Over the Alps on a Bicycle
By Elizabeth Robins Pennell189812 chapters32 images
Contents
- Elizabeth Pennell rides out from Dijon through Dole and the Jura to the Col de la Faucille, her first pass, coasting down into Switzerland via Gex and paying eighteen francs duty to the Swiss authorities at Sacconax.
- At Chamounix, with Mont Blanc obscured by cloud, the Pennells meet American cyclists on the tourist road before crossing the Tete Noire in mud and rain, taking shelter with a Swiss family who feed them eggs and raspberries, then reaching Martigny.
- Worn out from the Tete Noire, Elizabeth stays behind at Martigny while Joseph alone climbs the St. Bernard in seven hours, finding an easy ascent but a mule track only on the Italian side, and a Hospice crowded with noisy alpenstocked tourists rather than the dogs of legend.
- In blazing heat from Brieg the couple push their bicycles past Napoleon's numbered Refuges to the Simplon Hospice, where monks give them an unquestioning welcome and supper before the icy morning descent through the Ravine of Gondo into Italy, where Elizabeth crashes into a cart near Isella and buckles her wheel.
- After a boat up Lake Como and a maddening puncture that strands Joseph overnight in Varenna for a new valve, the pair climb from Colico through Chiavenna to the Splugen's zigzagging stone parapet in cold mist, reaching the Italian-Swiss frontier at 6,946 feet.
- Starting before sunrise, they climb the San Bernardino past Hinter Rhein to the Hospice and lake at the summit, then descend three tiers of zigzags through the Val Mesocco past the Castle of Mesocco into a gale blowing up the Val Ticino, stopping short at Bodio.
- From smoke-blackened Bodio the road races the St. Gotthard railway past Faido and Airolo; both cyclists walk the final zigzags to the 6,942-foot summit among snow and ice, then coast down through Hospenthal and Andermatt past the Devil's Bridge, encountering a German cyclist rigging a wooden paddle-brake.
- The highest pass of the tour: a long dusty grind from Realp to the 7,993-foot summit, where the Pennells meet a young American searching for his sister who had fallen by the roadside, before coasting past the Rhone Glacier to a hotel crowded with cyclists lacking pneumatic brakes.
- Starting from the Rhone Glacier Hotel, Elizabeth climbs the 7,103-foot Grimsel in about two hours, then coasts a continuous twenty-five-mile descent past the Hospice and dark lakes, through gorges beneath the Bernese Alps, down to Meiringen.
- Attempting two passes in one day, the pair are caught in a torrential downpour on the low Brunig and take refuge with a kindly innkeeper's wife near Lake Brienz; the next morning's mist hides every promised view of Pilatus and the Jungfrau all the way into Lucerne, the last pass now behind them.
- Elizabeth Pennell reflects on crossing nine passes, six within a week, claiming a record for a woman cyclist, and urges any woman with a strong machine, a good double brake and no fear of hard work to attempt the same exploit.
- A practical appendix on cycling in Switzerland: duty-free entry with C.T.C./T.C.F. membership, advice to climb each pass from its easier side, recommended Mulhaupt road maps, and a detailed kilometre-by-kilometre itinerary from Dijon through all ten passes to Lucerne.
Images in this book 32 pictures from 115 pages
Illustrations 31
(opens in a new tab) Over the Alps on a Bicycle, cover title-piece
(opens in a new tab) DIJON
(opens in a new tab) THE LITTLE PARK AT DÔLE
(opens in a new tab) THE TÊTE NOIRE ROAD
(opens in a new tab) LOOKING UP THE RHONE VALLEY FROM THE COL DE LA FORCLAZ
(opens in a new tab) THE ROAD TO THE HOSPICE, GREAT ST. BERNARD
(opens in a new tab) VISP
(opens in a new tab) IN THE RHONE VALLEY
(opens in a new tab) TUNNELS AND GALLERIES OF THE SIMPLON
(opens in a new tab) THE SIMPLON HOSPICE
(opens in a new tab) MEMORIAL CROSS ON THE SIMPLON
(opens in a new tab) RAVINE OF GONDO
(opens in a new tab) OLD HOSPICE
(opens in a new tab) THE ENTRANCE INTO ITALY
(opens in a new tab) ZIGZAGS, STAIRWAYS, AND TUNNELS OF THE SPLÜGEN
(opens in a new tab) THE ROAD ROUND COMO
(opens in a new tab) WINDINGS OF THE SPLÜGEN
(opens in a new tab) WATERFALLS ON SPLÜGEN
(opens in a new tab) WINDINGS OF THE SAN BERNARDINO
(opens in a new tab) THE VAL MESOCCO
(opens in a new tab) CASTLE OF MESOCCO
(opens in a new tab) THE RAIL AND THE ROAD OVER THE ST. GOTTHARD
(opens in a new tab) GORGE OF FAIDO, ST. GOTTHARD
(opens in a new tab) FAIDO, ST. GOTTHARD
(opens in a new tab) LAKES, TOP OF ST. GOTTHARD
(opens in a new tab) THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE, THE PASS OF ST. GOTTHARD
(opens in a new tab) CLIMBING THE FURKA
(opens in a new tab) RHONE GLACIER FROM THE ROAD BELOW
(opens in a new tab) RHONE GLACIER FROM THE FURKA, GRIMSEL PASS IN THE DISTANCE
(opens in a new tab) THE HOSPICE ON THE GRIMSEL
(opens in a new tab) DOWN THE GRIMSEL
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