June 19th: Disentis to Lenzerheide

Boen discovered this morning that he liked soft-boiled eggs, and ate a couple! After packing and departing, we started with the usual fast descent down the Oberalp pass towards Ilanz. Along the way, we were overtaken by two fast cyclists on newstyle bike packing setups. Jumping into their draft, Boen immediately responded and we drafted them easily all the way to Ilanz, where we stopped at the town center to eat and wait for Arturo, who wasn’t used to high speed pacelines. The town had put in a new exit from the main highway, which was new to me. Arturo praised his new sunglasses, which had a tint that made tunnel traversals much more visible and comfortable at speed.

From Ilanz, there’s a climb over to Versam. When you first encounter the climb you might think that the climb on the official bike route is egregious, but if you look down at the main road from the heights you realize that the bike route is no penalty over the main road and the scenery is far superior, with rock canyons and gorges along the way to keep you interested. 

As we approached Chur from Bonaduz I was about to enter the main road when another cyclist stopped me and told me to follow him. When he showed me the actual bike path entrance I realized that I’d always missed it in the past because it was a sharp turn and a steep (but short) climb before descending into the Chur valley. The views were much prettier than the main road I’d always used and bucolic and peaceful in ways mixing with traffic never was. 

The weather was warming up and we’d all started sweating. There was a false stop at a parking lot with a huge Coop sign out front, but when we entered the parking lot we realized this wasn’t a supermarket but a Coop truck distribution depot with no retail outlet in sight! We chugged along the bike route for a bit before I found a café with shaded seats outside. 

We parked our bikes outside and walked into a nicely air conditioned café where we ordered drinks, snacks and ice cream. The place was run by an Englishman with impeccable English and amazing service. Not only did he provide us with food and advice, he also filled our water bottles with much needed ice before sending us on our way. While waiting, we booked the Hotel Post in Lenzerheide. The hotel would inform us that their restaurant was closed but there were other open restaurants within walking distance. The hotel had a swimming pool as well which was attractive. 

After our break, we rode up to the base of the Lenzerheide and then began the climb. I’d always climbed the Lenzerheide from Chur fresh in the morning when it was cool. Doing it in the hot afternoon after a couple of hard days and with tired legs from the Ilaz/Versam diversion was a different experience. Not only was the heat and tired legs slowing us down, the continuous stream of traffic both from tourist traffic and construction trucks incredibly tough. At one construction zone the signs said: “no bikes” followed by a detour sign off the construction zone into a village path. This provided much relief from the traffic but the diversion was steep --- I estimated it at about 15% grade. At one point we stopped to rest and discovered that we couldn’t get started again. 

When we revisited the main highway I felt broken. Arturo had gone on ahead, but at a water fountain I stopped, filled our water bottles, and stuck out my thumb. If you’re going to stick your thumb out in the mountains it helps to have a tandem and a 9 year old with you. It didn’t take long for a mother with kids to stop. “Can you take our panniers to our hotel?” “Sure, but what are you going to do with the bike?” “We’ll ride it!” I sent her an e-mail with a picture of our booking.com confirmation and details, stuck our panniers in her trunk, and waved goodbye to her. 

Without a load we did much better, but of course, when you’ve burnt all your matches you’re still pretty toasted. The smart thing to do would have been to ask for help much earlier than we did. Nevertheless, we caught up to Arturo just a few minutes before our trail angel sent me an e-mail saying our luggage had been delivered. The rest of the climb still wasn’t easy --- we were using up our Gatorade salt tablets at an astonishing pace, but we knew the ride was doable now. The traffic also eased up because it was getting late enough in the day that the construction crews were starting to go off shift! 

Arriving at the hotel, we’d gotten the keys and instructions to the garage and finished waxing the chain  just as Arturo showed up. We parked our bikes in the nicely enclosed garage and then proceeded to use the swimming pool. The hotel manager told us that the sauna was closed but the swimming pool was open. We were not 15 minutes in the swimming pool before she came by to tell us that she’d opened the sauna for us. We laughed, because after that sweltering afternoon there was no chance that we would want the sauna. 

We debated where to go for dinner. The hotel manager told us that the hotel was providing a free taxi service for us to go anywhere we wanted to, but Arturo advocated for walking instead because there was risk of rain. We walked to one of the two places that looked desirable and ate a healthy dinner, with Boen trying schnitzel and deciding he liked it enough to make it his staple for the rest of the trip. 

After dinner, we walked down to the Lenzerheide lake. There was a playground with no zipline but Boen enjoyed the balance challenges. It was a bit late for us to walk around the lake and the temperature had dropped quite a bit. The forecast was for rain the next day but only 1mm of rain over the Albulapass so I was confident we could go for it. 

I noted that during the 2014 tour we’d ridden from Filisur up Albulapass over to Il Fuorn near ofenpass in one day but the experience over Lenzerheide had shaken me --- I had never thought of Lenzerheide as being steep so now I questioned my memory of Albula being an easy pass as well! 

 

Review: Logitech Pebble Keys 2 K380s

 This year I left my laptop at home, relying on the Pebble Keys 2 K380s and my smartphone to write up parts of the trip report on my way home. The keyboard is much lighter than a laptop, and the batteries last long. The keyboard isn't as nice as my mechanical keyboard at home, but it's also much less expensive than a premium mechanical keyboard that can take bluetooth and lighter as well. The device pairs easily with my phone, but I had to find the settings on the Pixel 8 Pro to disable the onscreen keyboard whenever the device was paired with the K380s, otherwise the onscreen keyboard would take up too much screen real estate. This was a pain but after I learned how to do that (and for some reason I'd have to do that every time), I would happily type away. I'm not as fast, but much faster than swiping, tapping, and much happier using more screen real estate for Microsoft Word on the device.

The device frequently goes on sale for around $33, and I felt it's a fair price for something that wouldn't get used very much but is essential when you do need to use it. Recommended.

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!