Day 3 (Switzerland): Basel - Zurich (the world is flat - 2x)

today’s distance: 98 km
total distance: 276 km
riding time: +/- 5.5

Rain pelted the window at 5:30 am … went back to sleep, no plan to head out that early. By the time I started things were good though and I made some good progress with a good tailwind. My knee started to bother me though and I will have to keep an eye on it. It should be alright if I do low gears and is nothing new at the start of a tour.

My first stop was at a bakery doing their goodness in a wood-fired brick oven. There isn’t much that beats a dense well rounded bread dough baked to perfection. It was yummy and was a great addition to the remaining cheese. However, the sales person’s feeling for inclines were all off. She figured it would be all flat from then on … after about 5 km further along the road I happened upon a 12% climb - glorious downhill to follow of course.

So, either the Swiss are just used to higher mountains than I am or it is the usual issue of biker incline v. car driver incline (aka have to pedal hard v. push down the accelerator a bit harder).

This was followed by a series of other climbs until I reached the town of Baden, quaint and pretty.

The rest of the day I spent navigating the tricky roads around Zurich. Just when you think you’re there, they throw another hill at you with a good 15 minutes of laboring uphill. Fun stuff in the end though. I ended up at Regula’s place at 5 pm, my couchsurfing host for the day. She’s a great cook - nothing better than pasta and a good homemade tomato sauce to fill an empty biker’s stomach. This was followed by an excellent tour of Zurich at night …

Thank you Regula for putting me up for the night - and good luck on the upcoming bike trip through Argentina and Chile.