Today the forecast was for wet and cold and my knee was still questionable, so we altered the route to avoid some of the first pass and lots of climbing. Instead we stayed closer to the Rhine for the first few hours. We left early and pretty quickly we explored a bit of the Vaduz, Liechtenstein city center and I took a moment to adjust my bike fit to help with my knee pain.
All morning we’d be heading up the Rhine along a pretty consistent set of trails along one side or another. We lost track of how many times we crossed the river (and also the Autobahn that follows the river valley as well. It was a nice mix of paved, gravel and town streets.
We stopped for coffee and snacks in Chur, Switzerland and that marked the end of our route closely following the long, straight section of the Rhine.
We took this opportunity to scout ahead and book our hotel a good ways up a big mountain climb in the village of Filisur.
The bike route we’d been following changed character, switching to steep MTB-friendly gravel as the Rhine carves through mountains too steep to build normal roads through. (The Autobahn uses a tunnel in this spot). For us, we were happy to be in a new environment and despite being pretty challenging for me (not yet super skilled at gravel!), I really enjoyed it!
We railed a blistering descent and then decided it was time to refill water from a public fountain and apply sunscreen.
This was notable, because we were expecting rain and storms all day, but they never materialized. We were very happy about that!
We didn’t want to make the same mistake two days in a row, so we stopped for a big lunch/dinner shop at Aldi just before the big climb began. Unfortunately, this meant we’d have to haul all that food up the mountain but… Worth it! Harald even bought two N/A beers but downed one in the Aldi parking lot while I was finishing my soy yogurt.
The climb started on a country road with a good consistent grade. I was trying to take care of my knee so I was half to have a lot of low gear options. After about 15 minutes, we joined a much busier road which was a bit more stress but the cars and trucks were mostly very careful passers. A surprise to me was two lengthy tunnel sections, which were about a minute and 2:30, respectively. The good thing is they were both in slight downhills so we were going pretty fast but that’s a long time in a small two-lane mountain tunnel with cars on your ass, thinking about trying to pass! But we made it!
After the tunnels, we broke off again on an old road that had no car traffic but very steep climbs and extremely windy. Several times we looked back down and saw a road far below and only eventually realized it was the road we’d been on.
A few screaming descents, some quiet gravel segments and last minute detours eventually led us to Filisur and our hotel. Even better, there was a grocery store (Coop) immediately adjacent to the hotel so we could get cold beverages as our reward.
So just shy of 100km today and 900m of climbing. Tomorrow should be similar length but about twice the climbing. No dilly-dallying, it’s mountain climbs right from the get-go!
