Took the gravel bike to Zermatt for some riding on the trails. While it was great to be there, it could have been better with the fault laying with navigation (while anchored in a tech failure is ultimately my failure). Left at the leisurely time of 8:30 on a sunny Saturday morning. It was raining Friday when I arrived, but the forecasted sun with clear skies came to be.
Less than 2min later, here’s the Garmin telling me what’s ahead:
2hrs later, which translates into 7 miles later and at 8500’ (from a start of 5300’), I made a planned stop for tea. (My bike is parked to the right, which is of course easily missed with the Matterhorn straight ahead.)
But, an hour later, my navigation blew up. As Garmin was down and I had waited to upload the route to my headunit, I used Kamoot for nav. I don’t know if it was a problem with Kamoot, or if sweat drops tapped the screen right, but it was about here, an hour after the tea break, that I realized I was no longer being given directions. I was probably distracted because I was playing leapfrog with some eMTB riders. I had been on what was to be an out-and-back spur off my main route just for a view but it ended up being a through route with a lot of bike pushing up very steep and rocky terrain that ultimately put me where I planned to be but not how I intended to get there.
This really messed up my plans and my attempt to find and get back on course weren’t very successful. In short, I didn’t descend when I was needed to for the connection to the second portion (about 15mi) of the ride, so I cut that off.
In the end, it was 23 miles and 6100’ of climbing.
That was yesterday, Saturday. Today, I went out for a brief 3hr ride.
After the major climb, I decided to cut it to 2hr, to get back for breakfast, and reroute by doing so. Bad idea, or at least a good idea badly executed. Instead of dropping down on a semi-known (to me) trail to get to the second half with an MTB flow trail I enjoyed yesterday, I pressed onward for a latter transition. While scenic, the fork I took appeared more scenic and simple but turned into a rocky, rooty, very steep (downward, with Strava reporting -20 to -45%) hike-a-bike. What fun.
Back to a ridable trail, I see my 3s power is nil. I pedal another 3s and still nil. Stop to calibrate, no joy. I figure it’s time to pack it in and skip the flow trail. I can get back to the hotel and shower and be at breakfast by 930 (they stop serving at 10) and catch the 11:30 train home. Better than not being out there.
In the end, today was 9.2 miles with 2200’ of climbing.
I can’t say these were productive hours in the saddle in the big scheme of things, but despite the annoyances, I enjoyed the time.
I have no plans yet for this. Just checking it out. Might be able to do it September, there’s a week in October (may), Nov or … ? IOW, not sure. My plan is a rigid, no-shocks bike… yes, my gravel bike. It looks mostly doable on one.
