This was our favourite ride on the MTB tandem so far. It is a route out of the “Singletrails in den Schweizer Alpen” book. It was a 40km route with about 1500 vertical meters of climbing and descending. We got the train from Zurich to Boltigen which took just over 2 hours. We then set off from the station and started climbing. The first 12 km is almost all on tarmac roads and you climb 1200 vertical meters – it was a very quiet road and very picturesque so not to much of a hardship. We took it relatively easy and took our time trying to get good a good picture of us riding the tandem.
Once we reached the peak you ride another 7 km through grassland and open trails. There was one very short steep descent down to a lake called the Seebergsee. We put on our pads for this section and left them on for the rest of the ride. We stopped for an ice cream before the final climb up to a height of 1950 meters. This second short climb was hard work as the trail was tricky on the tandem (and single bikes – saw other riders pushing their bikes up this bit) and we were feeling the altitude.
We then had a great descent down 1000 vertical meters. The first half was open grassland and the second half was through woods. The riding was very pleasant and not super technical so we were able to really enjoy it. If you do this ride make sure your brakes are in good condition!
We then rode back to the station on mostly quiet roads. This was a really nice ride. We were out for 6hrs 45mins and of this about 4hrs 30mins were spent riding the bike. The views were spectacular for the whole ride.