Travel Blogger Daily Blog: Riding E-Bikes In Winterthur, Switzerland

Fun City Transportation On A Powerful Bicycle

By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Blogger

We arrived in another pleasant town in Switzerland as part a tour group – by train, which I loved – and were immediately taken to a bike shop in the train station.

There we were not just given bikes, but e-bikes. I was in heaven.

We were in Winterthur, about an hour east of Zurich by train, and part of our adventure was to take these e-bikes to a few sights around town. I really enjoy riding a bike and having an e-bike was like giving a Lamborghini to a race car driver.

“Get out of my way, I want to open this baby up and see what she can do,” I thought to myself as I pulled away from the bike shop as the other less bike-experienced people in our group got their wheels.

As soon as we were given the signal to depart, I took off like shot out of a rocket ship. Our destination was a museum at the top of a park. There were a couple steep hills involved in getting there, and it took me a few moments to figure out the gears. Once I did, tho, it was a breeze.

I generally ride a beach cruiser, which is a bike with no gears and going up hills is a grind. The e-bike, however, took almost no effort and I nearly launched myself over the handlebars at first because my instinct was to stand up and really push down on the pedal. I was to the top of the hill and at the destination in no time.

I wanted to keep riding. But, as a courtesy to our hosts, I went into the museum. Now, you should not by reading these daily travel blog posts that I’m not much of a museums guy. This one was comprised of some rich dude’s artwork which produced much more yawns from me than “oh that’s interesting” comments.

After the museum, we biked up a few more hills to a gorgeous lookout, where the hosts had a picnic lunch set up for us. After that great experience, it was back to the streets and two more museums. One was a sparse photo workshop type of thing and another was an interesting science museum.

But I wanted to ride. I wanted to ride all over the city, up and down those hills in the park. Heck, I would have ridden all the way to Zurich if they had let me.

Eventually, as the day wound down, we had to turn the bikes back into the bike shop. I kept mine until the very last moment, barely making the deadline.

So if you ever have the chance to hop on an e-bike, do it. It’s a great way to roll through and see a destination.

Cheers!