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In the Shadow of the Matterhorn - a short bicycle ride in the Alps Manju Bansal Manju grew up in Chandigarh, India and presently lives with his wife Sheila in the San Francisco Bay Area. An adventure loving soul since his youth, Manju is a trained mountain-climber and has scaled heights over 20,000 ft high. For the past few years Manju has toured extensively on his cycle in various parts of the world, including the Rockies, the Alps and Alaska. Manju has been a columnist for the Times of India & the Economic Times, The Nation (Thailand) and Brandweek Publications (USA). He holds an MBA from UCLA and when he is not planning his next outdoor adventure he is the Founder of ThinkNotes, Inc., a knowledge-management software start-up.

Introduction

Travel is about discovery and exploration, a chance to add new sensory experiences to the archives in our brain. Every place we visit has its own unique signature that continues to romance us long after the original trip is over. The cacophonous sounds and colors of an Indian marketplace or the dusty hues of the Southwest, for instance, will conjure up no other association. In the Swiss Alps, it was the lingering notes of sweet-sounding cowbells that resonated in my mind. Amongst those high pastures, wherever one looked one could see herds of cows serenely grazing, big brass bells unevenly bobbing around their necks and enveloping the entire valley in a haze of unkempt melody. I rode my bicycle around in the Alps for only 2 short weeks but I know I shall never hear a bell the same way again.

For the past few summers riding my bike in some mountainous part of the world has been a bit of an annual pilgrimage for me. After having logged my fair share of those miles and having gawked at some truly incredible scenery, I find myself converted to that school that prescribes the arduous path to Nirvana, only mine jettisons the prayer-wheel in favor of a bicycle wheel. This year the random destination generator churned out southern Switzerland and northern Italy as a destination to add some miles on my old steed. Another biker friend of mine from Frieburg, Germany decided to join me in this endeavor, in retrospect a wonderful decision given his linguistic skills and an overall balanced perspective towards life. While we did not attempt anything as stupendous as Hannibal herding his elephants, this report will hopefully still provide a memorable flavor of what it was like to bike in the Alps, predominantly in the high country of Ticino and Graubunden Cantons.

Acclimatization

Andermatt was a small town, small but very charming. With its imposing clock-tower, the surrounding lush valleys and the quaint cobblestone streets, it had that picture postcard look that one associates with rural Switzerland. Located at an altitude of 4500 feet, it was also the perfect place to go pick wildflowers, hike in the breathtaking mountains or as in my case start riding my bike. It was a cold and rainy evening that found us checking into the hostel in neighboring Hospental, a process that took the better part of an hour because the amiable gentleman who ran the hostel also functioned as a part-time cowherder and in the evening hours presumably his obligations lay more to his bovine charges than to wayward cyclists. Time, I would soon pleasantly discover, marched to a different beat in this Alpine neighborhood. That evening we shared our dormitory with what could be described as a very normal hostelling contingent - 2 long-haired amiable motorbikers from Frankfurt, a local youth group and a financial analyst from Basel out for a weekend spin. Despite the unfamiliar suroundings, I slept well that night waking up to the scent of pines wafting into the room.

Hospental lies at the base of mighty Furkapass, which at over 8000 feet ranks amongst the highest European passes. In retrospect I guess riding up Furka the very first day was not a very smart way to discover our hill-legs, or lack thereof. It was a beautiful, sunny day with mild temperatues and low humidity calling for near-perfect conditions to ride those hills, but despite that I found myself struggling to climb those switchbacks. Altitude, simply put, was taking its toll. I remember someone telling me once that the prettier the landscape became the easier those hairpin turns came, but very soon found myself relegating that belief to the same memory slots as those reserved for bearded goblins whose red-cheeked statuettes dotted the front yards of most of the houses we biked in front of. The route wound initially through a wide V-shaped valley, with small hamlets dotting the landscape and a lazy river running through the middle. There was limited traffic on the road that day and on gazing down at the valley one could see the narrow-gauge railway, a steam engine puffing up the slopes, replete with its plume of dark smoke. The wind was blowing our way and once we smelt the acrid smoke, the illusion was so strong that I half expected a Nestle Milkmaid to make an appearance. After several long hours of riding, during which we climbed well over 3000 feet, we finally reached the top. Furka was as stark and and as beautiful as all the photos that I had seen. The landscape was mildly lunar in its appearance, in part due to the lack of vegetation and the dark grey of the rock faces that manned its solid ramparts. For fans of Sir Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes lost his life at the hands of Professor Moriarty at the site of the Rhone glacier just a few miles from Furka. While I did not espy any formal monument to the brilliant detective, I did see the famed Hotel Belvedere which sits right stride the Rhone glacier from which emerges one of the largest rivers in Europe.

Most high passes in Switzerland have a massive fort-like structure constructed at the top, which doubles up as an hospizio, a bus stop and a hotel combined. Refuge Furka lived up to its name that afternoon, providing our hungry bodies with much needed rosti (hash-browns and fried eggs, a Swiss favorite) and of course the omnipresent espresso. Our stay at Furka would have been rather unremarkable had I not bumped into Gurung Chhetri, a blue-blooded Khukhri-toting Gorkha from Nepal. And while the other patrons of the restaurant looked at us in wonderment, a swarthy Nepalese cook and a lycra-clad bike tourist exchanged pleasantries in a language foreign to most folks in a 5000 mile radius. Gurung is a regular at Furka, he has been coming here every summer for the past 9 years and goes back in fall to tend to his crops in a village north of Kathmandu.

The Rhone Route

Switzerland is perhaps one of the finest places in the world to bike. Those organized Swiss have serviced their entire nation via 6 trans-Swiss bike routes, which are painstakingly marked and brilliantly demarcated. Using a mixture of primary and secondary roads, these routes pass through remote villages, corn-fields, apple orchards and some really stunning scenery with the result that one can cycle along fairly quiet yet not isolated roads and sample life in rural Switzerland. Every once in a while we would see the autobahn, but it seemed like a whole world away. In some places the original cobblestoned pathways have been retained, just the way they have always been since the Romans and the Franks. While those cobblestones were extremely charming in their Gestalt, they were definitely a pain to ride a bike on. But it was the small pleasures that dominate the experience, like the chance to laze in the sun and have lunch on the patio of a small cafe, less than a stone's throw away from some elegant church or monastery constructed a few centuries ago. My personal favorite was to sit next to the water trough and watch life pass by in slow motion, a scene that reminded me of the quiet pace of life in the Old World.

But back to the business of biking. After a swift descent from Furka, the road twists on without much of a gradient until it comes to rest in the twin cities of Brig-Naters. Brig is a non-touristy town that serves as a base for a couple of fine climbs, one descending sharply up to Zermatt, at the base of the Matterhorn, and the other long and winding climb upto the the top of Simplon Pass, the gateway to northern Italy. Zermatt is a very fashionable and well-touristed town known for its expensive boutiques and its love of the Japanese consumer. It is also all about location, location and more location. Lying at the foot of the Matterhorn, it is a town whose entire existence revolves around and is literally shadowed by the mighty mountain. Wherever you look up, you are greeted by the curved, scimitaresque edge of rock and ice, and the word "mountain-view" truly acquired a new significance in that place. The ride up from Brig to Zermatt was a challenging 40 odd miles not very long but all the way sharply uphill. In some places the train rode right next to the road, and it was very encouraging to see people in the train waving at us with mixed looks of envy and disbelief. We got into Zermatt late in the afternoon and were disappointed to see the Matterhorn half-clouded over. The charms of Zermatt are geared for tourists, for bicycle travellers like us it was a great place to climb up to but without any need to stay back much longer. We stayed that night in a quaint family-owned B&B but were out the next morning pedalling furiously towards Simplon, quite a few hours away.

Simplon

Simplon is one of Europe's better known tunnels. Opened at the turn of the 20th century (1906), it extends over 13 miles long and has dramatically altered the transportation economics of that area. Rather than struggle over the 6500 ft plus Simplon Pass, loaded lorries just hum along right 7000 feet under the mountain. The climb to Simplon Pass itself can be summed up in one phrase - long, exhausting and beautiful. For part of the way cyclists have to ride on a little-used side road which is perfect for biking given the lack of traffic, but about 8 miles from the Pass it joins up with the autostrada. It was very warm the day we were biking over Simplon and lots of hikers and families were out to spend a day in the sun. At several traffic pull-outs we saw older folks setting up picnic tables replete with table-cloths and victuals, just another glorious afternoon well-spent in the mountains. The whole culture in The Alps was so very different from the one we experience here in the US, when was the last time one saw a bunch of folks having a nice picnic along a rest stop on I-95? As one descends from Refuge Simplon down towards Italy, the landscape changes quite dramatically. Lush forested valleys give way to rocky gorges that provide granite for priveleged bathrooms round the globe. Quarrying is a huge economic mainstay in this part of the world and it is a very interesting sight to see mammoth chain-saws essentially grinding away at an entire rock face, which is then chiselled down to more manageable sizes before being shipped to foreign destinations. Naturally, the closer one gets to Italy, the more one begins to miss the Swiss - the border guards appear more sloppy, the pollution becomes noticeably aggravating and even mountain tunnels start displaying urban graffitti. For ravenous bikers, however, the simply delicious food more than made up for the overwhelming chaos that characterizes Italy. As a cautionary sidebar, I might add that if anyone is planning a trip to industrial Dommodossola avoid the quaint sounding Albergo Sempione (Hotel Simplon) - as neophyte travellers in Italy, we made the mistake of getting a room that overlooked a small side street and paid the price by being kept up all night by the noise of motorbike engines being revved up by serenading Romeos.

San Gottardo, Splugen, Santa Maria Maggiore, Lucomanier......all were wonderful mountain passes to ride up to, each one of them having a unique place in the history and culture of the Alps. The San Gottardo tunnel project, for instance, though only 9 miles long killed over 300 workers and seriously invalided 900 more before it finally opened in 1872. But for the sheer scenic impact as also for a challenging riding course nothing perhaps beats San Bernardino. Located at an altitude of over 6000 feet, Bernardino presented us with a daunting climb of nearly 35 miles coupled with an altitude gain of around 4500 feet. Thankfully the weather Gods cooperated with us and it turned out to be bright and sunny, and since it was a weekday the intruding presence of loud motorbikes was kept to a minimum. The Moessa river valley glistened in the light of the shining sun, and the dew drenched green looked even more vivid than any chrome could ever do justice. It was like a veritable dreamride - bells rang from church steeples, farmers going to work doffed their hats and politely wished Buongiorno, cows were out in full swing mooing across the pasturelands.....several times I wished there was a way one could crystallize for posterity the timeless beauty of those moments. We stopped more times that day than on any of our previous rides and not just to rest but to soak in the dazzling splendor of that place. If glimpsing the Matterhorn up close was a jaw-dropping experience, riding up to San Bernardino that day was like being in a cosmic trance. The Pass itself was very cold and had snow accumulations on the ground, the surrounding peaks pretty much covered in a white blanket. Of course, the resident druids of Refuge San Bernardino also whipped up some very fine espresso to energize those tired bones and with the wind picking up we decided to not stay too long at the summit and started the long and speedy descent down towards our destination Bellinzona.

Conclusion

Every bike ride necessarily comes to an end. The adventure, the exhiliaration and the discovery that have characterized the ride then too draw to a close. By the time the bike was packed and I was on the plane back home, it had already begun to feel like I should have spent more time getting to know those splendid mountains. My trip may have ended but some timeless moments will stay with me forever - the struggle for the soul of Furka, the haunting beauty of San Bernardino and the intrusive dazzle of Matterhorn. It had been difficult to ride in the Alps initially but as we got stronger we began to enjoy those long climbs and the invaluable chance to soak in the glory of nature. While I did not quite acquire a distinctive taste for the diverse cheeses of Switzerland, particularly the smelly variety which I still find smelly, I did immensely enjoy the simplification of life that was integral to this trip. Our days had a simple rhythm that revolved around pedalling, eating and gawking, including of course some extra time spent looking for an inexpensive Albergo. As we spent more days in the mountains we came to better appreciate the subtle and not so subtle differences between the German and the Italian speaking residents of Switzerland. I also finally realized where the font Helvetica came from. Travel is about exploration and discovery, a chance to add new sensory experiences to the archives in our brain. I know I shall never hear a bell the same way again.

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