Cycling weekend in Gstaad, Switzerland

September 2022

Who would have thought that this gorgeous weekend would be a preamble to weeks of interminable rain in Switzerland! But yes, during these couple of days we had a fantastic sunny and crispy weather that gave brilliant colors to the mountains.

Stats on day 1: round-trip Gstaad (1,050m) to Wintermatte (1,500m): length 18km, deniv. 500m

We arrived in the early afternoon and thus we selected this short and not too intense trail. The elevation gain was enough to give us the chance to warm up our muscles for the following day.

From Gstaad, the road starts a steady climb following the Turpachbach stream towards its source.

As we gain elevation, the road opens up to the valley below with beautiful views of the Gstaad region.

The path is very tranquil in early September, when most of the tourists are probably gone.

Toward the end of the paved road, at 1,500m, there’s a restoration hut where one can stop for a meal or drink. And then one can continue for a few km along a more rustic road, before turning 180° to redescend, this time thrillingly fast, back to Gstaad.

But we still had some time and so we continued on along Route 9:02 for a flat 7km one-way to visit the amazing old Cluny Priory (12th century) in Rougemont.

The Cluny church was built in Romanesque style with the shape of a Latin cross ( https://www.alpesvaudoises.ch/en/service-providers/the-church-of-rougemont ). It is part of a larger XII century private mansion//castle.
It sits just outside the village of Rougemont, isolated against an idillic setting of mountains and pastures. It is absolutely worth a stop when passing by.

The return back to Gstaad was along the same route, though against the wind this time 💨

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Stats on Day-2: round-trip Gstaad (1,050m) to Lenk (1,100m), with peak at 1,280m and bottom at 940m: length 59km, deniv. 900m

This round-trip outing was definitely more intense than yesterday, although the numbers of 60km and less than 1,000m elevation gain may be deceiving .
The difficulty of this path is that the ascents are concentrated and quite steep. But of course the e-bike makes the tour very enjoyable……

The first part runs on Cycling Route 9:03 and MountainBike 1:15 until Zweisimmen. Here, at the village entrance, is a cute medieval church (13th-15th century), with beautiful murals and stained glasses from the same period.

From Zweisemman we veer right towards the end of valley, along MountaBike 1:15 and the Simme stream (Obersimmental region). Here the route is quite flat, and although it is marked as Mountainbike Route , the trail is paved or at worse gravel until Lenk, so very doable with most bikes. But in Lenk we turned around so I cannot speak for the rest of 1:15……

Lenk is a bigger and busier village, gateway to to a variety of mountain sports.

Even if this trip involves taking the same road in and out, I surprisingly had the feeling of going through different sceneries because of looking at the panorama from opposite directions and different lighting conditions.