Thun Climbs   

The name does not lie to anyone and the race profile does yet more to put fear into the riders. Once again starting in the lakeside town of Thun, the peloton starts on top of the hill where the castle stands and finishes overlooking the castle some 1,950 meters above it.

The riders will slowly roll out of Thun and approach Interlaken where they will turn right onto the road towards Grindelwald. At this point a breakaw...

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The name does not lie to anyone and the race profile does yet more to put fear into the riders. Once again starting in the lakeside town of Thun, the peloton starts on top of the hill where the castle stands and finishes overlooking the castle some 1,950 meters above it.

The riders will slowly roll out of Thun and approach Interlaken where they will turn right onto the road towards Grindelwald. At this point a breakaway will form of riders impatient to start the real racing. The road occasionally climbs up towards Grindelwald but no one will be put into difficulty. Having passed through Grindelwald, the riders will be conscious of the shadow of the North Face of the Eiger that looms above them. But today they will not be climbing that, rather taking the very narrow road up towards Grosse Scheidegg. Here is the first time that riders who do not feel good on their bikes will be tested. The 29 hairpin bends seem never ending on a bike as they reach just over 2,000 meters. The riders will then chase each other down a very tough descent which is narrow, badly paved and contains yet more hairpin bends. The descent is very long at just under 15 kilometers in length before they tackle their next climb across the valley of Meiringen. At 1,600 meters then next climb is not high but at an average gradient of 10% the fracturing of the peloton will be completed at the summit of Chasbodmi and the television crews will have a tough time covering all the groups. There is no real descent off the climb and after a few kilometers it resumes up through the trees to a height of 1,700 meters and fall just short of
Käserstatt in another short kick upwards. At this point there will only be 40 kilometers of racing left and yet the riders will be going through a lot of pain. The descent is very short but it is very steep and dangerous with riders again having to fully concentrate. The end of the descent sees the riders enter Brienz and begin their journey to the foot of the final climb of the day, the Niederhorn which is 17 kilometers long and where they will almost certainly catch a breakaway which will have hit the wall. They start the climb with a seven kilometer stretch of tarmac in 10 hairpin bends which takes them up to Beatenberg, where they will gain their final rest. For in Beatenberg the road flattens out for one kilometer before the final kick up to the summit itself, still another nine hundred meters up. For once, this lacks any hairpin bends and due to its distance it is relatively easy with an average gradient of only 5%.

The winner will approach the summit facing the capital Bern, giving the crowds the chance to take a photo of the rider with the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau standing behind him. The photograph any climber wants of himself for the view. As the winner is finishing, the men who hit the wall first will be down in Interlaken beginning the final climb. It will be some time until they also can look down upon Thun remembering the days racing.