Forum menu
Going to be there for work for a few weeks, during the week.
Is it worth taking a bike for nighttime road riding? Looks great on the map, could be lovely zipping through the hills by moonlight, or could be a dismal slog.
Any rules I need to be aware of cycling?
Don't know Basel. Night riding weather ? Around Geneva and along lake to Nyon etc if there is a cycle lane (inc on pavement) you must use it.
Download swiss mobility app for mapping
I've cycled through Basel on a tour of the Rhine.
If you were going there in the summer I'd say definitely take the bike, Voges, Jura, Alsace vineyards and Black Forrest all a short hop away on the train. Pootling on bike paths also good. Tram tracks are the major hazard.
Road riding at night in the winter in a foreign city - I don't know. Probably not for me.
Take a ridiculously large amount of money though. If you can eat and sleeep in Germany or France you'll save a packet.
As molgrips is there for work all accomodation and meals will be paid for, hard to beat free 😉
Agreed some interesting looking hills to South and road bike loop options inc marked on Swiss Mobility in blue. Dark at 1645 and temps +7 to zero.
Yes, it is if you are going to be there for a while.
Big Scot Nanny of this parish is a Basel Dweller, there are good trails along the Rhine and both Swiss and German side. Easy to pedal out of the city too.
Chriscona has a lot of good single track and your also not far from the Black Forest single track too.
[url= https://www.meetup.com/Basel-Badgers-MtB/ ]This Club[/url] are pretty active all year if possible and are English speaking. They do a lot of meet up in the city then ride out stuff
Road riding at night in the winter in a foreign city
I don't intend to be IN the city for long 🙂
I will only have evenings, and work could well be high pressure so I won't have time to plan and implement proper rides. I'm thinking one or two hours in the evening, jump on the bike, most likely road.
However, if there's good trails that would work - how do I know where I can MTB?
Strava heatmap. Basel is a pretty small city (as are most in Switzerland) and you'd be out in the countryside pretty quickly as you say. Wrap up warm.
[url= http://www.gps-tracks.com/st.chrischona-singletrails-mountainbike-tour-E02197.html ]Chrischona GPS[/url]
Or, get the 12:000 Kompass map which has all of Basel and surrounds on.
GPSies also has a lot of trails.
Also on Youtube, search for St Chrischona mtb
Assuming the larger roads are gritted and I don't need to worry about ice if there's a light frost...
Chrischona GPS
That looks fun 🙂
Lovely area to explore on the road. Several routes up Gurten easily accessible from the centre. It's about 400 vertical meters. Otherwise, just explore Basel Land. It's littered with deserted farm roads and 200 vertical meter climbs. Strava routing and heat map will sort you out.
Regarding ice, we use salt, not grit. Far more civilized.
Hello - aforementioned Basel dweller here (well, Oberwil, but close enough)
Not really road riding rules to worry about, lots of cycle lanes and drivers are hammered if they hit a cyclist so its retty safe. Also, most everyone also rides a bike so very respectful. Ride like you own the road, coz you pretty much do.
Only thing to mention, except to be on the correct side of the road, is that at all times, the tram is the number 1 vehicle. Without question.
Also, tram tracks in the wet are **** ing lethal. In fact, they are also pretty lethal in the dry, AVOID!
Lots of really nice road riding about if you fancy it, I only do that for the commute to work, prefer mtb.
Pop me a note if you want to hook up, would be delighted to show you about on the mtb if you don't mid a slow fat biffer holding you back 🙂 lots of fab mtb trails around.
As rick says, Badgers are indeed active, and mostly expats, regular rides.
This website helps with 'official' routes, the road ones are good, the officical mtb ones are really fireroad boredom so avoid.
http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/cycling.html
When are you over?
^^ and ^^^^ love stw people are so helpful 🙂
Regarding ice, we use salt, not grit. Far more civilized.
Interesting comment as in Arosa they boasted about not using salt as its not environmentally friendly, they used large grit and then swept it up.
OP plus people use winter tyres, I would not assume the roads are "clear" but then again I am very cautious on roads.
The brown UK stuff is salt, unrefined. The white stuff is I think magnesium chloride, or a mix of salts. Probably more energy intensive to refine, at a guess. In Finland they use actual grit - fine granite gravel that they sweep up in the spring and re-use.
Big Scott and others - would love to ride. I'm coming over Monday to Thursday starting this Monday, for three weeks. Not going to bring the bike next week though, not quite ready.
In the mountains they do use coarse grit as you suggest, but in the lowlands, it's normally salt. The Rhine valley near Basel is actually a big salt producing area and has been since Roman times. There's still a huge plant in Möhlin and the famous salt water thermal baths in Rheinfelden.
In my previous post, I mentioned road climbs up to Gurten. I meant Gempen. (Gurten is a DH trail near to Bern)
In Finland they use actual grit - fine granite gravel that they sweep up in the spring and re-use.
Also the detail that salt doesn't work if it gets too cold. Too cold being not actually that cold.
I really do need to move to Switzerland .. Verbier is open this weekend (3rd of season already), skiing up top and mountain biking at the bottom, resort to Le Chable lift assisted.
The discussion on road salt may give a reasonably fair representation of the exciting life in NW CH 🙂 but, what the hell, in for a penny etc...
I can confirm in Basel-Land they use salt when it is 'just a bit mingin', but go full-on garden path chips when it's proper cold. 'Tis cool how they then come and sweep it up for use again. All very swiss.
And, Schweiz, thanks for correcting on Gurten, Gempen is a decent hump on the road. Really rather good single trail too.
I should also mention, that pretty much all the roads are so perfectly surfaced it's beyond belief. Even the forest fire roads are better than most streets in Inverclyde.
Car parks also hilariously over engineered (and mind bogglingly expensive of course), and caused my father to utter a now famous phrase when we first collected my folks from the Banhoff car park underneath the main train station: "Son, there are restaurants in Glasgow dirtier than this car park" 😆