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Uncategorized / January 1, 1970

Operator Profile: Bike Switzerland takes cyclists cross-country

BikeToursDirect now offers two guided and self-guided bike tours in Switzerland with operator partner Bike Switzerland. Swiss Crossing (Challenging) (Guided: Jul 7, 2014; Self-guided: Daily: Apr 1- Sep 30)     Swiss Crossing (Lite) (Guided: Jun 19, 2014; Self-guided: Daily: Apr 1- Sep 30) Whit Altizer, a staffer in BTD's Asia satellite office, recently spoke with Bike Switzerland's operator John Klemme to find out why you should cycle Switzerland. Following is an interview Whit conducted with John over e-mail. John shared what brought him to Switzerland, why he never left and why you should come too.  

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Iowa native and Bike Switzerland operator, John Klemme, has called Switzerland home for the last 20 years[/caption]
How did you develop Bike Switzerland's tour offerings?  This is our tenth year. The first year our only tour was what we now call “The Challenge Tour”. This itinerary follows, for the most part, Swiss National Route #9. I thought this would be the best itinerary for our program since it allows cyclists to see a lot of the big sights in Switzerland: Lake Geneva, Gruyère, Gstaad, Interlaken and the Jungfrau, Lucerne, etc. But this itinerary was a bit too demanding for some and so we began to develop a second, more “do-able” route. We then called that itinerary “The Lite Tour” and the other “The Challenge Tour.” Those names alone seemed to stream people into the correct tour. People liked both routes and soon we had lots of clients who were repeat customers asking for something new and so we developed a third itinerary that is a loop through the Jura mountain range. That’s our most challenging route. How do your tours introduce travelers to Switzerland? The itinerary is “curated” so that people can have experiences, but I don’t like to be too didactic in my approach. So, for example, the first day of our Challenge Tour is in the town of Chexbres. This town is high above the vineyards of Lake Geneva. We bike through the vineyards and so it makes sense that we stop and drink some wine at some point. There are lots of places we could do this, but there is ONE that feels particularly special. It’s been around for 80 years or so. It’s a cave with stone walls, so it’s cool and they serve glasses or bottles of cold fruity white wine and chunks of sausage. We sit and drink a glass or two and eventually the locals start interacting with the cyclists and they have a nice experience. I guess we could do something more instructive, like a proper wine-tasting, but by the end of the day we all just want a drink, a shower and a good dinner. The guides are there to answer questions and know a lot of course, but the cyclists themselves are encouraged to “discover” things on their own. We give everyone a GPS and a telephone so they can feel independent and BE independent if they choose. There’s also a pack of information outlining each day's points of interest (which are also on their GPS). Tell us about the Bike Switzerland team. What makes your guides special? A lot of people write or walk into the shop and ask if they can be a guide or if there is an opening at the shop, but it’s not that easy. Liking to bike is not enough of a qualification. I don’t say that because of any laws or restrictions, but because I’d never hire someone who didn’t know the roads, the language and the culture. This year our principal guide for the three guided tours is Chris Patient and he certainly lives up to his surname. He probably rides close to 10,000 kilometers a year on many of the same roads we’re taking on our tours. He’s lived here for the last 20 years, speaks good French and Swiss German and knows a good bit about bike mechanics. Describe some of the accommodations you book for clients. What are the most interesting places to stay? After the scenery and perhaps the bicycles themselves, the overnight spots are the most important part of the trip. The accommodations we use are very different from each other. We use a big 4-star hotel in the city center in Lucerne and a small family-run auberge in the village of Sax (population 60 inhabitants). And we never look for the cheapest place or most convenient place. Those are really never considerations. Sure, there are some places I would like to stay, but can’t because they would make the trip too expensive, but in general, the places we stay are the “best” places. But to answer your question…interesting places… we stay in a medieval hospital, a monastery, a refurbished château…and those are just three of the places on the Lite Tour. What is the food like? What are some of your favorite dishes you have had on your tours? The food is important -- Our driver goes shopping every morning or evening and buys a big spread that he lays the following day for our picnic. I tell the driver to buy lots of everything the first day and then to be attentive and ask questions after Day 1 so that he can give riders what they like and need. I mentioned earlier that I try NOT to be too instructive, but I may try a little too hard in this department when it comes to the evening meal. For starters, I like eating at a European hour…7:30 pm at the earliest. And I like to sit at the table, drink, talk, drink, eat. I like to have riders try things they might not have otherwise: raclette, wild mushrooms, goat cheese, schnitzel, snails. If I’m on a tour visiting with my riders, I tend to make it so that we eat this way. My favorite place to eat? Actually, the restaurant in Sax (on the Challenge tour) has the best food. Most interesting? Perhaps at the monastery in Fischingen. The monastery itself has boring food and they like to eat at 6pm, so we go into town and eat at this strange little RUSSIAN restaurant. I’m not sure what that place is doing there in the middle of nowhere, but the food is excellent and authentic (according to my Russian wife).

  Tell us about Geneva as a cycling destination. Why are you located there? Our most popular tours cross Switzerland from West to East, and since Geneva is the most Western part of Switzerland, it’s the perfect place to begin these tours. But there’s more to it than just that. Geneva is the closest major airport to the famous alpine cols of the Tour de France. But we’ve got some great challenges right at our doorstep: Mont Salève, la Faucille, Col de Saxel. All of these are epic climbs that can be reached within 30 minutes from our shop. But there’s also less “steep” cycling. The 180-km tour around Lake Geneva is something that every cyclist here tries to do at least once. And there are numerous country roads going through the wine villages within the canton itself. What did you do before Bike Switzerland? What made you fall in love with Switzerland? I knew that I wanted to live abroad, so I studied to be a teacher and got a summer job at a camp in Switzerland, which then lead to a full-time teaching job at a boarding school. I taught for ten years before doing Bike Switzerland full time.   Learn more about bicycle tours in Switzerland >

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