Before a single saddle has been sat on, the group has already bonded over evening drinks at our pleasingly cheesy medieval-themed hotel in Saint-Ursanne. Twelve of us, including our guide Valérie Chételat, clink glasses and laugh about tricky train connections from Zürich and discuss the three-day cycling journey ahead here in north-west Switzerland's Jura Mountains.
We'll be on the 2023 BMC Roadmachine AMP Two – a carbonframe hybrid electric road bike. Th e overall route is approximately 150 kilometres long, ascending some 2000 metres and descending 3000 metres. Jura is a 360-kilometre-long mountain range within Switzerland and France that, at its highest, is 1720 metres; moderate by Swiss standards.
A walking tour the next morning teaches us that Ursanne was named for an Irish monk who gained saintly celebrity in the Middle Ages after
