The Swiss approach to cycling

Before Christmas I spend a day in Zürich, Switzerland. To be fair -- I did not go there by bike (but by night train from Vienna) and I did not even cycle there. But I have lived in Zürich for a while in 2008 and commuted by bike every day back then. Thus I'm not a complete greenhorn when I talk about cycling there :).

I could write a lot about Zürich's bike infrastructure because there are many things I like about it. However, I already mentioned a few things I like earlier (see "Commuting in Zürich"), so I'm going to tackle different topics today.

Early morning view from the ETH terrace in Zürich

Commuting in Zürich

Last summer I worked in Zürich, Switzerland. By train that's about 9 hours from Vienna and there are even three direct trains each day. On two of these trains it's possible to bring the bike along so that was what I did. If you're interested in the synergy between public transport and bicycles in Switzerland you can read one of my older posts from March. I think it works perfectly there. But there are also other outstanding things concerning bicycle infrastructure ...

I lived on the very border of the city and the university is in the center. Although Zürich is much smaller than Vienna (only about 350.000 inhabitants), my daily commute was therefore longer than the one in Vienna (about 7 km ~ 4.3 miles). Zürich is a very hilly city too. Basically I had to conquer one steep hill both ways which took me about 40 min once I found the best route. It was fun to see mums with two kids in the trailer passing me on the uphill sections. Well, a remarkable number of people (especially parents and older people) uses pedelecs -- electric bikes where you have to pedal to regulate the motor. It's still only a small minority, but they are visible.