Ok, I tried to hold off as long as I could, but I think it’s finally time to talk about bikes.

As much as I like biking, so far I’ve been walking to the office or taking the tram as much as I can. But everywhere I see people biking around, and the sidewalks around the main station are just full of bikes, all dubiously locked - which says good things for the prevalence of bike theft here.

It turns out when you don’t have killer cars and a preponderance of stroads, people are more likely to get on their bikes. I see people with ebikes riding their kids around, and generally running errands. And it seems that Zurich also has bike messengers! Maybe there will be an alley cat at some point 😀

I was in Lucerne recently at rush hour, and although the cars were gridlocked there was also a bustling thoroughfare of slow streets and bike paths chock full of people commuting home from work on bike. It made my heart soar. Seeing people not isolated in their cars, able to stop at pathside cafes, smell the fresh air, and wave to each other. It feels like a slice of paradise.

It’s not all stars and rainbows though. The bike lanes in Zurich are pretty wonky, constantly moving into the street, then back onto the sidewalk, then across the street and so on. This seems to happen everywhere and it will definitely take me a while to figure out which roads I am allowed to ride on versus when I have to get onto a side path or share the sidewalk.

That said Switzerland has a really nice network of cycle roads - roads which are low traffic or otherwise separated that have been designated as good bike paths. Each route seems to have a theme of some region or historical feature you’re meant to see. On my recent bike race I was able to make my own route and managed to ride like 95% on these cycle paths, which was really nice - especially since I had basically no familiarity with roads in Switzerland.

Oh right - I did a bike race in Switzerland. It was the Swiss Ultracycling CHallenge. This year was the 7th edition. Originally the constraint was that you had to visit each of the 26 cantons in Switzerland. They’ve altered the rules a few times, and this time the rules were quite complicated, with 5 fixed sections where you would be given a route once you got to a specific entry point, and then it was your job to make a route between each of these sections - staring from anywhere and ending in Bern. In the end it ended up being a little over 1000km and 40,000ft of climbing and took me 86ish hours. You can read my full write-up here.

I also have been traveling for 200k brevets in the hopes of keeping my R-12 alive. Three weeks ago I went to Italy for a 200k in Lonate Ceppino and this weekend I went to Munich for another. The Italian one was fun, at the beginning they gave everyone a bag of farfalle and at the end they served everyone ravioli! I got passed by sports cars all day, and suffered in the Italian heat drinking like 6 litres of water, while I don’t think I saw any of the suntanned Italians drink anything. In Munich most of the controls were bakeries, and we finished at a biergarten where people had lots of spatzle and huge steins of bier. We rode through towns where people were wearing lederhosen and traditional dirndls.

I’ve been taking my bike on the trains which has been a bit annoying, but so far workable. Some trains are definitely not meant to carry bikes, and have a slightly too small luggage space that has been retrofitted to hold two bikes, but it’s not even wide enough for my not very large bike. Today someone tried to put a monster of an electric mountain bike next to it and it was a real comedy. Other trains have dedicated bike spaces, but not nearly enough, so on the way back from Italy I had to wait an hour in Lucerne until a train came which had an open bike space. Biking has become popular enough that now on the weekends all trains require reservations, and in the train stations you see hoards of people with full bike packing set-ups. In the US this would be a pretty rare sight, or at least you would expect these people to be hard core, but here it seems like just any random person is going on a bike tour at least once per summer.

Hopefully the train infrastructure will catch up at some point, in the mean time they have a sort of Rinko system, where you can take a wheel off your bike and put it in a bag to be able to take it as luggage, but often space is kind of tight. It has been making me dream of getting a folding bike - and I definitely see a lot of people at train stations who have also gone this route.

The other nice thing about the amount of cyclists is that there are bike shops everywhere! Every little town seems to have a fully stocked shop that would rival a Mike’s Bikes in the bay area. In the US if you go on a ride and pop a tire and need to buy a tube, good luck. Here you could get your bike fully serviced every 15 miles. And check out this bike tube vending machine I saw! (though it seemed to no longer be operational)

As far as cars go, I’ve found them to be a bit nicer and more respectful than in the US. Also I feel that on the whole they’re smaller. My European friends complain about how aggressive they are and how large they are - pointing at cars that don’t even register to me as being an odd size. So I think that’s a good sign. Even if standards are shifting - they’re starting from such a better place than the US where I’m constantly being buzzed by lifted trucks.

Oh! Also Zurich has a Velodrome! And they do a special kind of riding here called Derny where a cyclist follows someone on a sort of bike motorcycle hybrid. I got to see the elite finals last Tuesday and despite myself I found it to be really hype.

Culture shocks

Oh my recent bike ride in Munich I was informed that there was a rule that if a car passes you in the countryside they are required to give you 2 meters of space. So when a car buzzed me (speeding) I reflexively flipped him off. He stopped up the road and got out to confront me, hilariously filming me with his phone as if he was going to catch me out on something. After explaining to him that he had broken the law, he told me if I didn’t like it I should ride off the road on a dedicated bike road. I pointed out that there was no such bike road nearby, and the law probably doesn’t specify that. He said he would call the police, and I told him to go ahead, he had broken the law by not giving me 2 meters of space. He responded by saying that I had broken the law by giving him the finger, and I just laughed at him. But it turns out that it IS actually illegal to give someone the finger in Germany (and apparently Switzerland)!! The American mind cannot comprehend! Apparently I could have been fined up to 2000 Euros. I’ll have to brush up on the law, and see which gestures are illegal and which ones I can add to my toolkit for showing frustration to inconsiderate drivers.

I’ve been leaning into the officious stern German attitude for curtly telling people when they are doing something incorrect. Getting on the train today there were a bunch of suitcases in spot where my bike was supposed to go, so I just crossed my arms and brusquely said “Nien, ist fur fahrrad!” I have no idea if this is idiomatic, and the people I was talking to ended up only speaking English, but I really do get some kind of weird enjoyment from the self righteous correctness. Luv 2 live in a society of rules.

I said I wouldn't be weird about the prices here, but damn things are expensive. On my bike ride I had to resort to buying multiple 3.70CHF fanta from vending machines - which is something like $5. And on the train just now a shitty espresso costs 5.50CHF 😫

By the main station all summer they’ve been having weird company promos - usually gelato to advertise the local newspaper - but recently they gave out pesto and mayonnaise.

At the end of SUCH they had a celebration brunch in the town square in Bern. Not only were they allowed to do this, which was sort of shocking, but they also rented all of the tables and benches and even flatware for the event! I feel like a similar thing in the US would either be disallowed or prohibitively expensive - we just don’t have the infrastructure for something like this. The use of public spaces here is astounding, and just really speaks to a care for public life and public enjoyment of public spaces.

Sight seeing

The Italian ride went past the Madonna of cyclists shrine in Italy!

I really love these painted details on houses here

Check out this coat of arms I saw in Italy - it features the Biscione - which I had never noticed before (even though it’s in the Alfa Romeo logo)

Houses here all have badges for babies born. I can’t tell if they’re given by friends, but they seem to depict hopes for what the kid will grow up into?

Some cow bells of various sizes - the cows are very musical here, often while riding during the night I could hear a herd of cows that I couldn’t see munching away on the side of the road.

Some horrifying AI slop

The vending machine on the train had risotto in it for some reason. But how are you supposed to cook this???

Ok! That’s all for this week!