Europe Day 16: 69 Miles

Lucerne, Switzerland to Basel, Switzerland

Today was probably the most enjoyable ride I’ve had in Europe so far. The weather was great and I spent most of the day riding on a bike path through farms and small towns. 69 miles is the longest mileage day I’ve done so far, but most of the day trended downhill which made the distance easy to cover.

I got on the road early, knowing I’d be in for at least 6 hours of riding. The hostel was in a great location to get right onto a bike path out of Lucerne. There was a short climb within the first 10 miles, but then I settled into a nice pace all the way to the town of Aarau. Most of the riding to Aarau was on a well maintained gravel bike path that had me traveling through farms well away from the main road. It was nice to be able to focus on the scenery around me rather than traffic.

Aarau marked both the halfway point for the day and the bottom of today’s only real climb. I decided to look for a place to grab food but found most of the grocery stores and restaurants were closed. Most towns were observing the Ascension Day holiday, and everything was shut down. Of course, the one place I found open to grab a quick meal was McDonald’s.

After lunch I was thrown right into the climb out of Aarau. The first 3 miles took me back onto a dirt path up a hill through a forest. I then had to conquer a few miles of switchbacks. The switchbacks were more challenging than I expected, often reaching grades of 10% to 12%. I even hopped off my bike and walked a few sections to give myself a rest. The climb rose from 1,200 feet elevation to 2,700 feet elevation, but I knew once I was at the top it would be an easy ride all the way to Basel.

I took a quick break at the top of the climb and then headed downhill for the final 25 miles of the day. There were a few more short but steep uphill sections that surprised me, but once I was 20 miles from Basel, I had nothing but downhill. The last couple of miles are always the most difficult of the day when heading into a city. I always find it hard to navigate to a specific address using my bike computer, so I used my phone for directions instead. This usually means I have to study the map on my phone, make it as far as I can remember, and then stop when I think I’ve made a wrong turn. I did this a few times to navigate into the center of Basel and arrived at my friend Brice and his girlfriend Ines’s apartment around 3:30. It was so nice to see familiar faces after traveling solo for almost 3 weeks and I’m thankful that Brice and Ines are letting me stay with them. After we caught up for a bit, I took a shower and cleaned myself off after the long ride. Ines was nice enough to take care of my laundry so I will have clean clothes while I’m in Basel. We then headed into town for some drinks and food. After a couple of hours in town we called it a night. I’m excited to spend the day in Basel tomorrow for what is supposed to be a beautiful day.

---

---

Musings:

• Why are people expected to pick up after their dogs but not their horses? The bike path I was on today had garbage cans with plastic bags to pick up dog poop, yet there were piles of horse shit all over the path. I think there should be extra-large plastic bags for the horses.
• Rowers are freakishly tall athletes. During my 2 days in Lucerne I noticed there were a ton of really tall athletic looking people staying at my hostel. There were several women well over 6 feet tall and many men who were probably 6′ 6”. When I got to breakfast this morning all of these people were decked out in athletic gear. It turns out the European Rowing Championships were taking place in Lucerne and I had been staying at the hostel with the Ukrainian and Romanian national rowing teams.