Eastern Switzerland: Cross-country cycling through St. Gallen
Should we have taken the sign more seriously? This little signpost with the "55" and the mountain bike symbol on it? Well, it's not really a 55 per cent gradient with which the forest road climbs skywards, even if the sign suggests that. But the person on it is clearly a mountain biker. We, on the other hand, have set our minds on tackling tour number 55 on a cross bike.
The "Wildmannli" route, named after the Alpine legendary folk of the "Wild People", who epitomise the threatening, unknown and sometimes immoral, leads from St. Gallen to Sargans. It is one of several bite-sized bike routes, a Swiss all-round carefree package. On the website www.mountainbikeland.ch the route surface is listed: Around half of the route is tarmac. You will also find an elevation profile and contact details for the inns along the way. Even the train timetables for the return journey to the start are available. So if you find the first sign at the start of the tour, you've already won. The small signs guide you seamlessly through the villages, through the fields and up to the mountain pastures. The route is also almost car-free, making it a welcome change from the usual road bike terrain.
And the sporty side? The Wildmannli route is described on the website as "technically easy, but demanding in terms of fitness". We're not too worried about the fitness level, but it's a mountain bike tour with a significant double-digit gradient. To be on the safe side, we therefore only tackle two of the three stages, as ideas of "easy" can vary widely - especially when we're talking about two such different types of bikes. It's not the descents that worry us, the route doesn't have any singletrails worth mentioning. The sticking point is the gearing: in the lightest gear of a touring mountain bike, you cover around 1.30 metres per pedal revolution. On our cross bikes with compact cranks, we manage almost exactly double that, so riding uphill at the same speed also requires twice as much leg power.
You can download the entire article with these GPS tours below:
- Day 1 (55 kilometres, 2,150 metres in altitude, max. 15 percent gradient)
- Day 2 (36 kilometres, 850 metres in altitude, max. 16 percent gradient)
