Andermatt – Gav's Cycling Adventures

Road To Nowhere – sticking with the Talking Heads theme as we broadened our European horizons! Many of our trips from 2011 to 2016 really did take us on roads less travelled – taking that ride to nowhere, we’ll take that ride.

In May 2011 we stayed in Geneva for 4 days, cycling the big mountains either side of the Arve valley, including the brutal climb of Col de Joux Plane on the way up to Morzine. We also visited Goeschenen that September for another 4 day trip – the Susten, Grimsel & Furka Pass (made famous by Goldfinger) remains one of my 5 favourite days in the saddle!

Two Amigos atop the brutal climb up to Joux Plane

2012 started with a week-long stay in Barcelonnette, including a day trip to Mont Ventoux for the first time – more about this mythical mountain later! The highlight of our 2012 stay in Annecy was going to see Stage 9 of Le Tour de France & seeing Wiggo riding to victory on the stage while wearing yellow – this was the year he won Le Tour! The lowlight was undoubtedly crashing on the descent of the Cormet de Roselend 3 days later, breaking my collarbone, ending my riding early & writing-off my Trek.

Standing to attention having survived my first visit to Mont Ventoux

2013 started off (& finished) with surgery on my collarbone – it was unsuccessful both times & I’m left with a mushy collarbone that never really healed properly. By now, we’d been gripped by the European Alps & we embarked on a monster 2 week trip at the end of May – snow everywhere!! The first 7 days were spent riding the truly epic climbs of the Maurienne Valley – we stayed in the Hotel St Georges & made friends with the hostess Martine (we’ve visited twice more since).

Martine welcomed us as if we were members of her family

For the 2^nd week we moved to Le Belvedere on the Petit St Bernard Pass, overlooking Bourg St Maurice. We had the Cormet de Roselend, the Col d’Iseran, Petit St Bernard & Les Arcs on our doorstep. By the end of our 2 week adventure, we’d completed just over 100,000 feet of vertical climbing (about a 1/5^th of that year’s total)!!

A glorious return to the Cormet de Roselend

Somehow we also found time for a trip to Andermatt where we spent 7 days exploring the huge mountains, including the legendary cobbles on the Gotthardpass.

The Oberalpsee at the summit of the Oberalp

In 2014 we climbed all 3 sides of Mont Ventoux in a single day (14,452 feet of climbing in 85 miles) on our summer trip to Bedoin & St Jean de Maurienne (again) – we’re in a fairly small club of people foolish enough to complete the Cingles Challenge! This remains my biggest challenge to date. We also found time to visit Col d’Izoard & Col du Galibier.

Paying our respects at Tom Simpson’s memorial

We also visited Italy for the first time in 2014, with a week long adventure in Bormio. Our trip included an epic day climbing both sides of the Stelvio, with the Umbrail pass sandwiched in between. We also got off the beaten track with a bit of gravel riding around Lago di Cancano.

We made our maiden trip to Mallorca in 2015 (Puerto Pollenca was our regular base until Covid arrived in 2020). This quickly felt like a 2nd home & we used it as a Spring Training Camp between 2015 & 2019 – it really is cycling nirvana!

For the summer of 2015 we embarked on another split base trip, returning to Annecy for 4 days, then heading to Aosta, for 7 days cycling in Italy. Colle del Nivolet (the final photo below) remains one of the most stunningly beautiful places I’ve visited on a bike – this photo (minus me) has pride of place in my living room.

You may recognise the Colle del Nivolet photo from the closing scene in The Italian Job – it was where the coach with the gold was hanging over the cliff. As far as roads to nowhere go, this is that road!

In Part Three I’ll bring the story up to date as our adventures from 2017 to 2021 prepare us for our expedition to The Big Country (yes, another Talking Heads song!).

A trip to The Matterhorn – Day Six

Up until today, every ride has started right outside the hotel’s front door. However, today we had a 50 mile drive to Visp (which is located 50 miles further up the Rhone valley). The plan today was to explore two valleys that share the same access from the valley floor. The first 5 miles to Stalden was on a very busy main road, but as soon as we crossed the River Vispa (the gateway to Zermatt) we had the tarmac pretty much to ourselves with the occasional interruption from a bus or construction lorry. As we followed the course of the Saaservispa river, we steadily gained height & found ourselves looking back down towards Visp, way off in the background.

The first 15 miles were among the easiest we’ve ridden all week – a very welcome rest for the weary legs, as well as providing plenty of ‘action’ photo opportunities. We stopped for a quick coffee at Saas-Balen, before continuing on our way in high spirits.

We were so busy chatting, we missed our turn – not only did we miss the turn, we didn’t even realise until we’d reached the top of an unexpected climb into Saas-Fee. It’s a lovely pedestrianised town that I would have enjoyed exploring if only it was where we planned to visit!! We re-traced our steps having taken the correct turning, spent the next 6 miles heading up an ever steepening road, until the final ½ mile straight stretch hit 14% – a real leg stinger after 5 days of hard riding!!

We’d reached Mattmarksee – a climb of just over 5,000 feet (including our detour!) in 25 miles.

After another lunch of Spag Bol we set off back towards Stalden – remember that steep last ½ mile I mentioned above? By the time I took that first corner I’d already hit 51.3 mph & braked to safely negotiate the corner…a stunningly fast piece of road! It took about 35 minutes to descend the 15 miles back to Stalden – this completed part one of our adventure.

For part two, we headed up the Vispa valley towards Tasch (& ultimately Zermatt, at the base of the Matterhorn). It was 3.30pm when we started this section, so didn’t have any great expectations of exploring very far, however, we followed the course of the river, meaning the gradients were always very friendly to us. The Gotthard / Matterhorn Railway also runs through the valley – I recognised the trains from a previous trip to Andermatt. The track hugs the river, with towering cliffs on either side.

At one point, there wasn’t space for river, train track & modern width road, so a new 2.4km road tunnel had been built. The good news for pedestrians & cyclists is that the narrow, old road is reserved exclusively for their use – it would have been a bit of a slog cycling uphill in the tunnel, especially with vans & lorries whizzing through too.

Due to the friendly nature of the route, we managed to get all the way out to Tasch, where we stopped for a quick ice cream (size XXL) & coffee, while watching Roger Federer lose the 4th set in his match against Milos Raonic.

By now it was about 5.30pm, so time to do an about face & head back to Visp. The journey back to the car took a little over 40 minutes – it’s been another thoroughly enjoyable & fun day in the saddle, under glorious blue skies. I think I may even have a small bit of sunburn on my bald patch!! It’s now time to get some rest before the final day of Alpine Adventures tomorrow.