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Minus Fourteen Lake Loop

After yesterday’s ride up to Magglingen showed that singletrails were in no condition to be easily ridden uphill, I opted to ride a loop I almost never do - riding around Lake Biel. The lake has nothing interesting to offer for a mountain bike and on a road bike the loop is about as exciting as riding a home trainer. So in the past, this has never been a ride I ever considered doing. The current Siberian temperatures however, added a challenging element to the loop and on the cyclocrosser I was able to stay off the roads for a big part of the ride. I crossed Biel and headed straight to the lake, then followed the lake along the south side all the way to Lüscherz. Here, despite the law requiring public lakeshore access, no trail follows the water. The straight stretch of road to Vinelz was too boring to take, so I climbed up to the Hofmannsfluh and found some real fun singletrack. Once in Vinelz, I followed the marked bike route to the harbor in Erlach. At St. Johannsen I had to jump on the road to cross the canal, where I turned right to ride through the old town of Le Landeron and to La Neuveville. Here, I got back to following the marked hiking trails through the vineyards. Ligerz approached quickly. The climb to its famous little church proved to be too steep on today’s icy patches. Past the church it was an easy ride to the entrance of the Twannbachschlucht, though occasional ice required to take the speed down a notch. I was happy that the last leg to Tüscherz and Vingelz included a few more short climbs. My toes were frozen to the point of falling off and each climb pumped some warm blood back into them. Those minus fourteen degrees added a good portion of challenge to the forty-two something kilometers. Despite the fact that I could barely walk the four floors upstairs at home, I would not want to miss out on such a small adventure.

Climbing Unknown Territory

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I had an early start today, an early drive to my favorite bakery in town - Le Panetier. I purchased a large sourdough, a “Margeritenbrot” (daisy bread) and a couple of croissants. The start of today’s bike ride was anything but early. I left the house way past twelve. Since my Air 9 Carbon is packed in a box on its way to the Niner folks in Colorado, I pushed my trusty old Litespeed out of the house for a loop through the Jura. Very unlike me, I even had a ride planned. I left Biel to cruise to St. Imier, where I started the climb to Savagnière. That’s the turn-off point to get into the next climb up to the Col du Chasseral and the point to decide if it was worth a try. Well, the whole hillside was still white, so I decided not to climb up to 1500 meters. Instead I continued to Le Pâquier, Dombresson and Savagnier to hit, according to my bike map, a steep climb to the Grand Chaumont. I’ve never ventured out that way and I must say it’s quite a cool area to road bike. The turn to reach the climb is easy to find. As you ride into Savagnier, the road will make a right-hand turn, continue a couple of hundred meters and at the church turn left. My map was not kidding about the steepness. The climb is between 10 and 18% and on average probably around 15%. Once you’re in it, the road will never give you a break until you reach the top at 1133 meters. The climb is followed by an awesome descent to Enges. The wooded descent and its pothole riddled pavement reminded me a lot of the roads around Occidental. Funny how places so far apart can be so much alike. Instead of going all the way to Enges, I turned left to ride to Nods. Wonderful pavement here. From Nods, I returned on my usual way back to Biel - Lamboing, Orvin and Evilard. 80 and some kilometers and 3 hours and 10 minutes on the bike. GPSies says I climbed 1470 meters, Google Earth believes I did 1710 meters. Unimportant, I had over three hours of great riding and no numbers can capture that.

Distance:	80km (50 miles)
Total Climb:	1470m (4800 feet)
GPS Track:	GPSies.com

Zoom

Mont Sujet On Saturday

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A photo from yesterday’s ride across the Mont Sujet.

Born For Offroad-Cycling

I think that I’ve come to realize that miles and elevation just aren’t enough when I saddle up on a road bike. It started last year with rides such as the Strada Bianca, the Anabaptist Bridge and climbs to the Chasseral last year. All these rides would always include stretches of gravel or dirt roads. Nothing I consider technically challenging, but roads I have yet to meet another roadie. This morning, the sun smiled down on the city and it was unusually warm. Everything was still wet and I wasn’t planning to singlespeed through mud. Instead, I grabbed my already dirty road bike for some good climbing time.

I rode out of town with no real plan. I steered to Cortébert for a nice workout climbing through the hillside forest. It was during the climb that a silly and maybe stupid idea popped into mind. Wouldn’t it be cool to attempt reaching the Chasseral in mid January on my road bike. Not on the road, where would the challenge be in that? No, on fire roads from the backside. That was the plan. As I made my way across the plateau and was close to reach the Petite Douanne, a farmer in his 4x4 Subaru came down the narrow mountain road. The road was partially covered under snow and he yielded so that I could pass. As I rode past his car, he rolled down the window and asked if I had snow tires mounted. I replied with a laughing no, and said that pedaling up the road just went fine. He had a big grin in his face while saying: “Not for much longer, dude.”

I rode for a few hundred meters and quickly stood in front of a pile of snow blocking the trail. But I’m not the one to turn around. I climbed across the snow and soon found the fire road partially rideable. At that point I still had the Chasseral in mind, already thinking about a good spot for a photo to immortalize the achievement on Flickr. When the trail turned up to the right, I was back pushing the bike across pure ice. I reached the fork and found my climb to the Chasseral under a good meter of snow. Well, so much for that, I had to forge a new plan. It seemed that I’d have a better chance to ride taking the trail on the left that leads to the Place Centrale and is used for cross-country skiing in the winter.

I rode on and when I met more snow, it was hard as rock, easily carrying me on my skinny road tires. So I quickly covered several miles until my front wheel suddenly took a dive into a soft patch of snow. I went over the bars and realized that more attention needed to be paid from now on. Place Centrale reached, I hit the long downhill to Orvin. I let it rip, though I did watch for black ice in the first couple of turns. Legs still feeling good, I hammered up to Evilard to dive back home into Biel. Folks, if you stowed away your bike waiting for spring, dust it off and go out for a ride. These are the days you’ll remember!

First Road Ride In 2011

Photo 2After interviews for two pretty awesome jobs, one Monday, the other Tuesday morning, I had a free Tuesday afternoon, which in my opinion was best spent on the bike out in the fresh air. When I got home it was drizzling a bit and when I left the house on two wheels the first rain drops hit. I could have chosen an easy ride and climb up to the Bözingenberg. But I wouldn’t be me taking the easy way. Instead, I had Cortébert in mind with a climb up to the Anabaptist Bridge and the steep descent into Corgémont from where I’d return to Biel shooting through the tunnels. That’s not the way I’d generally chose, but I figured that there’d be too much snow on the fire roads to climb across the mountain to reach Orvin. When I got into the St. Imier valley the rain fell harder and a stiff head wind tried its best to slow me down. I didn’t care much as I was too deeply sunken in thought. My head was spinning at a thousand RPM and my legs were trying hardest to catch up. Sure, it was cold and my body’s signals of pain probably banged on the door. My head though, was somewhere else. As I reached Cortébert and rode by the train station to start the climb, the rain had ceased.

Climbing felt good, my feet seemed to start drying and my mind was once in a while focusing on what the motor was doing. When I reached the first switchback, it started snowing all of a sudden. Just a few flakes, nothing to worry. Sure! I continued to climb only to reach a small snow storm blowing almost horizontally across the road. Just a centimeter covering the road, just two, just three. Silly to turn around, so I continued. The last five hundred meters to the Anabaptist Bridge were almost impossible to ride, but I knew that beyond that point things would get better. And sure enough, the other side got less snow, but snow nonetheless. Riding a road bike, I wasn’t taking any risks on white roads. I dove into the descent with a tight grip around both brake levers. The way down into Corgémont at low speed seemed almost as long as going the opposite, and it was brutally cold. Once the road was clear I gave the brakes a rest and hurried into the valley. Back on the main road, I was hauling ass. “You can unload all your buckets of rain, snow and what not - but you ain’t stopping me”, I yelled. I got out of the saddle, sprinting and shooting through deep water puddles - having fun in awful weather. Made it home, showered and planning to go out for Sushi. Life is good!

Distance:	48km (30 miles)
Total Climb:	1370m (4490 feet)
GPS Track:	GPSies.com

Last Ride Of 2010

Biel was sitting under a cold, thick layer of fog when I left town for a last ride in the year. I had checked the web cam of the ski lift in Les Près d’Orvin and knew that folks were enjoying some sun up there. It didn’t look like there was a lot of snow on the slopes but people were skiing. Having the Spitzberg in mind, I climbed out of Biel going west to come out somewhere between Magglingen and the Twannberg. As I gained altitude the fog got thicker with every meter I climbed. Only once I reached the highest point the fog opened up to let a few sun rays through.

By the time I dropped down towards the Twannberg I was back riding a snow-covered trail barely seeing farther than five meters ahead. I dropped down to Lamboing to reach the next climb up to the Spitzberg. Riding went well at first as enough snow had melted to reveal the fire road. But once my wheels had to slice through the wet, heavy snow pedaling was over. On a geared bike, I would have dropped into a small gear and made it up the climb. But on my one-gear carbon bike I quickly came to a standstill whenever the rear wheel ate itself into the snow. I was determined to get up to the top, hoping that I’d find better riding conditions higher up. With the sun out, temperatures were above zero degrees and the fire road never offered rideable conditions again.

Once I reached the top though, I headed east towards the skiing slopes and found a trail that I was able to ride most of the time. Tough at first, the snow got harder the closer I got to the slopes. The trail ended right where the skiers and snow-boarders get off the lift and the only way to get down the mountain was to join them on their slopes. It’s been a long time since I last rode a bike down these slopes. I knew it was going to be fun. The snow under my wheels was hard but not frozen and provided an awesome grip. It was fun seeing people’s faces when they turned around realizing that there was a biker coming down the hill. As I passed a group, I heard someone wonder if I had taken the ski lift. I wish I could have. It was a blast riding those slopes. I could have done it all afternoon. But it was time to head home to have enough time for a shower and get ready for a nice New Years dinner with my wife at the Restaurant des Gorges in Frinvillier.

An Afternoon Between Grays

Escaping the gray today required the willingness to battle wet, muddy and slushy trails. But escaping the gray was well worth it today. The scenery above the fog was absolutely amazing. Sun rays, clouds and a sky in many colors offered an amazing early afternoon spectacle.

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