Summary
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Trail in numbers
- Distance: 32 km including chairlifts
- Total climb: 2300 m including chairlifts (approx 300m pedaling)
- High point: 2300 m
- Rideability: 100%
- Duration: 2 – 3 hours
Highlights
- Bike park. Lenzerheide features a world-class bike park that hosts almost every year a stage of the UCI downhill world cup race. There are trails for (almost) all skill levels, the black trail being only for the real experts (called the Straight Line). There is also a very nice chill out zone at the bottom of the park, with a bike wash, a nice bar with music and lots of beer.
Useful info
- When to go: being at high altitude, you are better off if you go during the summer months, so from June to september. Check out the opening hours on the Lenzerheide Bike Park website: last time we checked they were scheduling also weekend openings in October and even a few days in the beginning of November for the All Saints’ break.
- Planning your rides: dead easy and requires no navigation tools (watches, phones, etc). This is Switzerland and everything is neatly organized, so you just need to walk to the Lenzerheide information desk, grab a trail map and decide your route. All trails are perfectly signposted.
- Food and Water: if you follow one of the market tracks there is no need to worry as you will always be in a biking area and there will always be drinks and food options at the bottom of the valley. We recommend you carry water and some energy bars just in case.
This is the table of contents of this article:
Photostory
It’s July, it’s hot, it’s weekend. At work the pace is just damned high, with everyone trying to close things off before breaking for the summer holidays. Getting a long, good night rest and a full day of doing nothing would do me a lot of good, but come on! You can count the weekends actually doable in the high Alps off the fingers of your hands, so sleeping and mellowing out will be left for later.
So here is the crazy plan for the weekend: off from work on friday evening, drive 2 hours to Tirano, sleep there (alone), spend a full day riding along the tracks of the famous Bernina train in Switzerland (I’ll save this for another post – but those of you that can read Italian can already find a nice description here), then head off to Lenzerheide. Spend a night here camping, ride one day with Maria, drive 3 hours back to Milan. Monday, early morning train to Rome for a day business trip.
So it’s saturday afternoon, and after an amazing day of riding the Bernina pass with my biker friends totaling some 4000 meters of downhill, I get into the car and head towards Lenzerheide. Maria is also heading there and she has organized everything…amazing, I’m such a lucky guy! Our destination is a camp site slightly outside of the main town, and after 2 hours and a half of driving I reach her.
The camping is basically invaded by bikers, there are downhill bikes all around the place and each car, van, RV, pickup has bike racks with amazing bikes. We deploy our trusted Hubba Hubba tent and head for dinner.
Having dinner in Switzerland is easier said than done for a foreigner, as you really need to watch the prices if you do not want to end up breaking the bank just at the appetizers. We manage to find an ok restaurant where we have some pasta, but after checking out I can’t really resist my cravings and head for the take-away kebab joint.
Once back, it’s time to go to bed. The forecast is not promising, but there is nothing we fear with our Hubba Hubba. As forecasted, a major storm hits us with pouring rain, roaring thunders and blinding lightnings, but in the Hubba Hubba we just need to wear our earplugs and eye masks and the job is done.
After a good night sleep it is finally time to take our bikes and head to the biker’s paradise! As expected, everything is incredibly well organized and a bike savvy guy at the info point gives us all the heads up and trail maps we need to figure out our day plan. There are so many tracks, and all chairlifts allow bike transport so to save some of the boring climb.
Our choice is the track 612, a medium difficulty trail on the western side of the valley around 30 km.
Luckily, the first climb is done by chairlift, and in no time we reach elevation 2300 meters. From here, it is a long descent on gravel roads and single tracks. The weather is still humid and misty, with low clouds sneaking into the valley below us.
The gravel roads quickly becomes a single track following almost horizontally the contour lines of the mountain. We are still above the clouds, and the landscape has sort of a mystic feeling.
From here, we can also enjoy views of Lenzerheide town and the Lenzerhorn, the majestic peak above 2900 meters towering above the city.
The track becomes increasingly fast and flowy, but Maria does not fear anything today and keeps a very good pace despite passing by some exposed parts.
We get to a mountain hut just before entering the last part of this first descent, the one that Maria is a little afraid of: the guy at the info point actually warned us that this section would not be easy. The first part, though, is OK and when we pass by a group of pigs happily playing and eating, she reminds me of what a better person she is eating vegan!
However, the trail soon gets more complicated, with lots of wet roots and steeper sections, that Maria wisely decides to walk.
After some time descending this insidious part of the trail, we reach a little town. From here we have a short downhill to a cable car station, and we decide to follow the trail 615, which had been eyed by Maria as a better candidate than our 612. Actually this section proves to be very fun! Challenging if taken at speed but rather safe and wide, so Maria begins to push her boundaries and shows some serious riding skills!
Once at the top, it’s time to descend again, this time back to Lenzerheide. Initially we’re in the middle of the clouds, but soon enough we get below them and as we circle around a ridge the weather gets much better.
Also this descent includes a last section in the woods, which means roots and mud from the previous night rains. However, this time Maria feels fearless and tackles every turn, every root, every obstacle and shows some serious riding skills! Actually we have no photo to show of that section because she was so fast that I had no time to take snapshots of her while waiting ahead on the trail!
After the forest we are back in Lenzerheide, where I propose Maria to exploit the rush of adrenaline and head to the world famous bike park. While climbing on the cable car, it is easy to infer that those guys racing downhill here are just out of their freaking minds. The world cup downhill track is just insanely steep and has enormous features such as road gaps and massive drops that scare the hell out of me only looking at them!
Of course, our plan is to hit the blue line which we assumed to be easy. The reality is that yes, it can be easy because it is very flowy and has no technical sections, however it is rather steep and damned fast! Almost all riders we can see are hitting this track, probably because the other ones are just out of everybody’s reach here. The track is definitely too crowded for our tastes, so we decide to call it a day and grab our well deserved beer at the bottom – which is the only reasonably priced thing in Switzerland!
Maps and Stats
Max elevation: 2320 m
Total climbing: 2322 m
Video
Relive ‘Lenzerheide con Maria’