Basel to Schaffhausen, via Fribourg, Montreux, Interlaken, Bern and Zurich

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Quite a nice 500 mile U-shaped loop, courtesy of Tourenfahrer magazine April 2021 edition.

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Download the route or copy the map from the magazine’s website.

https://www.tourenfahrer.de/tour-datenbank/tour/schweizer-schleifen-1032/detail/
 
Hmmn,

They drive from Basel to where the roads start to get really good, then turn around and head back for lesser roads.

Probably a nice ride, but it gets within a few miles of the Andermatt 6 pass figure-8 and then head North, although if you lived in Basel you could make a couple of nice one day ride outs based on it.
 
As is common with lots of similar suggestions that are lifted from magazines, the ideas about the route are often explained in the article. It seems that this one is part of a series of six, exploring something called the ‘Helvetic Route 66’. I don’t think it’s intended to be the single ultimate ‘must do’ ride by any means.

:beerjug:
 
Hmmn,

They drive from Basel to where the roads start to get really good, then turn around and head back for lesser roads.

Probably a nice ride, but it gets within a few miles of the Andermatt 6 pass figure-8 and then head North, although if you lived in Basel you could make a couple of nice one day ride outs based on it.

Just possibly they know what makes a good ride... I've done the Andermatt passes and I wouldn't rush back. A hair pin is a hairpin, whether it's one of 17 at 5,000 feet or on it's own below sea level.
 
Solothurn is on the map but not the route. That does not mean it's not worth a visit. It is. Still partially walled with a pedestrian old centre, the beautiful river Aare flows through it and there are riverside bars and restaurants along both banks. It is one of the lesser known gems of Switzerland.
 
I followed their route from Basel to Interlaken and it was well worth the small amount of time it added to the quicker route. Basel is easily doable in a day from the Channel if you split it into a chunk of motorway then hit the more interesting roads for the second half and it’s a good night out. My wife worked in Basel for a few months so a small degree of local exploration was undertaken whenever I visited.
 
Thank you for the tip. Good to know the route works.

Routes lifted from magazines (even decent publications like Alpentourer and Tourenfahrer) are always a bit of a lottery, so much depending on what the author of the piece did and / or wanted to achieve. In a way they are no different to glossed-up trip reports on UKGSer but often with better maps.

Yup, there’ll always be someone who pipes up.... “But they missed out such and such” or “Why did they start from there?”. The latter is usually easy to answer: It’s more than likely the bod who wrote the piece wanted to or maybe because he lives there. The former is OK as it gives people the chance to offer their ideas on how to improve it further, but recognising that it’s often not possible to do everything in one go, is important too.

As much as anything else, I pin them up here as it’s reasonably easy to do and it gives the magazines a raised profile of a sort. Not least, I do it in the hope that it gives bods some ideas of ways to go and / or hopefully something different to see or places to go. Mix in that the GPS routes are either free or just a couple of euro (or the routes easily copied, if anyone can be arsed) is just another extra benefit.
 
The good thing about Basel is that whichever direction you set off towards you’ve got something interesting to see so you don’t have to go to the Alps. In a lot of ways the Haut Jura is a nicer place to visit because you don’t get the local drivers trying to act as policemen which the Swiss seem to like to do and the fines for misbehaving are slightly less severe :D
 


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