Thinking about a summer road trip which would start with a week based in Wengen. IIRC someone who posts on here lives locally – advice wanted. How to find trails, any events worth building the trip around etc etc.

There are loads of tracks and trails – obviously.
Have you tried the website? Most give MTB trails and GPS maps to download. But not until after the skiing season finishes

Skiing there at the moment (hence the idea)

What time of year exactly Simon?

I ask as there is no way in hell i’d want to ride that area in June/July/August due to influx of tourists!

I was kind of one of them for my childhood as the family home was nearby.

Seriously though, I can highly recommend Eastern Switzerland (Davos, Lenzerheide, Arosa etc). Was there in 2011 and barely scratched the surface of the riding plus if you stay in rented accomadation in Davos and Arosa then lift tickets are free!!!

Heading back this September 🙂

Destination is fixed (we have a place to stay) but timing is flexible. Does it really get that busy?

There’s MTB trails off the Jungfraujoch? blimey.

http://www.bikearena.ch/ (plus help from google translate)

thought all the lifts and trains were off limits to bikes, but seems that’s not the case.

certainly a scenic place to ski/bike. been meaning to go back for years – only skied there so far. would expect that going up to Kleine Scheidegg would be a pita with so many tourists. might be better over toward Grindelwald or Murren?

Jungfraujoch

Er yes. Whiskey. Jungfrau.

Suspect it’s the same as anywhere – you can quickly cover enough km on a bike to get away from the crowds.

This is the event I was thinking of – eiger bike
http://www.eigerbike.ch/marschtabelle.ph
88km 3900m

so why ask everyone , when you are there !! 🙄

A friend of mine did the Eiger Bike event at least once (we were camping with them before I’d started MTBing). Seems like a good event, a fair bit of fire-road stuff but I remember him being impressed with the footpath that runs under the north face of the Eiger.

That doesn’t help much does it.

The Swiss (tourist office / local council) idea of mtb usually involves tarmac road (fire-road if you are lucky). They publish free maps with this stuff and signpost it – hence if you are riding singletrack / wanderwegs, you can get grief off locals and tourists who don’t think you should be there.

We were around Wengen / Murren / Kleine Scheideg on a summer sunday in 2011 and there were plenty of mtbs up and about – just not sure where they were riding. All the lifts / trains etc in those valleys means there aren’t that many truly quiet places in summer….

There is a guiding company over in the next valley at Meiringen. Its is a bit quieter up on Hasliberg – the lifts will take you up but still not overly encouraging mtbs http://www.bikekultour.ch/ENG/ We did plenty of footpaths with Sandra the guide, but it still needed occasional diplomacy.

There are some good marked maps available from http://www.singletrailmap.ch/singletrailmap/index.php

To be allowed to ride the path that runs under the Eiger north face would be incredible. It’s an awesome walk.

Hell’s teeth I was drunk that night in Grindlewald.

I had a week in Grindelwald in 2010 and am a filthy xc jeyboy.
The ride up to Kleine Sheiedeg is quite fruity in a massive ascent kind of way, if naughtily used all the footpaths to get to Wengen and there was some lovely technical frotty singletrack. Nobody seemed to care and this was high summer. Grosse Schiedeg was the same.
As mick-r said the tourist office class mtb as something you do on stupendously steep tarmac singletrack paths ! all the red and white marked hiking trails are much more fun. i was on my own or with wife and met absolutely no resistance at all. I was staying with the mayor as well and he was pretty casual about where we were riding. BIG hills though. I was training for some races and came back bulletproof, not many 1500m+ ascents in NZ you see !

Whist living in CH, I never got any grief from riding on single track. Wanderwegs – yes, they are made for walking on – like footpaths, so they had every right to give you a steely glare.

Grindlewald is pretty busy – hence many may well be on these Wanderwegs. It is very pro-mountain bike environment. But they do have rules. And they really like their rules.

To be allowed to ride the path that runs under the Eiger north face would be incredible. It’s an awesome walk.

That would be terrifying! A load of loose shale on a really steep gradient! One slip….

Switzerland in general is awesome. The Jungfrau region itself is not the best area. They have epic trails, but the local tourists office attitude to mountain biking is not exactly in line with that of tourist offices in other areas of the country.

The Bike Arena website somebody pointed to earlier lists mainly routes that are predominately fire road. There are a lot of great single trails around but there are a lot of trails closed to bikes and the ones that are not closed are not clearly enough marked which leads to the hikers thinking that you are not allowed to being there and giving you grief. I raised this issue with the tourist office about two years ago and their answer was simply that the hikers in the area are not used to bikers. :-/

I’ve ridden all over Switzerland (I live here full time) and I’ve never had any of the issues I’ve had in Berner Oberland anywhere else. Having said that, I will be nipping back to the area this summer with a few more ideas in my head and will hopefully unlock the riding in that area too.

sorry for slight high jack..

ir12daveor, how could I get in touch?

I moved here (Bonstetten, Zurich) last July and have started to feel a bit more settled in.

Anyways, I’m trying to get in touch with fellow cyclists, to hopefully try and meet up and if nothing else, get some good tips on areas to head to.

Wifes parents are coming over in a few months, which means she’ll have back up for our 3 little’uns….which means I can get a few days cycling in.

Haven’t decided to go for Road or and MTB trip yet…

Just trying to plan it now.

Sorry for hijack.

Hi Growinglad.
I run http://www.swissalpineadventure.ch join up and come along on a ride. We are a sociable community who organise rides in Spring/Summer/Autumn free of charge for anyone to come along. You’ll be able to get in touch with me directly through that.

We also run courses and weekends away to some of the better places in CH through out the year at a reasonable price.

Dave.

Hi Dave,

Ahhh, okay, yep, already joined up via meetup.

Actually got chatting to another chap in the Zurich area and hopefully we’ll meet up with him soon for a night ride.

I’m out of action for a couple of weeks, had a nasty off on my road bike, bashed my back up a bit, but hopefully will be back on the bike soon.

It’s a fine line between getting on the bike at the right time and a bit too early where your ears start to ache having to listen to the wife telling you off for getting on the bike too early!! 🙂

Hopefully we’ll get to say hello in person soon.

Cheers,
Simon.

I’ve ridden all over Switzerland (I live here full time) and I’ve never had any of the issues I’ve had in Berner Oberland anywhere else. Having said that, I will be nipping back to the area this summer with a few more ideas in my head and will hopefully unlock the riding in that area too.

Interesting. Tempted to go for a few days anyway just to see what it’s like in summer but maybe for a full week – could always spend a few days walking if the riding doesn’t work out.

Any route suggestions?