Klausen Pass - Altdorf

I did the nice hard day ride as suggested above by the most respected Anthony Mowers. I started from Altdorf and enjoyed a nice steady climb on a beautiful road up to the pass. I particularly enjoyed the section marked "gefährlich strecke" through the cliffs. Indeed the wayside is marked by flowers and memorials to motorbikers who have died there. The whole route is quite historical and it is worth a coffee break at the old Klausen Passhöhe hotel. I did it on a clear autumn day. I saw a couple of other cyclists.The descent to Linthal was very good too, at first a bit bumpy because of the road surface but with great corners and then fast and furious down a wider road and through the scary tunnel to the famous cobbled corners. They were doing some road works, so the surface will be improved from the time of writing. I went on to Glarus despite a head wind and continued up and over the Pragel Pass, but that is another story; and believe me, it was a hard day ride!

My personal climb rating:

This is not a very steep climb, but its long. I climbed on a sunny day of October, the temperature was about 12 degrees celsius down in Altdorf and about 5 at the top. Every rider I met was carrying a bag with warm clothes for the way back. Riding it in summer must be quite a hard experience as you are exposed to the sun all the way up. The feature I liked most was the panorama which is really really beautiful and it also feels a little mystic, referring to the very origin of the swiss confederation.

My personal climb rating:

This climb is one of the day rides near my home in Switzerland. I first road it July 14th 2006 on my Lemond Buenos Aires with a triple chainring. A detailed description of that ride, with map and photos, can be found at http://amowers.blogspot.com. There is a webcam near the top of the climb that looks back down the valley towards Altdorf http://www.klausenpasshoehe.ch/webcam/ which can be handy for finding out if there is snow up top and to give you a view of what some of the last section of road looks like. On my first ride of it I took the train to the village of Altdorf and then road from Altdorf, over the pass, and down the other side to town of Glarus. The town of Altdorf is kind of famous in part because of the fictional character William Tell character (the guy who shot the apple off his sons head). I think it is a nice half-day ride. Although it is a long climb it is not unrelenting like some other passes. There are no exceptionally steep sections, and it even has one downhill portion that descends into a small village where your legs are given a chance to recover from the first half of the climbing. When I have ridden it on weekdays the has not had very much traffic on it. The lower half of the climb has several small villages and some nice woods. The top half has hardly any villages, but is an impressive piece of road engineering with good views back down into the valle and there are two places very near the top where you can get something to eat and drink. The decent down the otherside into Linthal is very nice - lots of winding curves - a couple of corners still have cobble-stones. A nice hard day ride, with two mountain passes, would be starting in Altdorf, over the Klausen into the town of the Glarus back over the Pragel through the village of Muotothal and finish in the town of Schwyz. The loop in the other direction is much harder because the Pragel is very steep in portions on the Muotothal side (ie. I have only ridden that direction on my mtn bike).