Now the Swiss Bicycle Regiment, based in Romont on the foothills of the Alps, also appears set to go. Oswald Sigg, a defence ministry spokesman, said plans to phase out the regiment by the end of 2003 were part of an army overhaul in which the number of troops would be reduced from 360,000 to less than 100,000. It's to do with the fact that the military is high-tech today and as a means of transport the bicycle is outdated. For the same reason herds of mules which still transport weapons and provisions across mountainous terrain would also have to go, he said. Switzerland's 3,000 elite bicycle troops, an integral part of the army's combat forces for nearly a century, are trained to flank tanks like infantry and guard the valleys from Lake Geneva on the French border to Lake Constance on the border with Germany and Austria.
Recruits ride specially-designed mountain bikes with seven gears and hydraulic brakes.
They ride up to 120 miles a day through mountains and forests on their hard-frame bikes that can carry bazookas, mortars, machine guns or other weaponry. Two thieves who stole mobile phones from schoolchildren in South Africa were saved from a gang of angry pupils by their headmaster. The youngsters hunted down the suspected robbers after a tip-off and handed out their own justice with sticks and stones. Solly Mkhabela, headmaster at Isikhumbuzo High School, Orange Farm, Gauteng province, pulled the men to safety. He locked them in a staff room until police dog handlers arrived and forced the pupils from the site.