Prologue: Every journey needs a concept. A reason. It may be something trivial like "I'll take the bike for a spin around town to test the new derailleur" or something of a more utilitarian nature like "I've got to get to Aunt Bertha's funeral". Either way, there's a reason why you want to do it. When cyclo-touring, the reason is often only to see the nice sights along the road and to test yourself to find out if you're capable of managing the hardships a particular route may offer. The riding itself is the goal. With this outlook, the focus shifts from finding "nice places to visit" to finding "nice roads to ride". Rather than finding nice "spots" and more-or-less ignoring the intervening stretches like you do when riding a faster vehicle, you want to find a continuous "band" of interesting/scenic/challenging/fun roads. When you finally do arrive at your overnight destination, you're often too tired (or have to do laundry, look for working phones, fix your bike) to appreciate any particular sights that this place may have to offer. When Richard Freytag and I started planning this year's recumbent tour, the somewhat obnoxious idea of touring Switzerland on the outside came up. We liked it, although it was soon clear that we would not manage the complete round in the time we had on our hands so we decided to go for a semi-circle and save the rest for later. After contacting Andreas Fuchs (from the HPV mailing list) in Bern for help with some practical details, it was decided that we would start in Bern and thus get a couple of days of riding in Switzerland before entering France.

We met up in Bern on Saturday the 28:th of May. My train got in first so I'd assembled my bike and had a bite to eat before Richard showed up. While I sat at the "Rendez-vous" spot in the station hall, on my comfortable bike and waited, I was accosted by two people. One was a sad-looking Jehova's Witness who tried to hand me a gruesome-looking pamphlet in German and the other was a man who explained that he, too, had a recumbent, a Lightning P-38. I was delighted and assumed that he must know the two Andreases (Fuchs and Weigel) on the HPV list since they both ride P-38's, but he did not. He did, however, have two other friends with Lightnings. Bern must be a regular hotbed of recumbency.

Eventually, Richard arrived. While he was finishing putting his bike together, Andreas Fuchs showed up and took us to a warehouse where he had arranged for us to store our transport boxes. He then guided us to the youth hostel and took us to a nice restaurant for dinner.

Sunday, May 29th, Bern to Yverdon (~90 km, ~500 m climbing). We started out in a light drizzle on Sunday morning to find Andreas' home and to look at his HPVs (a Leitra and a Lightning P-38 which had unfortunately been damaged in a crash recently). We chatted for a while and then Andreas Weigel (also on the HPV-list) showed up too, to take us for a tour around town and to show us a Lightning X-2 which was a very impressive (fully faired) machine. He then directed us out of town and we set out on the bikepaths out of Bern.

By this time the raining had stopped and the ride was nice and uneventful except for Richard continuing last year's tradition of getting a flat on the first day. The weather was warm and the traffic was light. Pleasant riding. We had lunch in the old town of Murten and continued to Yverdon where we stayed in the youth hostel.

The only "dramatic" thing that happened was that I dropped my camera at the roadside when I'd stopped and a family in a car saw this and flagged us down a bit down the way to hand it over. Oh, and in Yverdon I had dinner of horse steak. I figured I would be needing more horsepower soon...

Monday, May 30th, Yverdon to Les Rousses (~70 km, ~900 m climbing). We got a bit of a late start because Richard had some business to take care of. We had lunch at a nice restaurant along the way and continued up past Orbe to the Vall� de Joux. Riding along the valley the rain started and followed us the rest of the way to Les Rousses where we found a hotel that would take us in (most were closed, this being off-season). We had a very good dinner at a nice restaurant and Richard got his first sampling of French Cuisine. He was not disappointed.

Tuesday, May 31:st, Les Rousses to Annecy (104 km, 920 m climbing). We did a brief climb to the top of the range before starting the drop down towards Bellegarde. A small road we'd not originally planned to take turned out to be a very nice ride down the valley. From Bellegarde to Annecy the terrain was rolling and the traffic heavier but we made good way. Unfortunately, the youth hostel turned out to be located on a mountain, 200 m above town, a climb we would have been happier without. "Dinner" was instant hot chocolate and Japanese seaweed crackers, since we were not in the mood to return into town.

Wednesday, June 1st, Annecy to Beaufort (70 km, 630 m climbing). We left Annecy along the northern shore of the lake and avoided most of the traffic until we reached the end of the lake where we were routed onto the main road again. Lunch at Faverges where the tranquility of the town was only broken by the farmer driving his tractor back and forth between his farm and fields, straight through the town, towing a tank with semi-liquid pig manure. Can you say aromatic?

Along the valley to Albertville of Olympic fame (last year we rode close past Lillehammer, I wonder what's next? Lake Placid? Sapporo? Grenoble?). Then we started the climb to Beaufort. A bit humid but otherwise not particularly hard (in our low gears). We stayed at a small hotel in Beaufort and had an excellent dinner in their restaurant. The local cheese (Beaufort) proved particularly tasty. Recommended, but make sure you get the summer variety (Beaufort d'�t�) since the winter variety is much tamer.

Thursday, June 2nd, Beaufort to Seez (59 km, 1370 m climbing). We climbed out of Beaufort and up to the Barrage de Roselend, then further up to the Cormet de Roselend where we sat between the snowdrifts and enjoyed the exhiliration of our first "real" pass on the 'bents. But it got cold so we wolfed down our lunchpacks and headed down to Bourg St Maurice. The ride down was fast, enjoyable and uneventful. Richard passed a pair of motorcyclists in a hairpin - his SWB could turn better than they...

We skipped the edge of Bourg and went straight to Seez at the foot of the Petit St Bernhard pass. There we found a) that the pass was still closed. Bummer. b) that all hotels were either closed or full. Double bummer. We eventually got a room at the youth hostel (which was open but completely empty, this being the lowest of all low seasons) and an old lady at a gas station told us that the pass *might* open the next day since the official opening date was Saturday so they'd probably finish the work by Friday afternoon.

The l'Olympique restaurant in Seez served an excellent dinner. The only downside was that the Beaufort on their cheesetray was of the d'hiver variety.

Friday, June 3rd, Seez to Aosta (92 km, 1350 m climbing). We braved all the pessimists and set out up the hairpins. "Lunch" at the only open place in La Rosiere (snacks and drinks only) and then on up. A couple of oncoming motorcyclists waved at us to turn around but we persisted. At the old hospice by the pass a small crowd had gathered to watch the work and try to get across. A track over the snowbanks allowed pedestrian crossing but no easy passage on any kinds of wheels. And in the road the work was still going on. The French had done their part up to the borderline and then gone home, leaving a threshold of about 2' which the Italians were shaving off a bit at a time by running a snowblower on treads back and forth.

We watched some motorcyclists push their steeds across while the snowblower was turning around at the ends of its runs, then we decided to go for it. Richard simply picked up his entire bike (panniers and all) and carried it on his shoulders over the snowbanks. I rode mine through the deep puddles of slush that had accumulated on the roadbed on the French side since there was no drainage and then pushed it over the snow to the bare ground on the Italian side. A bit of snow doesn't stop a Swede.

Down the hairpins into Italy and back into warmth. Soon we had to take off the layers of extra clothing we'd donned at the top. The riding was fun and uncrowded until we got to the road junction where we joined the traffic to/from the Mt Blanc tunnel (Courmayeur - Chamonix, 11 km, bikes not allowed) and got our first taste of Italian traffic. A couple of Polizia Stradale flagged us in to look at our bikes. They asked if we'd ridden them through the tunnel (obviously we were a pair of Kamikaze pilots) and seemed no less dubious when we explained that we'd come over the (closed) pass.

In Aosta we drew a quarter-million lire each from a Bancomat but immediately squandered 170,000 of it on dinner (at a roadside restaurant that were out of Minestrone) and a hotel room (next to the main road and with a traffic light right under our balcony).

Saturday, June 4:th, Aosta to Biella (102 km, 680 m climbing). Down the valley from Aosta one has few route choices. Autostrada (toll-road, bikes prohibited) or "normal" road. It seems Italians don't like paying for riding the Autostrada. The toll-free road was crowded. One of Richard's cleats was coming loose so we stopped at a sports store for spares. While he was fidling around with that, some guys from a local garage came over and insisted that we come and pose for pictures with them and their friends/families. We're getting notorious.

A bit before Ivrea we could have turned up into the hills to cut across to Biella. We should have done this, despite the road looking steep on the map. Because the road we did choose, after Ivrea, turned out to be the Saturday-night racetrack for the local motorcyclists. While I'll happily concede that a Ducati is a beautiful machine and their "desmo" engines are wonderful pieces of engineering, by the third time the same Ducati rider roared past me up that road, I was getting really annoyed.

At one hairpin the crowd of admirers were gathered, complete with "molls" in leather outfits. They regarded me in dumbfounded silence as I crept past at 5 km/h and I was silently thinking up insults in "pig Italian" in case the usual tirades of Latin ridicule would start pouring out. Luckily, they were too astounded to even giggle and this was fortunate for me since I doubt I would have survived blurting out Un vero uomo non a besogno a'll motore or La piu grande il motore la piu piccolo il potenza to a crowd of italian motorcyclists.

In Ivrea we stayed at a fancy hotel (the only one we could find) and dined at a pizzeria since the only open "real" restaurant looked like it was unlikely to accept us on a Saturday night in our cycling attire. Sunday, June 5:th, Ivrea to Vedano-Olena (98 km, 580 m climbing). This day we'd planned to go to Como but the traffic and the roads got the better of us. It seems all the Ginos and Ginas were out on the first nice Sunday ride for the summer this day. Cars, cars, cars and no shoulders. By Verano we got confused by the lack of difference between the "through" roads as found on my maps and the "local" ones which were often bigger. After asking for directions we finally got back on the right track but decided to give in for the evening when we found a hotel in a small town called Vedano-Olena, just south of Verano.

In the restaurant we encountered a family group of an ex-patriate American artist, Anne Parisi and her son + his girlfriend who were out to celebrate the birth of a grandson/nephew. They invited us to share their table for dinner and we had a very interesting conversation, far too late.

Monday, June 6th, Vedano-Olena to Colico (87 km, 510 m climbing). Out of Vedano we had no problems finding our way to Como but there we squandered a lot of time vainly looking for a laundromat. Our plan had involved washing our clothes at the youth hostel but that was obviously out since we'd missed getting there in the evening before. Eventually we gave up and rode out along the shore of the Lago di Como. At Bellaggio we took the ferry across the other arm of the lake and continued up to Colico where we stayed at a lakeside hotel. Dinner was mediocre. Hotelroom laundry in the bidet...

Tuesday, June 7th, Colico to Tirano (75 km, 350 m climbing). A pure "transport stretch". Up the valley with minimal climbs. Lunch in Sondrio where a group of females giggled at the sight of my drying underwear strapped all over the rear of my bike.

In Tirano we managed to find better maps of the Stelvio which was a relief since the ones I'd brought from Sweden were a bit too crude for a climb that slow. We stayed at the Hotel Bernina and at this, the very last possible moment, Italian cooking finally managed to convince Richard that it could compete with the French. A very good dinner, but quite pricey, too. Oh, well.

Talking over our future plans in the hotel room, things looked a bit bleak. We were a half day behind schedule and if we were to only ride up to Bormio the next day (getting a half-day's rest before the Stelvio) we'd be pressed for time to make it back to Bern in time for my train home. So in the end we decided to make an "all or nothing" attempt in the next day. We'd go to Bormio for lunch and take the Stelvio in the afternoon. That way we'd be able to go via trains to Andermatt and ride over Furka/Grimsel for a bit of more cycling later, while if we waited at Bormio we'd have to go all the way around the Alps to the north via trains to make it in time to Bern.

Wednesday, June 8th, Tirano to Stelvio (66 km, 2430 m climbing). The day started out from the Hotel Bernina at 9. We bought another map at the bookstore (for future use) and set off for the "big one". The proprietor of the hotel had told us how to avoid the worst traffic for the first part of the climb up the valley but about 1/3 of the way to Bormio we had to go back into that awful Italian traffic. Just when we thought we'd reached the level of Bormio so the rest should be easy riding up the valley, it turns out that we'd been climbing 10% grades to get over the future hydroelectric dam. After the dam we lost nearly 100 m which we then had to climb again before reaching Bormio where we had lunch of pizzas before continuing the climb. We'd counted on finding somewhere to refill our waterbottles along the main road through town but this proved wrong so when we reached the crossroads where the Stelvio road branches off from the Livigno one, I unslung my panniers and returned into town with all our waterbottles. I eventually found a fountain with water a guy assured me was drinkable so I filled up with this and headed back up. Meanwhile, Richard had slung my panniers on top of his and was slugging it up the hill. He was doing pretty good and it took me 100 m of climbing before I caught up with him. Then, of course, I had to shoot a picture of him with all this stuff on his bike.

The further ride itself was uneventful but naturally lots of hard work. The tunnels and galleries were unpleasant to go up in at low speeds and one particularly unnerving moment was when we met a big frontloader tractor that was so big it filled the entire tunnel with its scoop. Luckily, it came out of the narrow section of tunnel just before we got there. The switchbacks seemed endless.

The last bit of the climb, from the Santa Maria (Umbrail) pass to the Stelvio, the wind started getting really cold and the temperature had dropped to 0� C so we stopped to put on our windbreaker jackets. Up to there the day had basically been a scorcher but with snowbanks on both sides of the road and the sun starting to set, the chill got noticeable. I was starting to feel tired so I stopped about 150 m under the top to munch some chocolate and rest a bit but Richard continued undaunted.

In some places I saw that the melting snowbanks left lots of water on the roadbed. I counted myself lucky that I did not have to cross those patches in sub-zero temperatures.

When I finally got to the top I had to loop around for quite a while before I found Richard. He'd got so carried away with this climbing business that he'd just continued up to the highest hotel of them all, the Tibeth�tte. We left our stuff there and had an excellent dinner down at the Stilfserjoch Hotel. We looked for Jobst's picture in that dining room but we could not find it, nor did the staff know what we were talking about when we asked. Maybe we'd got the name of the place wrong. It was a bit too crowded at dinnertime for us to go around examining all the photos in detail. Thursday, June 9:th, Stelvio to Zernez (19 km riding, 35 km bus, no climbing). The next morning we woke up to a snow-covered landscape outside our window. Over 10 cm on the ground and more coming down all the time. We had our breakfast and hung around, waiting for the snowing to stop. After a couple of hours, the fog lifted briefly to show us that the road had changed color to black. The snow-plough must have passed! We got on our bikes and dragged them through the snow to the road and set off down it, only stopping to buy the obligatory Stelvio sticker in the kiosk and take a couple of pictures. The descent was miserable, that's the only word for it. Cold and absolutely no sights beyond the next hairpin. We kept our speed down both from fear of ice, lack of vision and sheer cold!

At the customs house by the Santa Maria junction we stopped to check that the road was clear and then continued the descent. A bit down the valley the snow turned to sleet, then to rain. My thermometer told me it was +2� C. They say you can't get frostbite unless it's below 0�. Maybe not, but my thumbs definitely felt like they were going to fall off!

After a while, the road turned to gravel and a bit down this I got my first flat EVER on the 'bent. Finding (sort of) shelter in the lee of a roadside emergency hut, I started fixing it. I couldn't find my spare tubes (had I misplaced them somewhere along the way?) so I had to try and patch it on the spot. Yeah, right! How long does rubber cement need to set in +2� C rain? Fearing that the patch would be insufficiently cured (and with brain foggy from cold) I only inflated the tire to a fairly low pressure and rode off. 150 m later I got a snakebite flat...

That was definitely a major low. I was too cold to stop again so I took off my Neoprene booties (to prevent them from getting ruined on the gravel) and started to walk down the road to try and re-gain a bit of heat. Another few hundred meters down a house appeared. A Gasthaus - an inn. Civilisation!

A large bowl of hot soup and some fried chicken later I sat in their tiled hallway and fixed my flat again (this time finding the spare tube and inflating it really well) and we could finally roll down to the town of Santa Maria.

By now our schedule was shot to pieces and there was no way we'd have time to ride the Ofen pass to Zernez that night. Since our deadline was closing in on us and the weather the next day threatened to be the same, we decided to gamble on it being better further west and a day later so we persuaded a busdriver to let us bring our bikes on the bus to Zernez where we stayed for the night. Total riding in the entire day: 19 km...

Friday, June 10th, Zernez to Hospental (14 km riding, 162 km train, no climbing). Next morning we got on the train and shipped ourselves (+bikes) via changes at Samedan, Reichenau and Disentis to the Oberalppassh�he. We chose to get off the train there and ride into Andermatt since the rain had (mostly) subsided and the descent could serve as a form of compensation for the miserable one the day before. That straight section before the switchbacks start is a tremendous stretch of road and my speedometer logged me at a max speed of 70.0 km/h before I had to start braking for the hairpins.

Into Andermatt and through to Hospental in no time. Quick check-in at the youth hostel. Then came the shock: Furka, Grimsel and Susten were all snowed over! The only ways out were south to Italy (St Gotthard), north to G�schenen (Teufelsbr�cke) or back east where we came from (Oberalp). Nor would going west through the train tunnel to Oberwald help since the only way from there would be S/SW to Brig and we didn't have time to go around towards Montreux to attempt a crossing there. Gloom!

Saturday, June 11th, Hospental to Interlaken (42 km riding, 130 km train, no climbing). There was not a whole lot to do. We had to be back in Bern by Sunday so we got on the trains again. Out of sheer cussedness, we decided to ride a "horseshoe" to get around to Interlaken to re-join our planned route.

We rode our bikes down the Teufelsbr�cke serpentines to G�schenen. The road was hidden in the mist and there was no way to see beyond the next hairpin. It was a very eerie feeling to know that the road you're riding on sits on a man-made ledge over the side of the cliff but not seeing the next loop for the fog.

From G�schenen we continued north to Erstfeld. Then we decided the traffic was getting too intense and got on the trains to Luzern and to Interlaken via the Br�nig pass. At the Interlaken YH we had dinner and spent a good part of the evening talking with other hostellers. After several trips into town I finally managed to persuade the Bancomat to hand me some badly needed cash since the Swedish computers had apparently been down and I was borrowing money from Richard. While Richard was making a phone call, I sat on my bike and waited when a voice asked (in German) if I'd like some information about Jesus Christ. I waved the man away almost instinctively and then looked up with a start. It was the same little guy who'd approached me in Bern, exactly two weeks earlier. Eerie!

This got me thinking of a possible plot for a story, maybe Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett style: Shortly before the turn of the Millenium, Jesus returns to Earth in the Second Coming, only nobody notices. All the churches are too institutionalized to bother. He finally winds up wandering around, a small, grey Jehova's Witness whom nobody ever looks at or takes seriously. The only remarkable thing about him is a weird ability to teleport instantly between places and appear with his pamphlets everywhere, as a general annoyance...

Sunday, June, 12th, Interlaken to Bern (~60 km, ~200 m climbing). An uneventful ride. The only climbs we had in the day were around Beatenberg where the road rises a bit above the lake. From Thun to Bern it was "Virtual Holland". The rain had stopped but there was no sun either. We made good time and were in central Bern by 14.00 despite a 1-hour lunch on the way.

In Bern, Andreas Fuchs met us again and helped us retrieve our bike transport boxes. I packed mine at the station and sent it off as registered luggage along with most of my panniers while Richard stowed his away in preparation for a few more (bikeless) days' stay in Switzerland.

As an unexpected bonus, when Richard and Andreas returned from the storage house, they brought with them a recumbent rider they'd encountered just outside the station. Guido van den Broeck from Belgium, well-known face from the European HPV championships, on his carbon fiber M5. He'd been touring the alps, doing 200 km/day and routinely bagging two passes per day until he, too, got washed away by the weather. Apart from the facts that he rides a recumbent and has a water-bottle cage, his performances remind me of somebody...

Shipping the bike sort of marked the end of the ride (unless that should be considered to have happened in Santa Maria when we got on the bus) and the evening was spent on dinner and sightseeing in Bern with Andreas.

Epilogue: Monday I got up fairly early and started my 25-hour train journey back home to Sweden. Nothing more exciting happened than that I got the opportunity to ride the German "ICE" Inter-City Express train which rolls at 200 km/h and offers airplane-like features like headset jacks in the armrests of the chairs. I think they even had video monitors in first class.

The ride concluded on Thursday when I fetched my bike and luggage at the Stockholm Central station. Total distance ridden: ~1050 km of cycling, ~330 km of train/bus riding (not counting the distance Stockholm <-> Bern), 10500 m of climbing total in 15 days. Of those, 107 km / 300 m climbing were in the 4 days at the end when we did a lot of train/bus riding.

Considerably longer cycling distances per day than I ventured to try on my upright tour 5 years ago. Part of this is cetrainly due to the better comfort of the recumbent seat which allows me to remain on the bike for longer hours without saddle pains but that's not all. We also climbed nearly three times as much as I did in that tour, both overall and in daily max. 10200 m of accumulated Avocet 50 climbing in the first 11 days. 2430 m in a single day. Not too bad for a couple of loaded tourists on rolling armchairs that all the self-appointed "experts" say ``Can't climb''.

Ah, yes. Weights? I don't know about Richard and his bike but my Linear weighs in at ~20 kg (44 lbs) including all the extra junk I've burdened it with; battery pack, headlight, fenders, lock, racks, My luggage massed 18 kg and I'm 82 kg myself. That's a total of pretty durn near 120 kg. Pushing this mass uphill at 300 m/h (vertically) corresponds to a total power of ~110 W (including friction losses).

Memorable moments: Well, I must say that the arrival at the Cormet de Roselend is the one moment that I remember the most. Maybe because it was the first "real" pass of the ride but also because it was so undisturbed. We got there and ate our lunch with only a few inquisitive motorists to obscure the view. At the St Bernhard the hassle of the snowy crossing is the dominating memory rather than the scenery. The climb of the Stelvio, of course, was a great experience too.

The picturesque and (relatively) traffic-free ride along the lake from Como to Bellaggio and on to Colico.

Downers: At the risk of incurring the wrath of the mighty Jobst-man I must say that the singularely most unpleasant memories (worse than even the 0� C descent from the Stelvio) are from Italian traffic and drivers. The roads have poor shoulders, the traffic is dense and fast, the drivers are uncourteous. I'm sorry, but I've toured Scandinavia, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland, France and Italy. Italy is the only country I've felt I have no desire to re-visit (by bike) and this is solely because of their traffic. I'm willing to concede that this impression may be largely due to poor route choices on my behalf and I probably will be doing at least short hops around the alpine borders of Italy again in some not too-distant future, but today I feel like I will go to almost any lengths to avoid repeating a crossing of the industrialized north like the one we did.

The descent from the Stelvio comes in as a strong second and serves to teach us that a) you should avoid staying too long (like over-night) at a place where weather is known to change so quickly and b) it's not enough to have weather-proof outer garments if they're not complete. I had a pair of fleece mitts for cold weather but the sleet soaked them totally in just a few minutes. A pair of ski gloves (probably for sale at the top of the pass) would have been more appropriate. Or simply some plastic bags over the mitts to keep them from getting wet.

Still, if I had to choose between doing it all over the same way or not doing any more alpine touring at all, I would do it all again - including traffic and sleet. All in all a memorable journey and one I will remember fondly.

Bern Yverdon ~90 ~500 ~0.5 Les Rousses ~70 ~900 ~1.4 Annecy 103.9 920 2.3 Beaufort 70.3 632 2.9 Seez 59.0 1372 4.2 Aosta 92.1 1352 5.6 Biella 102.2 684 6.3 Vedano 97.7 580 6.9 Colico 86.9 508 7.4 Tirano 75.4 348 7.7 Stelvio 65.6 2428 10.2 Sta Maria 19.0 36 10.2 Hospental 13.7 48 10.3 Interlaken 42.0 52 10.3 Bern ~35 ~100 10.4