SUCH21

On Sept 8th, 2021 I started the Swiss Ultracycling CHallenge (SUCH). The rules of the event are fun and simple:👉 start from any train station in Switzerland
👉 ride in the 26 Swiss cantons (provinces)
👉 punch your brevet card at 7 checkpoints across the country, in the order of your choice
👉 finish on the Bundesplatz in Berne. The event is unsupported, meaning you can't have any private support and must find everything you need during the event from sources available to all riders. Participants started from different locations but the majority gathered in Lavorgo (Ticino), which was also my chosen start. I was looking forward to riding across my country in light bikepacking mode. My plan was to take 3 days and ride between 280 and 350km per day to complete my route. komoot was my main tool to design it, mostly to ensure that all roads were well surfaced (I was riding my light and fast Scott Addict RC) and allowed for bikes.Many participants chose to bivy on the roadside during the event and the fastest riders simply didn't sleep. My strategy was different: I was going to stop for about 5 hours in a hotel on both nights to ensure I would be awake, fast and happy all the way to the finish, hopefully at the end of day 3.It worked out well. It took me just under 58 hours to ride the 996km of my route. I had a few rough moments and many great ones, like the big alpine passes (Nufenen, Furka and Grimsel) on day 1. I will never forget the sunset in Lucerne and the climb up the remote Gorges du Pichoux in the Jura mountains in pitch dark at the end of day 2. Thank you Vincent and Marc for putting on this great event! The rules are slightly different every year to make the routing exercise more fun but I would definitely recommend this event to anyone who wants to experience unsupported ultracycling in a safe and easy environment like Switzerland.More info on the SUCH: such.bike