Newsgroup: it.sport.ciclismo
Titolo: ZURICH WITH EMMA POOLEY

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/Zurich_Switzerland_with_Emma_Pooley_article_257814.html
My Ride: A circuit I ride regularly if the weather is good enough and
the roads aren't blocked!
Distance: Roughly 110km (68 miles) — it takes Pooley just over four
hours at a steady pace
Challenge: Constantly changing gradients
Most famous for the Alps, skiing trips, Toblerone and other altitude
related phenomena, Switzerland is not so obvious as a likely location
for a straightforward training ride.
Not true, according to up-and-coming British rider Emma Pooley,
working towards her PhD in Zurich. She may be a top climber, but even
she doesn't want to spend all her time grinding up 20-kilometre cols.
Having lived in Switzerland for over a year, the Team Specialized
rider knows her way round the Zurich region well and she is more than
happy to take us on one of her usual, flatter, training circuits. So
rest assured, even though there are a fair few hills, there's no more
than you'd find in mid-Devon, say, or in the rural West Midlands.
“The mountains are definitely there if you want them,” Pooley tells us
as she gets ready to ride in her small but well-appointed flat in the
Zurich suburbs. “But you can get in some great rides on much easier
terrain as well.”
Easy start
The first part of the ride is largely spent escaping the residential
area where Pooley lives. It's fairly painless: she takes a quick left,
then after a kilometre or so heading in towards Zurich, she veers
right off the main highway, over the tramlines and she's away up a
steep hill.
It turns out that this is the fast track for cyclists out of Zurich.
Pooley tells us later that the centre of town is as much of a
nightmare in Switzerland for two-wheeled folk as any big UK city: “I
definitely don't go through there unless I'm meeting my training group
from university.” So instead we're out into the countryside in
minutes.
The traffic dies away quickly and the blocks of flats are soon
replaced by miles and miles of dense woodland on the sides of the
valley as we work our way up the climb. The fields are almost all
unfenced pastureland, giving the ride a pleasantly open feel in the
clear morning sunshine.
While we wait to take photos of Pooley as she steadily pedals past,
it's easy to appreciate how much cleaner the air is, too. And that old
cliché about Swiss time keeping (just think of all those cuckoo clocks
and watches) appears to be true even when it comes to traffic — one
car appears precisely every five minutes. Other than that, silence
rules and it makes a welcome change after the bustle of Zurich. The
climb is tough, but only because it's a steady couple of kilometres
with no false flats, not because it's too steep or long.
Once over the shoulder of the hill you join another main road and
contour around the hill a bit, then descend into the valley on an
equally well-surfaced road. With so little traffic, it's easy to
relax. The sense of being alone is probably what strikes you the most
on this road. Cycling is apparently a popular sport in Switzerland,
but you won't risk being elbowed off the road or half-wheeled on the
climbs. Maybe it's because it's the middle of the week, but we don't
pass a single bike rider.
Pooley's ride is a testing route, with fairly constant changes of
gradient, but far from impossible even for a relative newcomer. The
mountains are there in the distance, almost everywhere you look
around, but for now they just provide a hint of a much bigger
challenge, not one to be faced in the next five minutes.
Switzerland is also famous for its lakes and after 10 kilometres, the
first on Pooley's route looms up on the right. None of them are as big
as the Zurichsee, back at the start point, however, which has numerous
boat trips for the tourists. Pooley continues contouring along the
ridge, with a few dips and bumps to keep her from getting complacent.
Barring the lakes, the terrain remains largely the same — rich pasture
almost swamped by woodland.
After about 30 kilometres Pooley passes through the first large
village of the ride, Hausen, where she strongly recommends the
bakeries and cafes for a stop. That'll come on the return section of
her training ride though, so the elaborately made Swiss cakes will
have to wait for now. Like most of Switzerland, apart from being
almost maniacally clean, the houses and gardens of Hausen are all so
well-ordered that you wonder if you've wandered onto a film set by
accident. The hills are real enough, though, and after a quick descent
to another village we head up towards the town of Menzingen. It's a
four-kilometre climb now, and the terrain is getting tougher.
“It gets hillier as you go on, because we're going southwards towards
the steeper climbs,” Pooley explains later.
The weather can be a shade treacherous in Switzerland, too, and on a
short, steep descent that follows, Pooley warns that — like in the UK
— in the mornings ice tends to collect under the trees. “The weather
also really affects the time of the ride as well; it can take me
anything between three and four and a half hours depending on how cold
it is.”
Strange sights
As we start the bottom end of a loop round and back towards Zurich,
we're on the highest part of the ride. Crossing an isolated plateau
there's some bizarre things to see on the landscape. Pooley rides past
a series of cone-shaped hills, all of them grassy but each with just
one tree on top. “I don't know if they're planted or if they just grow
like that,” Pooley muses. “But they're really funny to see.”
My hopes of finding some good castles, though, are not to be
fulfilled: this is deeply central Switzerland, and the country hasn't
been at war for a long time. The most exciting man-made structure we
see is a farm with really big cowbells, which doesn't quite fit into
the same category. It's the incredibly photogenic countryside, though,
that gives the ride its visual interest.
As we roll past yet another stunning lake, the Agerisee, with roads
leading off to ski resorts, completing a loop and back onto the first
part of the out-and-back circuit, Pooley tells us that, “The Swiss do
respect cyclists, although some” — and here she uses an
unpronounceable Swiss insult — “do try and run you off the road in
their fancy cars, just like anywhere.”
But just like in the UK, the time of day and the roads you choose
decide the number of encounters with four-wheeled traffic, and on this
occasion, considering we're so close to a major city, there's been
barely a car in sight. Not only that, while the climbing has been a
challenge, the rural terrain more than makes up for it, again despite
being so close to Zurich. Perfect for working off that fondue, and for
getting a really different view of Switzerland than the one in the
tourist guides, too.
YOUR GUIDE: EMMA POOLEY
Age 25, grew up in East Anglia, UK, lives in Zurich
Studying a PhD in Soil Engineering in the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology
Since late spring of 2007 has been riding for Specialized
Took two top ten places in the World Championships in 2007 and a
strong prospect for an Olympic ride this August
WHICH WAY?
THE route starts and finishes in the suburbs of north-west Zurich —
follow signs or ask (most Swiss people speak good English) for the
small dormitory village of Urtikon.
In Urtikon, head left down an unclassified road for about 10km towards
Affolter, cross over the main Thawl-Cham road on another unclassified
road for Hausen. At Hausen, drop down into another valley and continue
in a south-easterly direction towards Menzingen. After Menzingen, for
15km the road runs alongside the river and rises steadily towards
Biberbrugg. At Biberbrugg, head south-west on a busier A-road towards
Rothernthurm, then take a sharp right on the main road to Zug past
small Agerisee Lake. Veer off the main road after Unteragi, back up
towards Menzingen. Then head up north-west on the first section of the
ride (30km) back to Zurich.
GETTING THERE
Zurich is fairly well served by no-frills airlines from England,
although not the rest of the UK: there's a direct service with EasyJet
to Luton and you can also travel with German company AirBerlin to
Manchester and Stansted.
The airport itself, Pooley says, is not so easy to deal with if you're
travelling with a bike bag: “The escalators and lifts for some reason
seem to be distinctly bike-unfriendly — exactly the wrong shape for
you to travel around comfortably.”
Trams don't accept bikes, but there is a 10 Swiss franc (£4.60) day
pass for bikes on trains which lets you take it anywhere in
Switzerland all day — except on some international services. Once
you've got your bike ticket, you just wheel it on.
The good news is that the bus lines in Switzerland will accept bikes
as 'another passenger', according to Pooley.
“I pay my ticket, and then get another ticket for my bike. As I get a
reduction for being a student, my bike gets one too!”

 just grow like that,” Pooley muses. “But they're really funny to see.”
Proprio l'altro giorno durante un'escursione con dei colleghi di lavoro
nella zona tra Zugo e il lago di Zurigo qualcuno mi ha spiegato il
significato di qugli strani alberi. Pare che ogni volta che un primogenito
maschio nasceva in una famiglia uno di questi alberi, di solito un tiglio,
veniva piantato sulla cima della collina
http://goffredo.ch/foto/BtW08/HPIM4840
ciao Rex