The ultimate biking adventure in the Grisons

I love bikepack­ing and trips that last sev­er­al days. The feel­ing of just rid­ing and rid­ing and not hav­ing to return to the start­ing point on the same day is excit­ing, and at the same time opens up many new options. It feels like you can keep on rid­ing almost for ever, to cross moun­tains and then find your­self in dif­fer­ent val­leys. I was over the moon when I heard about the new “Alpine Cir­cle Bike Tour” in the Grisons.

The idea is as sim­ple as it is sophis­ti­cat­ed: thanks to the ide­al link between the route and pub­lic trans­port and the abil­i­ty to extend the day trips, there is some­thing here for both trail-bik­ing begin­ners as well as expe­ri­enced bik­ers. What inter­est­ed me as a moth­er with a 15 month old daugh­ter and a part­ner who is just as much of a bike enthu­si­ast as me, was whether we could set out as a fam­i­ly on a tour last­ing sev­er­al days and enjoy it.

The Alpine Cir­cle Bike Tour was just the thing to make this ambi­tion pos­si­ble. We could ride togeth­er along cer­tain sec­tions and take the post bus or train to com­plete oth­er sec­tions with our daugh­ter. Some­times we split up, with just one par­ent enjoy­ing the wind in their face as they rode along. The Grisons is home to some of the world’s best bike trails and also offers fab­u­lous land­scapes which made this adven­ture all the more enjoy­able for us.

Day 1 — Glaciers and vanilla ice-cream in St. Moritz

It can’t be a coin­ci­dence that there is a pump track next to Pon­tresina sta­tion and the youth hos­tel. I warm up with a few cir­cuits while my daugh­ter Romy, who will trav­el with me on today’s tour, builds sand cas­tles in the beach vol­ley ball court. After the warm-up the route takes me on nar­row tracks to the Morter­atsch glac­i­er, some­times on grav­el and some­times on a trail. A very beau­ti­ful view. The trail sec­tions are not real­ly dif­fi­cult but are nar­row and only man­age­able with a sin­gle-axle child’s trail­er. On the way down to the youth hos­tel in St. Moritz we stop off for an ice-cream at the stun­ning Staz­ersee. I call that a suc­cess­ful start.

Day 2 — 1000 metres of uphill flow over the Scalettapass

As the day starts rainy and cool, we resched­ule. Romy will not accom­pa­ny me for the first kilo­me­tres along the Inn. Soon I turn off any­way and screw my way up over 1000 steep, but with the nec­es­sary fit­ness almost flow­ing metres of alti­tude to the Scalet­ta­pass. The high­er I get, the calmer it gets. The trail leads me through beau­ti­ful high val­leys with rush­ing moun­tain rivers and across green mead­ows.

The moun­tain peaks are cov­ered by mist. I don’t mind as the tricky descent on the wet stones demands all my con­cen­tra­tion and brings a smile to my face even in this weath­er. Once I arrive in Davos I look back once again and my smile becomes even broad­er. Cross­ing from one val­ley to the next like this is some­thing spe­cial and rep­re­sents a real bike adven­ture for me.

Day 3 — truly epic — over the 40km long Alps Epic Trail

I have also select­ed the “expert’s vari­ant” for today as there is no way I can miss the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ride the leg­endary Alps Epic Trail. I there­fore glad­ly ped­al up the addi­tion­al 600 metre gain in alti­tude as this sum­mer, the cable car to the Jakob­shorn only goes as far as the mid­dle sta­tion. I seem to be the only per­son to have had this idea and I appear to be the only bik­er for miles around. I enjoy the still­ness and mag­ic to the full. The trail is very vari­able and long. It snakes along the moun­tain­side and seems end­less. It feels like an age before the Riv­er Land­wass­er comes into view. The sight is a real spec­ta­cle. The trail fol­lows the track of the Rhätis­che Bahn. The route takes me though gorges and tun­nels and across spec­tac­u­lar viaducts.

Day 4 — Through the fabulous Rhine Gorge

The morn­ing of the fourth day is more relaxed in terms of cycling and leads through small vil­lages and along panoram­ic paths — from Lenz­er­hei­de down to Reichenau. On this sec­tion you could eas­i­ly take the child’s trail­er with you. But Romy did­n’t want to come along. She was too busy with the baby goats in the gar­den of the neigh­bour, the super nice youth hos­tel in Val­bel­la.

From Reichenau, the route leads above the Rhine Gorge to Val­en­das. Be sure to take a break at the view­ing plat­form short­ly before Ver­sam and let your eyes wan­der over the gorge. It is right­ly called the Swiss Grand Canyon. In the evening I fall into my Jugi bed in the wellnessHostel3000 in Laax, over­joyed. What a styl­ish hos­tel — qua­si youth hos­tel 2.0.

Day 5 — Trail cooldown to Chur

The next morn­ing we enjoy our break­fast of Bircher­mües­li behind a pic­ture win­dow. The bathing lakes in Flims are worth a vis­it. If you have the time you should take a break by the Cau­masee on your last day to look back over your tour. For­tu­nate­ly today’s tour is an easy down­hill ride to Chur. The final sec­tions along the Rhine in par­tic­u­lar are incred­i­ble fun. A great finale!

Conclusion:

The Alpine Cir­cle Bike Tour is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for every­one who still have lit­tle expe­ri­ence of tours last­ing sev­er­al days and who don’t want to waste time on what would oth­er­wise be time-con­sum­ing plan­ning. The tour is also suit­able for groups and fam­i­lies with dif­fer­ent pro­fi­cien­cy lev­els, or for every­one who likes easy and not too demand­ing bike trails. There is some­thing for every­one here. I look for­ward to rid­ing the trails in a few year with Romy.

A different Interlaken