Switzerland - Grosse Scheidegg

Our first really testing ride was when we rode the 58 miles from Interlaken to Grindlewald, Grosse Scheidegg, Meiringen and back to Interlaken. The climb over the mountain at Grosse Scheidegg had featured in this year's Tour of Switzerland cycle race, although they approached it from the Meiringen side and therefore came down the climb to Grindlewald that we went up. There's a video of the latter parts of the stage, showing the downhill section to Grindlewald on youtube which you can watch by clicking here
	The climb out of Interlaken to Grindlewald (3,398ft) was not too bad, but from Grindlewald onwards the climbing gets really tough as you go up the mountains lying behind the town. The summit lies at 6,444ft and the climb to it is a little over 6 miles long. On the altimeter on my bike computer I recorded most sections being consistently around 1 in 10 but with regular rises to around 1 in 7. There are, of course, much steeper roads than this here in Lancashire (with Whalley Nab being the steepest my computer has recorded), but it's the sheer length of the alpine climbs that make these significantly harder undertakings. I certainly finished this ride thinking it was the hardest I've ever done (probably my previous hardest was my 100 mile ride to Fleet Moss - the highest road in Yorkshire - and back).The other thing that doesn't help is that, as you proceed higher into the mountains the air gets thinner and thus less oxygen gets to the lungs. Here are few photos we took on the way up:
and finally the summit! ...