Swiss roll - day 3

Andermatt to avalanche

There are multiple reasons why elite cyclists don’t drink alcohol the night before an event, primary among them must be that riding with a hangover is mind-numbingly stupid.  Luckily for us, we’re considerably removed from being elite, but wholly qualified to be stupid.

Before leaving the UK, Lord T devised a route that should have seen us leaving Andermatt taking the Susten Pass through to Guttannen about 60 kms to the west.  Our plan was to decamp to Guttannen for the night before returning the following day via the Grimsel, Nufenen and Gotthard passes.  The plan, however, didn’t factor the impact that the previous day’s rain would have on the snow that clung, not so tenaciously, to the mountainside.

At 4.00am, giving succour to his insomnia, Lord T discovered that the road to Susten was closed.  Detail relating to its closure was somewhat scarce (unless you had a fluency in German that we did not possess), so we were unaware of the extent to which it might be closed.  Did ‘closed’ mean only to vehicles or did it extend to cyclists as well?  We decided to find out.

The haze caused from the previous night’s indulgence hadn’t entirely left as we set off that morning.  We were, it is safe to say, not entirely tuning in to the discussion that Lord T, Sarah and Caroline were having regarding the route for the day.  This was evident when we arrived at the roundabout that adjoined the hotel complex.  I had rolled to the front and drew to a halt at some railings where the other three joined me.  ‘Happy to lead Brown?’ chirped Lord T.

  ‘Yep,’ I replied.

  ‘Know where you’re going?’

  ‘First exit towards Furka.’

  ‘No Brown,’ sighed Lord T.  ‘That’s tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Do you want to lead Rob?’ asked Lord T, clearly aware that simple task was beyond me.

  ‘Sure, into town?’ asked Rob, town being reached by the second exit.

  ‘No,’ came the response from a frustrated Turton.  ‘It’s through the tunnel, down the hill,’ he explained, aware he was dealing with idiots.

  ‘I think we should wait for the girls,’ chimed the Pipster.  ‘They’ve got the maps.’

  ‘And I showed them the route we were taking,’ explained Lord T in a tone that was designed to settle the matter.

  ‘I’m with the Pipster,’ I added, piqued that Lord T clearly had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘Me too,’ said Rob, who shared my sentiment.

The girls duly pulled up in the van.  ‘I thought we were going to meet you at the bottom,’ said Caroline.
That statement eliminated mine and Rob’s options, though in my mind, I wasn’t convinced there was a descent after the tunnel, I was sure we were at the bottom of the valley.

  ‘No one’s sure which way to go,’ said the Pipster, ‘so we thought we’d wait for you.’

  ‘I’m f*^king sure,’ said Lord T.

We ignored him.

I was wrong too about being in the bottom of the valley.  Over the next 9 kms we would drop about 600 metres to Wassen where we would begin the climb toward the Susten Pass.  The cooler air and the speed garnered from the drop made for a bracing start to the day which soon blew away the alcohol-induced cobwebs.  At Wassen we paused; the girls had drawn into a layby and we faffed accordingly.  On stopping, I leaned over to rest a hand on the van.  In so doing, the handlebars of my bike turned, but the wheel stayed straight – my bike’s headset was loose.  I had a momentary flash of horror; a few minutes before I had been cycling at 70 kms per hour on a busy main road.  It didn’t bear thinking about the malfunction occurring on one of the corners.  I’d been lucky.

There is little that is noteworthy about the road up to the pass.  It doesn’t weave or paint gradations on the mountainside, it just unfolds, rolling on and on up the valley.  A significant proportion of the road is visible and far off in the distance, is a towering height that is NOT the end.  The climb is a disheartening sight, seemingly endless; my progress was glacially slow.  The valley, which would have been formed by a glacier, possibly moving a little quicker than me, is spectacular and the shear magnificence of the scenery serves to improve the ride.  The trick is to take in the view without glancing at the road far ahead.  From where we were, it was impossible to discern why there was a road closure.  We, along with the girls in the van, continued our route.

After a couple of hours, we came to one of the few curves in the road and encountered a barrier.  The van could go no further.  Two road signs were displayed, both red rimmed circles with white backgrounds.  One of the backgrounds was clear with nothing on it, the other had the image of a pedestrian.  In the absence of the image of a cyclist, we decided it was completely reasonable to ignore the barrier.  We scootched past, despite the wiser counsel of the ladies, and carried on.

As we rode, the road became increasingly littered with debris; snow and rockfall appearing in scattered patches as we climbed, but no notable cause for a road closure that we could discern.  After 20 minutes we rounded a bend to find a utility van drawing towards us.  As leader on the road they stopped at Lord T and explained to him, in German, what lay ahead.  Rob joined him and exercising his talent for delegation, Lord T told them, in English, to speak to Bradders – which they did, at length, outlining the perils ahead.  At least, we believe that’s what they were saying.  If they were serving a warning, it went ignored – we ploughed on.

It didn’t take us much longer to fathom what they might have been saying.  About 500 metres further on we came to a short tunnel, beyond which, the road was impassable.  A mini avalanche had shifted a not insignificant pile of snow onto the road leaving no route through.  ‘Through’ however, did not prevent ‘over’.  Rob hoisted his bike on his shoulder and began to scale the fallen mound.  Lord T remonstrated with him, using adjectives beginning with ‘F’ and suggesting he suffered a mental deficiency.  Bradders was determined, he kept climbing, we kept pleading, hoping that our views that we had come far enough would prevail.  I for one had already had a surfeit of luck for the day, I wasn’t going to test it further.

We prevailed and, avoiding the debris in the road, returned to where the girls were parked and paused for lunch at a café conveniently located at the same corner.  The woman who ran the café met us at the door, eyeing us warily.  In a manner that was suitably Swiss-German in its directness, she outlined that we were cerebrally challenged.  She also informed us that the signs were there for a reason and that the mountain was unstable and could have wiped us out at any moment.  Dressing down complete, she determined that, despite our obvious retardation, we could be trusted in her establishment and would happily relieve us of some hard-earned Swiss Francs in exchange for egg and bacon served on potato rosti.  A mountain of food was placed before us and the meal was divine.  I don’t think any of us have appreciated a better meal on a cycling stop, it was superb.  If my bike speed went anywhere close to the pace of consumption, I’d have been up that hill in half the time.  I eyed the plates of Sarah and Caroline eagerly, hoping the huge quantity of food would defeat them – I was disappointed, there were no scraps to purloin.

Having been defeated by shifting snow, we decided to go back to the hotel and have a day in front of the TV watching the Tour de Suisse cycling up the Gottard Pass across the cobbles that we had covered the day before.  It was notable, more so for the caution that we exercised and the exceptional athletes that the tour riders are, that their time to climb the cobbles wasn’t too dissimilar to our time for descending them.  Back at the hotel complex, the advance crews of the Tour had arrived.  The Team Ineos (formerly Team Sky), Bora Hansgrohe and FDJ coaches and crew boxes were all parked in the courtyard and there was a flurry of activity as the teams prepared for the riders’ return.

We had a relaxed afternoon in the apartment variously napping or wandering the town.  I chose to explore where the Tour de Suisse teams had set up camp on the off chance that I might spot the riders as they left their team buses.  I missed them but did get an opportunity to witness the mechanics of Team Ineos set to work cleaning and maintaining the astonishing number of bikes that are required to get a team of seven around the course.  I counted 15 in the courtyard, and those were just the ones I could see.  The number also excluded the bikes belonging to Geraint Thomas, the team leader who had crashed out earlier in the event.

At £5,000 for the frame and an estimated £12,000 for a fully kitted bike, I contemplated that the value of the bikes was nearly three times the asking price of the first flat I bought in London (granted, that was in 1994, but still).  I also noted the absence of security and the lack of attention that was being paid to me.  Kenny Elissonde is the littlest member of the Ineos team, if only one of his bikes was handily placed …

That evening, without the addition of a Pinarello Dogma F12 to the apartment, we had an excellent Spaghetti Bolognaise with garlic bread that Sarah, Caroline and Philip had prepared.  We also had a great deal less to drink with the meal and another game of Cards Against Humanity where we learnt that the ‘Jimmy Saville’ card is not only versatile, but impossible to play without being highly offensive.

The forecast for the following day did not look good.  Sarah’s trusty radar app proved to be an accurate indicator of what to expect and it transpired that we had a dry opening between 10am and midday.  As a result, we determined we’d stay in bed a little longer and try to avoid the rain.