Railways through mountains – the Glacier Express J & N Forsyth
Europe with Bike – Switzerland
The Swiss are amazing. Their country is not a natural place to build railways, so they build them up and through mountains.
The Swiss rail network is spread evenly on the country. There are 3,787 km of standard gauge tracks spread across the country and 509 km of metre gauge tracks in the south of the country. The main operator is Swiss Federal Railways (SBB/CFF/FFS). The other operators such as BLS (Bern-Löschtberg-Simplon) appear to be privately owned but are in fact owned by the cantons and the federal government. There are connections to Austria, France, Germany and Italy, some of which carry bicycles, both DB and SNCF run trains into Switzerland. The only major cross border rail connection that does nor accept bicycles is the narrow gauge Locarno to Domodossola FART (Ferrovie Autolinee Regionali Ticinesi – Regional Bus and Rail Company of Canton Ticino) line over the Centovalli.
Some but not all of the distinctive yellow Post Buses take bicycles.
The railway system is cyclist-friendly, but not cheap. The majority of trains carry bicycles without reservation. This does mean that on public holidays problems can arise. You load the bikes yourself. The exception being the InterCity-Neigezügen (ICN) tilting Intercity trains where reservations are necessary between 21 March to 31 October at a cost of 5CHF per bicycle. These reservations can be made online. Short distance bicycle tickets cost half the single second class fare. A day tickets costs 12CHF for passengers with rail cards and 18CHF for passengers paying the full price for their tickets.
Travelling to Switzerland overland with your bicycle is described in “Taking your bicycle by bus, train and ship across Europe”.
Adequate bike parking (Romanshorn). J & N Forsyth
Popular Cycling Areas in Switzerland
The Swiss authorities have invested heavily in cycle routes over the last twenty years or so with the result that the country now has nine national routes criss crossing the country and a large number of regional routes. Signposting and track quality is superb. Readers can find much more information about Swiss cycling in “Cycle Touring in Switzerland” by Judith and Neil Forsyth, published by Cicerone ISBN: 9781852845261 as a printed book or as an e-book. One can also buy descriptions of individual routes.
On weekends in summer with a good weather forecast, increased numbers of cyclists can be expected between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. and between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on trains to Ticino, Valais, the Bernese Oberland, Pays des trois lacs – near Neuchatel, Jura, Grisons and Lake Constance, i.e. much of Switzerland, meaning there may be a shortage of space on these trains.
Wide bicycle access on Swiss doubledecker rolling stock J & N Forsyth
Train Types
This matter is largely irrelevant, because trains that take bicycles are shown in the timetable, allowing cyclists to choose which trains they take. There do not appear to be surcharges or extra charges for certain trains. There is the usual mix of local, regional and express trains. Bicycles are forbidden during the evening rush on Zurich S-Bahn (suburban trains) during the evening rush Mondays to Fridays (4pm-7pm).
One very good idea is that capacity forecasts for each train is shown online and on station indicators which allows route planning to use trains that are not as full.
Tickets
Railway tickets are expensive. Most inhabitants of Switzerland invest in a Half-Fare travel card which gives you half price travel and reduced prices for bicycle transport, but as it costs 185CHF, it does not really pay unless you live there or visit often. We bought two when we wrote the Cycling in Switzerland book as we spent several months there. There are also cards for tourists – the Swiss Pass, etc. Check out thelockboss.ie. But one needs to calculate carefully if cycling and expecting to travel by bicycle with the odd trip by public transport.
Getting you and your bike on the bus, ship or train.
Buses
Many but not all Post Buses carry bicycles and E-bikes.
You put the bike on a rack or on a trailer yourself.
Typical ramp on a Swiss station J Forsyth
Trains
Tandems are not carried by the SBB. Bike trailers can only be transported if they are no wider than 80 cm.
Select your route and journey time in the online timetable which allows searching in all public transport systems in Switzerland:
• In the online timetable, select “Advanced search” and then “carriage of bicycles required (Switzerland only)” to see the routes on which you can take your bike yourself.
• Trains that do not have space for bicycles are marked on the timetable and departure boards with a bike logo with a bar across. Cyclists are not allowed to take their bikes on these trains.
• A bicycle reservation symbol or reference number on the timetable indicates a train or Post Bus for which reservation is required.
• The capacity forecast is a useful indicator of which trains are likely to have capacity bottlenecks and whether another train or a different route might be less busy and thus better suited to transport bikes.
• Passengers can check which section of the platform the coaches with bicycle spaces (bicycle hooks, bicycle platforms) will arrive in as early as three hours before departure in the online timetable or in the SBB Mobile smartphone app.
One good feature of Swiss stations is the provision of ramps to the platforms. There is no fiddling about trying to persuade loaded bicycles to get into narrow lifts. You will know roughly where the bike carrying carriages will stop. Go to the correct area of the platform. Take the bags off the bike. Put all the bags together. When the train arrives enter the train through a door with a bike logo. Just prop the bike up and return to the platform to pick up your bags. Leaving your passport and camera on the platform could probably spoil your day. Get back on the train and hang the bike up. Find a seat and collapse.
When you get off the train, push your bike along the platform. It is strictly forbidden to ride bikes on platforms.
Ferries and Steamers
There are ferries and ships on the larger lakes. There is normally no problem getting your bike on board. Just tell the person in the booking office. A bungee or a strap is a useful accessory to fasten the bike to the mainmast or similar, so everything is shipshape and Bristol fashion.
Diversions
Our favourite trip is from Andermatt over the Oberalp Pass and then down the Rhine Valley to Lake Constance with good mountain views all the way.
We live in interesting times. As bits of Antarctica drop off, and global meltdown accelerates goodness knows where, it’s business as usual in the UK – more and bigger cars doing more miles, renewed talk of a railway closure programme, and low-impact cycling right off the political agenda. Meanwhile, the chairman of Shell is riding a Brompton to work and making some very anti- oil comments. Whatever next!
ORIGINAL ARTICLE FROM FEBRUARY 2005.
Remarkably good. The electrical bits cause no complications, so folding the WiLL is much the same as any other 20-inch job.The handlebar stem has an elegant catch, rather like a convex version of the Brompton U-clamp (a round bar, in other words). Once released, the handlebars fold down and clip into place, something that always gets top marks in our book.The mainframe hinge is a bit trickier, and you need strong fingers to push back the safety catch, heave the lever, and winkle the locking bar from its lair in the frame. Once done, the bike folds in a trice, and with the attractive MKS FD6 pedals folded (best accessories on the bike), it’s done. As usual, one of the folding pedals is superfluous, so they could have saved a few quid there, and in contrast to the handlebar stem, the frame doesn’t clip together, so the package continuously falls apart.Why, oh why, oh why, do these manufacturers never listen?
There’s a real demand for carrying children on the Brompton, something we can vouch for from personal experience. It’s also probably the most common question we get asked. Integrating the bike itself with rail or bus is straightforward, but children make life much more complicated.Trailers are great, but even the most compact takes up more space than a folding bike designed for an adult, so they present a bit of a challenge on public transport.
We’re not actually that keen on bags since the railway companies got folder-friendly, but they have their uses.Yachtsfolk need to protect their bikes from salt spray and flying bowsprites, whatever they might be, and the same principle applies to those regularly checking a bike in as anonymous luggage, whether at the airport, the restaurant or even (particularly even) Mrs Hampton’s Bordello & Old Time Massage Parlour. Of course, you may think you need a bike bag for another reason; whatever, it will leave your wallet thirty quid lighter and your Brompton nearly a kilogram heavier.
The story of folding bicycles in the USA is unusual. In the UK and Europe, folders are everywhere.They appear every working day on buses and trains during commuting hours, and are seen tucked away in offices and other workplaces in all major cities.They are, as our saying goes, ‘as common as crabgrass’.
Produce any interesting machine and someone will want to customise it. Engineer Steve Parry has been producing custom folding bikes to order for over a decade – concentrating on the Brompton in recent years.
“I have had three punctures on my Brompton since Christmas.The first in the front Marathon, the second in the rear Brompton tyre, prompting me to change it for a Marathon.The third was in the front Marathon again, causing me to regret spending on the rear tyre change. Just to make it worse, Mosquito Bikes fitted a 5/8in (16mm) Schwalbe 4a AV tube that is supposed to stretch to 13/8in (37mm). When it’s stretched that thin, how long will it last?
Puncture-proof, at a terrible cost, are the so-called ‘solid’ tyres.These may be just tolerable on a 26-inch wheel, but at 16-inch the high rolling resistance and ‘wooden’ feel make these things more trouble than they’re worth.The same goes for ‘solid’ foam inner tubes, about which the less said the better.
Bicycle carriage policy has deteriorated too. Bicycles were already banned on busy commuter trains into major cities, but Wessex tried to extend the ban to cover most of its peak-hour trains, some of which had plenty of space for bikes. After a few months, the company backed down and rescinded the bike ban, then attempted to mitigate this PR disaster by encouraging commuters to purchase a ‘Bike-in-a-Bag’ folding bike. But as even the importers of the machine would have to admit, the Bike-in-a-Bag is hardly designed for daily use, and – more crucially for Wessex – it makes a large and unwieldy folded package on the train.
Here at A to B we can be a bit sceptical about government schemes to boost cycling. Don’t forget, this is the same bunch that imposed on- the-spot fines on elderly ladies riding sedately on the pavement, but wouldn’t fund the cycle facilities to keep riders safe; that built more and bigger roads, when they claimed to be reversing the trend, painted speed cameras bright yellow, so motorists could avoid the fines, and promised to quadruple cycling, but oversaw the biggest decline in cycle use ever recorded. Why would we take any notice of a government scheme?
With most British products now designed and made elsewhere (albeit by British designers very often), we sometimes have to be reminded that we once built rather good vehicles. Every nation could unearth a few classics, but our little islands have produced a whole encyclopedia: beautiful ocean liners, graceful steam engines, grand cars, aircraft, motorcycles and of course buses.The theory behind Britain’s long love affair with the double-decker bus is that our narrow city streets made it necessary to build upwards. Perhaps, although the same could be said for any number of European cities. More likely, we just enjoyed being different.
