climb. At the intersection with the old road I neglected the bike path sign and kept plowing on into the gallery to the top of the pass, only realizing that Arturo was nowhere in sight just before the gallery. I quickly stopped and texted him not to follow the bike path sign only for him to reply that it was too late! I texted him that on the descent he was to ignore bike path signs as well and just follow the car road as far as he could. 

At the top of the pass it was too cold to wait so Boen and I quickly put on our leg warmers, arm warmers, and jackets and began the crazy descent that’s St. Gotthard. The appetizer is a series of tunnels and galleries that end just before one of the first two flying hairpins granting you exposed views of the high mountains around the mountain road as you descend into Airolo. On this pass and on this day we were as fast as any cars on the road and it was too thrilling to stop. We only exited the car road after we saw signs for the police station in Airolo and took the exit. Along the way, we had the opportunity to see the bike path and the crazy steep grades it took up the pass --- the climb from Airolo to the St Gotthard was clearly much tougher than the climb from Hospental. 

At the city limit sign for Airolo I spotted a garage and pulled to a stop to wait for Arturo, who took a good 20 minutes to catch up with us. In the mean time I did some research and found hotels in Airolo and Biasca. Once he arrived I pointed out that while Biasca was nearly 2 hours away it was 2 hours of descent, and we’d be able to start tomorrow’s climb up Lukmanier with ease. “I’m basically done for the day,” Arturo said reluctantly. We decided to go get some supermarket food for lunch first before deciding. We found a Coop just 5 minutes away. Uncharacteristically, the elevator was broken and we had to walk down 3 flights of stairs to buy our lunch. Despite that setback after lunch we all felt better and decided to ride down to Biasca. 

The descent was fast and an easy ride as promised, with us picking up the bike path only when the fun part of the descent was better. We’d picked a relatively cheap hotel right in downtown Biasca with a shared bathroom. But when we got there it was quite clear that Mondays were slow days and our “shared bathroom” was effectively only used by us. 

We walked to the pizza restaurant just 20 minutes away, obviating the need for an after dinner walk. Along the way, I saw to my amazement two intersecting waterfalls coming from the hills above us. “Hate to disappoint you, Piaw, but it’s clearly artificial. There’s two culverts above and they’re just aimed past each other.” It was pretty anyway.