I’ve been running a pair of them since July last year. Until now only good things to say about them. Riding is primarily Alpine in nature no shortage of rocks over here in Switzerland!

Rode at 2000m in Switzerland last week.

Brakes should be available. Been running a set for about three weeks as has a mate.

Just use the Carbon ones. Based on 3 full years of using carbon wheels in the Alps, my carbon rims have outlasted any alu rim I’ve used, remained truer and are still going strong.

Waiting to hear too. I wonder will a dropout conversion kit be available for current Shans.

There is talk of a Europe wide(Alpine Environment)guiding qualification. In theory it should bring the main qualifications from Alpine countries (France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland) together to make a more consistent scheme across these countries. I’m not sure what the time frame is though.

FWIW I’ve recently went and got the local qualification from the country I am active in having already held a qualification in a neighbouring country.

All of Switzerland.

The salary on offer is CHF60,000 about £40,000. We are a frugal family anyway and prefer to cook at home rather than be disappointed by eating out..Thanks for advice re. looking for accommodation @ir12daveor

60,000CHF to move here is on the low side. There are people that live here on that (and lower), but it does not reflect the cost of living and the having to uproot your life to Switzerland for it.

On the English forum someone posted a link to earlier the common question is can I live on 120,000CHF in Switzerland. It’s a bit of a piss pull, but that seems to be what a lot of the people moving for IT and Banking jobs seem to pull. I earn substantially less and have a good life, but I don’t have a family to support and my girlfriend also works.

I would be looking to push that offer to 90,000ish if I were you, but I’m not familiar with the salaries in your line of work.

Spent 8 years there ( two 4 years stints)

It is very expensive – but if you are paid as a local then you will be ok (I wasn’t but on a cost of living allowance)
Tax helps to balance out other costs but it will still make you wince.
pizza and beer for two will cost you 100 swiss …
Zurich is nice, accommodation is getting harder to find – and expensive 3k per month upwards.

Not quite true unless you go to the need to be seen places in Seefeld, Zurich. Get a little out side the city and a Pizza is to be had for 15-20CHF. Likewise with Rent, 3000CHF living in Seefeld. Get a little bit out on a good commuter line and you can get a 4 room appartment for 1600-1900CHF.

It is a stunningly beautiful place – and if you like the outdoors life then it is great. For my first years summers were the motorcycle, winters the snowboard.

True

The locals are not very friendly , and getting less so. As an ausslander you will get treated as a second class citizen.
It’s racist and sexist

True and not true at the same time. There are grumpy gits everywhere, but the more language you learn the more you realise that people are not actually giving you sh!t. After a number of years here I understand the locals pretty well and I actually find them very friendly. Once they find out I’m a native English speaker that understands Swiss German they are super friendly.

It’s a bit of a police state

Again yes and no. There is a big police presence and in certain things they are very strict, but on others they are very liberal.

The expats – there is a big expat scene there, I set up a motorbiking group that has gone from strength to strength since I left
But some of the expats are weird – you can see why they left the UK. Strange socially, very needy, product of broken relationship. Few are normal people you would chose to hang around in real life.

Yip, you do have some of those… Hmm… Could that be me? 8O

If you are going, don’t go on an expat contract, it is like slavery – well paid slavery, but you will be (extremely) tied to you employer. And they know it.

Not sure when you were here last, but that is not really the case anymore. Once an EU person has a permit now they are not linked to the Job anymore. It is still the case for non-EU people, but not for anyone from the EU. Even with the recent vote.

Been here over 10 years now. It’s not a bad place to live if you like riding bikes.

I’m based just outside Zurich and run a community for cyclists througout Switzerland. You’ll find bike buddies here when you move over for sure. http://www.swissalpineadventure.ch

Similar issues. Did probably a bit too much on one chain ~2000km and when I swapped the lowest three gears on the XX1 cassette were slipping with even the smallest bit of load. Cassette had to be swapped.

I’m also noticing extreme wear on the front ring. After ~1000km I am getting signs of wear on the front ring. It feels like drag on the chain line or that the gears aren’t adjusted properly. I couldn’t figure it out the last time but when I went and changed the front ring it disappeared. About 1000km into a new ring (plus new chain and cassette) and this dragging is coming back.

I really like XX1, but it’s longevity is pretty terrible.

The only limit is your imagination!

http://map.geo.admin.ch/

More steep squiggly single track linked together by lifts than you can explore in a life time!

I love how these threads always bring up the Swiss clichés that are for the most part untrue. I’ve ridden around Switzerland more than most and don’t limit myself to any one area and have guided the author of two of the articles on Switzerland published in Singletrack in the last year (one in the current issue).

Switzerland doesn’t have to be expensive. If you go to the well know, popular tourist resorts you will get fleeced. If you stay a little off the beaten path you are onto a winner. Bed and Breakfast in the Hotel Sporting in Bettmeralp will cost less than I used to pay for B&B in Ireland 15 years ago. I’ve had an evening meal in restaurants in Bettmeralp of 20-25CHFpp including drink.

Val d’Anniviers (day 2 in the Swiss Article in the current magazine) offers free lift passes for all of the lifts in the area and the post bus from Vissoie up the valley for a single night stay, that includes staying in a camp site.

Davos includes your lift pass with your hotel room (but is probably still a bit more expensive than some of the less publicised places)

Some of the Alpine huts are quite easily accessible and won’t cost an arm and a leg and can be quite comfortable. (I think about 50CHF for bed, breakfast and evening meal) Cadagna Hut between Graubunden and Ticino is one such hut.

I could go on, but the expensive Swiss Cliché does not have to be true.

As others have pointed out the 2m rule is non-existent in Switzerland. Each Kanton has different rules. Gruabunden has it specifically written into law that mountain biking is allowed. Wallis says that the hiking trails are to be used for “slow traffic” bikes are included in this. Berner Oberland (around Lauterbrunnen) is a grey area does not have a specific ban, but you will find a lot of trails have a sign forbidding biking on them. Appenzel has a mountain bike ban on singletrails (luckily this is a very small area of the country). For the most part Switzerland is quite forward in terms of allowing mountain biking on trails.

I’ve been told off for biking in Zermatt too. Without exception every single time was by tourists. Usually German tourists. Last summer we were slightly disappointed to see that a few trails in the Zermatt area had been decorated with Biking forbidden signs, but it was only a few trails around the Blauherd area. The rest was fair game including the Europaweg trail to Taschalp and down to Tasch. The trail down from Gornergrat is a really nice trail, but you’ll need to do it at non-peak times to not get too many hikers on it.

The infrastructure for biking in Switzerland is second to none. It’s possible to ride from one side of the country to the other almost entirely on singletrail and use the Bus, Train lift network to take most of the slog out and leave you fresh for the fun bits.

One thing I would add is that the ability to get so much out of biking in Switzerland is down to an attitude of mutual respect and friendliness with the hikers and also a degree of consideration for the environment. We want to ensure not only that the trails remain there to be enjoyed for many more years, we also want to ensure that biking will continued to be allowed on those trails. Therefore it is appreciated if you slow down, smile and say “hello, have a nice day” (“Gruezi mittenand, Schoene Tag” in the German speaking part)and refrain from riding with a locked back wheel. The trails and those of us who live here will be very thankful. :-)

I reckon they can just machine a new dropout… job done.

lived there twice, both times for 4 years. With a 2 year gap in the middle. The poster above who said racism/ xenophobia masked as conservatism is about right. Geneva and Zurich are not representative of the rest of CH. The SVP have areal grip amongst the rural community – and their policies are pretty unsavoury. Feel feel to google, but they do like to use the colours of red, white and black a lot.
I lived in The SVP heartland – the leader lived about 2 kms away. Even as white Brits the locals could be hostile – the term auslander is never used in a positive way – we have experience !

I don’t think the educated Swiss is the problem – but racism is institutionalised. Yes, they do take in 2 x the refugees than anywhere else. But that is because they need people to do the jobs that the Swiss won’t. They do blame all the crime on the “Yugos”. When I had my wallet stolen, the police didnt investigate , they just told us straight off ” it’s the Yugos”

It is the rank and file ” non rich” Swiss who are the problem. The country became rich in 1946, after having a pretty poor past. It is now one of the richest countries in the world ( per capita). They want to keep it that way.

It is the only time , when in a work meeting, I have heard some black referred to as a “n*****”
Go figure …
For someone who lived here you don’t really look at the bigger picture.

The SVP’s marketing (that is what it is) is very provocative. That is 100% true. The attempt to polarise and get people to think with them or against them in the hope that the majority go with. Some of their more aggressive campaigns lately have gone against them and they are slowly starting to take a more conservative line in their advertising material. The SVP posters are however not representative of the whole country. Many Swiss are appalled and most “auslanders” (I’m one myself) I know laugh off the black sheep poster rather than taking it seriously.It was actually a good marketing ploy by the SVP as it got people talking. (There is no such thing as bad publicity remember!)

The claim that they take asylum seekers for the lower paid jobs is only a partial truth. This whole thing is about people who are only asylum seekers, they are seeking asylum, they have not been granted it yet. In this case they have no visas and can not work so to say that they are being taken do do menial jobs is a bit much seeing as they can’t actually work until they have been granted asylum. Once granted it, then they can seek work.

There is a shortage of accommodation so Switzerland is putting the asylum seekers up in temporary accommodation which includes bomb shelters. The shelters have been kitted out with WiFi, modern sofa’s, kitchens, TV’s, play stations and pretty much every other modern convenience you can think of. These people who are supposedly escaping terrible conditions in their home countries are not happy with this accommodation because it doesn’t have daylight… but they do have every other modern convenience.

There are other issues at play too and some of the initiatives taken may be quite strong. But in a country where there are more people seeking asylum than any other country in Europe they do need to keep some sort of control of the system.

I’m just about 6 foot and riding a medium with a 50mm stem and 760mm bars and it feels Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

Val d’Anniviers… LOTS!

I love how people in that video claim to have discovered the Brasilian. They may have named it, but I know locals who were riding that trail on XC bikes long before it had any name other than it’s geographical one.

The whole Valley from Visp up is a maze of trails. There are a load in and around Zermatt itself, but there are also loads of tiny cablecars further down the valley that take bikes and are also serviced by post bus and trains. Getting around by train is definitely the best option as it allows you to do routes that don’t start and end in the same place.

The local singletrail maps can be purchased in any of the local bike shops for about 25CHF each and are a pretty decent starting point for that area. The normal OS maps can be printed out from here: http://map.geo.admin.ch/

If you are riding for fun what bike wins races in the hands of a professional rider has no bearing on what is going to be the most fun ride for a recreational rider. The most fun bike I own will never win any races on the Enduro circuit (26in 66deg HA Hardtail) but it is such a blast to ride. At the moment I ride it more than any of my other bikes.

If someone wins an XC race, a DH race or an Enduro race on a different bike that doesn’t mean it’s going to be fun for me to ride that bike. The pros can make anything work for one thing and in any sport the fastest most aggressive tool in the hands of the pros is not necessarily what is best for the masses.

On the 29er thing. I’ve done direct comparison on 26″ Stumpjumper Evo and 29″ Stumpjumper Evo. For me the 26″ bike is hands down the more fun bike to ride (subjective I know). I didn’t time any runs so it could well be that the 29″ was faster, but the winning bike is the one that left me with a bigger smile at the bottom of the trail. A friend feels that 29ers are fun for him and that’s his choice.

What I don’t like is companies taking the decision out of my hands. It looks like many companies are not going to make 26″ AM and Enduro bikes for 2014 and this is something that I find pretty bad. We the customer should be able to choose, not be told what we want.

I’m the bloke who guided the Singletrack Switzerland Article a few issues back.

If you have a few days get yourself to Bettmeralp (Aletsch Glacier area). Despite the fact that it is a UNESCO world heritage site and the largest glacier in Europe (AFAIK) it is not ridiculously expensive. An overnight in the Hotel Sporting in summer will set you back 65CHF per night with your breakfast included. I think a Pizza is about 15-18CHF if I remember correctly. The area is stunning. I’ve been back there so many times now and it still takes my breath away every time I go back.

There are some great walks in the area including one from Riederalp to Belalp across a hanging bridge over the glacier moraine.

I’ve got both.

XTR Shadow Plus on 2×10 set ups. X9 Type 2 on 2×10 set ups and XX1 type 2. The Shadow plus seems to work better than the SRAM type 2 closely followed by the XX1 set up, but that is partially due to the chainrings.

The hills [around Crans] are alive with the sound of musicsingletrail

Production Privee Shan.

I’ve got a week on SRAM XX1 behind me in La Palma. I ride with Schweiz quite a lot and both of us have just built XX1 bikes. My initial opinion is that it is very good. Chain retention was really good and I didn’t suffer from the wide spacing between gears. On paper the 1×11 set up loses me a gear at either end of the spectrum over my 2×10 set ups. In the riding I did in La Palma I was ok on all the climbs we experienced with a 32 tooth ring up front and I noticed that I was using my bigger gear much more often than I did on 2×10… but I was never in a situation (on the trail) where I was spinning out my biggest gear.

Looking forward to testing it more in the Alps where the climbs will be somewhat steeper.

It’s very pretty,but not very manly…………..

Did anyone ever say that Schweiz is a man? 8O

I’ll assume my invitation to the garage warming party got lost in the post! ‘-)

There are quite a few trails in the area. If you are less than 6 people the post auto opens up a huge network of some pretty epic descents in the surrounding area too.

There is bucket loads of riding in the general area if you know where to look. Some of the best trails I’ve ridden last season are not too far away from there.

legend – Member

No, no, no. No friends on a powder day

Sorry, this is a completely ignorant attitude that is leading to stupid accidents.

Horse is regularly on the menu in my work cafeteria. Not sure what all the fuss is about in the UK & Ireland.

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.

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.

I know the trail… Was just curious what they called it. I know it by it’s geographical name.

This location might look familiar to you.

@GeeTee,
Just out of interest what do BV call the trail in your picture? It is one of my favourite ones in that area.

We had some pretty good fun just around the corner too. :-)

The Bike Attack in Lenzerheide Switzerland.

http://www.bike-attack.ch/

Or have a look at pages 42-52 of this months Single Track mag.

Filmed in a pretty nice area for riding too.

If it’s not pad wear then check for leaks. I’ve had mine leak from the lever and from the hose connection after about a year of use. If it’s just the hose leaking you may be able to replace the olive and barb and be on your way again.

Bleed them with a worn set of pads and the pad spacer rather than the bleeding block.

Once you’ve done the entire bleed, push a little extra fluid into the system before closing the caliper nipple.

Job done.

Ashenden – again I don’t want to see analysis or opinion. I want to see bloody facts, either tests presented, caught and done by a professional body. So I will WAIT.

Sorry, but you realise this is a joke don’t you? In the last 20 years the majority of dopers have been caught by police intervention rather than tests. There are so many ways to fool the tests and the dopers are almost always one step ahead. A clean test does not mean the athlete does not dope… as is evidenced by the retrospectively positive tests from Armstrong for the 1999 tour.

Basso, Ulrich, Virenque, Miller, didn’t get done for positive tests, they got done by police intervention. They all managed to fool the tests. (Well Ulrich did test positive for partying too much, but I’m talking about performance enhancements)

Lance has had a suspicious analytical finding (EPO, Tour de Suisse 2001) before WADA got their act together (apparently couldn’t happen now) and managed to buy his way out of it. Again being business partners with the guy running the sport will always help.