Despite the most expensive night of the trip, birthday celebrations in the restaurant next door had kept me awake til after 1am. However, I used this time to review my eating experience there a few hours earlier, where I had been charged CHF4 for half a carafe of tap water and because they didn’t take debit cards had to find a cashpoint to pay the bill. The food and beer was actually ok.
So I set off @8:15am to finish off the Oberalppass. It continued at a similar gradient to yesterday, but after 2.5 miles started steepening and I started slowing from 6 to 5 and then down to 4mph in places. Luckily the weather was good and there were plenty of good views needing photos, including the source of the Rhine trickling down from the Lai da Tuma lake.

It was a 7.5 mile climb to the summit (from Sedrun) which I completed in 1.5 hours; the previous 11 days had taken their toll on my legs and it was getting harder to get started (and keep going).

After savouing the moment I started the scenic descent to Andermatt on quietish roads. Stopping there for some breakfast after 13 miles @11am, I realised that Zurich was still 65 miles away.

The descent on the main road out of Andermatt was very busy in both directions and so very noisy with many lorries and coaches slowing traffic on the hairpins.

However there was a footpath / cycle path cutting under and over the main road, until it joined the main road as a single painted uphill cycle lane. Rightly or wrongly I freewheeled down slowly in the cycle lane rather than risk my life in the main traffic flow until the road separated with motorway traffic. I later found out that the Gotthard road tunnel (under the St Gotthard pass) had been closed in both directions since Sunday afternoon due to a crack in the tunnel ceiling which explained the congestion. I just pittied the poor cyclists I saw cycling up later. 

After the Oberalppass climb, it turned out to be a hard ride to Zurich, with some uphill as well as the expected downhill. The route then took me through Altdorf and alongside the Vierwaldstattersee, with blue skies ahead and looming clouds behind.

A 6km section of roadworks before Brunnen required cyclists to be transported in hourly shuttle buses.

And then the dark clouds, thunder and lightning coming down from Andermatt finally caught up with me; perfect symmetry with rain on my first and last days, bookending 10 days of glorious sunshine.

After 78 miles I checked in at Zurich Youth Hostel at 6:30pm to complete the London to Zurich challenge. Tomorrow’s challenge is to negotiate any red tape at the airport to get my bike home. [Post trip update. Just for the record, Swiss Air were brilliant. They provided a box, tape and scissors and advised on what to do, and my bike arrived safely back in London.]

It’s been a new experience posting my updates on a daily basis (thanks to Matt and Alex for the inspiration) and kept me busy each evening. Pre-internet, I would have just sent a few postcards, which would generally arrive after my return, and had a few rolls of film to get processed, the output from which would often leave me slightly disappointed. Now it’s all instant. What will things be like in 20 years time ? I’ll sign off here and endeavour to re-format the Home page, with links to each day (which seemed to working before I left).