pilot
05-09-2006, 02:33 PM
This was from aother thread but i thought it might be entertaining for the road riders out there.
I spent a bit of time living near Zurich earlier this year.
One piece of advice is to follow the road rules of where you're allowed to ride. The cops in Switz don't muck around.
I decided to borrow my mates bike one day and ride into Zurich city. He gave me some directions and i headed off. I ended up just following the signs to zurich as they seemed to be everywhere and i couldn't work out the pictures he'd drawn. Pretty soon i found myself on a big main road. Felt a bit unsafe as cars were flying by and the scenery really wasn't that flash, now this was a pretty busy road and my mate had explained the road as going along a very scenic lake.
Pretty soon some coppers pulled me over. This was a bit of a relief really as i was pretty sure i was going the wrong way. Well it turns out i was riding on an Autobahn. This is highly illegal. After a decent grilling and showing all my papers (it was real lucky i had my passport on me) i spent a good 20 mins talking my way out of a hefty fine. They were sympathetic and all but were determined to fine me like 200 euros!! There was no way i was going to fork out that cash, i argued some more and In the end i just got hold of my passport and just apologizing prefusely and claiming i was a stupid ignorant tourist while slowly walking away. As soon as i was out of sight i pumped those pedals damn fast down the hill!
So i found my way down to the smaller roads by the lake and made my way to the city on the very well marked cycling lanes!! I got to the city and found the main street my friend described as leading to the train station. As i'm rolling along i notice a few bikes and trams on the road. Before long another cop flags me down and pulls me over. It turns out this road is also off limits to bikes too! goddamit! It really wasn't my day.
This cop was much more forgiving and i only had to beg and plead for 5 minutes to get out of this fine.
I eventually found my way home, what was supposed to be a 3 hour ride took all day.
if anybody knows Switzerland you'll know its got some big f-ck off mountains, well the ride in the morning down to the lake took 30 mins while the road home, uphill, took 3 hours.
I got home and told the story to my friend and host. The whole town soon found out and i was quite the celebrity. I was the only person anybody knew who had both ridden a bike on an autobahn and talked his way out a fine from swiss cops.
hectic, but yer the riding is great, if you like mountains!!
I also found some of the most amazing north shore, if i can call it that, in a forest near tecino. It was solid granite and about 2 metres high, i'm talking 1 metre wide and 2 metres high, solid granite slabs running for hundreds of metres, pretty impressive.
I spent a bit of time living near Zurich earlier this year.
One piece of advice is to follow the road rules of where you're allowed to ride. The cops in Switz don't muck around.
I decided to borrow my mates bike one day and ride into Zurich city. He gave me some directions and i headed off. I ended up just following the signs to zurich as they seemed to be everywhere and i couldn't work out the pictures he'd drawn. Pretty soon i found myself on a big main road. Felt a bit unsafe as cars were flying by and the scenery really wasn't that flash, now this was a pretty busy road and my mate had explained the road as going along a very scenic lake.
Pretty soon some coppers pulled me over. This was a bit of a relief really as i was pretty sure i was going the wrong way. Well it turns out i was riding on an Autobahn. This is highly illegal. After a decent grilling and showing all my papers (it was real lucky i had my passport on me) i spent a good 20 mins talking my way out of a hefty fine. They were sympathetic and all but were determined to fine me like 200 euros!! There was no way i was going to fork out that cash, i argued some more and In the end i just got hold of my passport and just apologizing prefusely and claiming i was a stupid ignorant tourist while slowly walking away. As soon as i was out of sight i pumped those pedals damn fast down the hill!
So i found my way down to the smaller roads by the lake and made my way to the city on the very well marked cycling lanes!! I got to the city and found the main street my friend described as leading to the train station. As i'm rolling along i notice a few bikes and trams on the road. Before long another cop flags me down and pulls me over. It turns out this road is also off limits to bikes too! goddamit! It really wasn't my day.
This cop was much more forgiving and i only had to beg and plead for 5 minutes to get out of this fine.
I eventually found my way home, what was supposed to be a 3 hour ride took all day.
if anybody knows Switzerland you'll know its got some big f-ck off mountains, well the ride in the morning down to the lake took 30 mins while the road home, uphill, took 3 hours.
I got home and told the story to my friend and host. The whole town soon found out and i was quite the celebrity. I was the only person anybody knew who had both ridden a bike on an autobahn and talked his way out a fine from swiss cops.
hectic, but yer the riding is great, if you like mountains!!
I also found some of the most amazing north shore, if i can call it that, in a forest near tecino. It was solid granite and about 2 metres high, i'm talking 1 metre wide and 2 metres high, solid granite slabs running for hundreds of metres, pretty impressive.