The Queen Stage

Cycling will soon be an Olympic discipline. I'm already practicing very diligently. So I did today.

Today I cycled from Thusis to Splügen, the Queen Stage. It was 26.4 km with about 940 meters of altitude. It took me 2 hours and 38 minutes (a average speed of 10.00 km/h), including photo breaks.

When I started at around 9:40 am, it was cloudy and you could guess the sun. On the following picturesque section to Via Mala, I decided against all advice to take the hiking trail instead of the main road. After about 1 km, the first climb came and I started pushing. Up to 8% inclination is still fine on a perfect road surface, but if that's not the case, pushing is always an option, especially since it doesn't cost me any time and trains other muscle groups (calves).

The Via Mala Gorge is well developed for tourism and since cycling 940 meters of altitude is not enough, I took the opportunity to descend into the gorge and took many photos. The section from Thusis via Via Mala to Zillis-Reischen is beautiful and certainly worth a hike. Now the sun was also shining, what more could you want.

I really liked the turquoise blue water on the bridge in front of the Roffla Gorge and the Hinterrhein River is a great stream. The following section had a good slope again. A few kilometers before the dam of Lake Sufnersee, it started to rain heavily and the worst thing was that all the highway traffic heading north joined me on the main road and hardly showed any consideration. I was really fed up. The shoe covers have already paid off several times.

Due to construction sites, my plan was to bypass Lake Sufnersee to the south, but the construction site was signposted differently, so I had to take the normal route, north of Lake Sufnersee, which I was not prepared for at all. But everything went well and the rain had greatly diminished, so I arrived at the hotel around 1:30 pm.

Tomorrow is a rest day, and I mean that literally. I just bought 6 liters of water for the next 48 hours, of which I will carry up to 2 liters on Friday up the San Bernardinopass. But this also means that my bike trip will end on Friday. That's a shame. I could easily extend it by another week.