Helvetica Ronda : One hundred passes in Switzerland
Presentation
A 2,830km route with 116 passes and a vertical drop of around 49,000m, drawn by Jacques Bezzola (Cent Cols No. 3842).
Theme
The Club des Cent Cols, founded in 1972, is affiliated to the French Cycling Federation under No. 6384, offers you this permanent hike based on a simple theme: "One hundred passes". One hundred passes, either to enable you to join the Confrérie du Club des Cent Cols, or to enable you to progress up the Confrérie's "Tableau d'Honneur".
Discover Switzerland and many of its most beautiful passes. You will have the opportunity to cover 23 of its 26 cantons, with the notable exception of the cantons of Zurich (13 passes), Schaffhausen (3 passes) and Thurgau (0 passes!), as well as climbing passes that are less popular than those in the Alpine Arc, which are much more famous but often suffer from heavy road traffic. Most of them are, of course, included in this tour.
This tour takes as many quiet roads as possible, away from heavy traffic, mainly following the excellent "Cycling in Switzerland" concept, for which there is a Kümmerly+Frey map, unfortunately on a scale of 1:301,000. There are also "regional" maps on a scale of 1/60000, but they are both very expensive (CHF 30 each) and do not cover all the regions we suggest you cycle through.
There is also an iOS or Android application on the website www.swisstopo.admin.ch which allows you to download, for the price of CHF 38.- per year, maps to use throughout your journey, even offline (see details on the site in question).
These are the routes, duly signposted with small burgundy panels, that have been chosen for the route.
Controls
Nine checks are compulsory. They will be carried out at points along the route chosen by the rider himself, using a wet stamp obtained from a shopkeeper or local authority, or an explicit photo (bicycle in front of a local authority or mountain pass sign). Suggestion for control sectors:
| Geneva | Liestal | Lucerne |
| Airolo | Glarus | St. Gallen |
| Stelvio | Lugano | Finhaut |
Main passes
There are 22 passes over 2000m: Stelvio, Umbrail, Nufenen, Grimsel, Furka and Gotthard are the best known. There are also a host of "smaller" passes: Givrine, Marchairuz, Mollendruz, Aiguillon, Vue des Alpes, Chasseral for French-speaking Switzerland; Glaubenberg, Brünig, Grosse Scheidegg, Klausen, Pragel, Kunkels for German-speaking Switzerland.
Please note that some of the passes (Grosse Scheidegg) are not fully tarmacked, nor are some sections of the "Cycling in Switzerland" routes. However, they can be travelled without too much difficulty on "twenty-three tyres".
Rules of the game for permanent walks
All participants in this permanent trail agree to respect the game rules governing it.
For further information
Contact the person in charge of permanent walks
Jean-Marc CLEMENT
10 rue de Normandie
31120 Portet sur Garonne
FRANCE
Tel: +33 (0)5 61 76 30 12
E-mail: [email]randos@centcols.org [/email]
Please note: Please send your roadmaps for homologation as well as your postcards and travelogues only to the current person in charge, whatever you find as old information (so do not write to Roger Colombo, Bernard Pommel, Jean-Marc Lefèvre or Roland Grimaud †).