What a ride! After almost 13 hours on my bike, I finished at the most beautiful cycling event out there, for the first time! It took a summer of training and a first trial in 2019 where I had to take a shortcut due to missing the time limit at a control station, but finally, I made it to the finish line.
Happy me arriving shortly before sunset at the finish in Andermatt
How the day went
Together with Lars and my father, I slept in Zurich, which meant we had to get up around 4am to be in Andermatt before the brevet would start at 6am. Eating almost the entire drive, we constantly checked the weather forecast, which was rather unclear about what to expect. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that it would probably rain, but not too much, and that we should be fine.
Start
At 6am sharp, the first group for the Platinum route started. I didn’t want to be too far behind, so I went with the second group at 6:10am. This meant the sun had yet to rise, and we descended the Gotthard in the dark.
In the beginning there was darkness
Susten
The first climb was the Sustenpass - roughly 1000m of elevation within 15km - a decent start for the day. From the first hour on I started trying to get as many carbs as possible, as I knew eating would be one of the main challenges of the day. Riding up the Susten, having my second breakfast while the sun went up was a pretty cool experience and I quite enjoyed the 80 minutes it took me.
I was happy and the weather was good on top of the Sustenpass
I was slightly faster than the first time in 2019, and I was significantly faster downhill! The last time I was on my old steel bike - so this time I felt like I was on rails.
Grimsel
Next up was the Grimsel - a beatiful but long and steep road. It was windy down in the valley and I didn’t want to lose to much energy that early on, so I started careful. On the first food stop, I picked up as many gels and bars as I could carry, hopped back on my bike, and started eating while driving. Even though it was only a bit more than 2h, the climb felt like an eternity, but eventually the sun came out, mood in the peloton was good, and I made it to the top. I was slower than in 2019, but still in time, and I loved the descent again!
And down it goes! Uphill I was slow, but downhill was a blast
Nufenen
The Nufenenpass and I will never become best friends. It was the third time I crossed it with my bicycle, and every single time, it killed me. I met the others half up the climb who came from the top as the gold tour was riding it the other way around.
The others had already done Gotthard and Nufenen at that point, for me there was still a bit of riding to do
Arriving at the top, it started to get foggy and cold (as always when I am up there), so the descent was super slow, and I was more than happy to arrive in Airolo.
Lukmanier
Almost down in Airolo, heavy rain started. At the control station, I again filled my pockets and got a hot soup, which was important for my morale. Many riders were discussing to abort and go back to Andermatt via the Gotthard. I had just made the time limit, and 2 minutes (!) before they closed the road (or at least 2 minutes before they said they would do so in the morning), I took the road down, entering the beautiful Ticino region. I was quite lucky that after roughly 5km, the rain stopped and I soon found a group of roughly 10 people to ride with. They were in better shape than me, and dragged me all the way down to Biasca - we had an average of 41km/h for almost 40km, something I would not have been able to pull of by myself that time of the day. Up Lukmanier was again quite of a challenge. My legs started become heavy, rain started again, and the food started to taste horrible.
Fighting my way up the Lukmanier in the rain, alone and tired - probably the hardest part of the day
After 12 or 13 gels, even if crucially important, I almost couldn’t bring myself to eat one more. Again, I found a group with 3 others which boosted my mood and helped me fight my way to the next food station. There, I stayed longer than before, drinking hot soup, eating bread and chocolate, and filling my bottles again. Somehow, I managed to make my way up and started the next descent.
Oberalp
I didn’t know it at that time, but the worst was over! After coming down from the Lukmanier, at the next and last food station, I realized that due to the fast descent to Biasca and a relatively good time up Lukmanier, I was actually ahead of schedule. I took a break of maybe 15 minutes and then started the last climb. My legs felt good and at that point, I knew I would make it. Those were the best one and a half hours of the day, as I was able to ride at a good pace, and the weather was okay again. My only concern was that the batteries of my lights were running low and I really couldn’t stand the food nor the carbo drink anymore. Shortly before the top, even the sun came out and I had a wonderful rainbow on the Oberalp.
The last climb was accompanied by a rainbow
Andermatt
After 13:43 on the road, I arrived in Andermatt. I was happy, but predominantly, I was tired. While I was riding through the rain, the others had long arrived at the finish line. Some day, I will start again - until then, I will enjoy the memories of this day.
The route taken