Biking in Switzerland

Posted by The Madbiker on Sun, Nov 10, 2019

The speed limits in Switzerland are 50 km/h (50 mph) in built up areas, 90 km/h (56 mph) outside built up areas, and 130 km/h (86 mph) on motorways.

The motorways are the A roads, the main non-motorway roads are the N roads, and the smaller main roads just have road names.

The motorways signs are in Blue, the N road signs are in Green, and signs for the smaller roads are white.

The motorways are all of a high standard but they are all toll roads and to use them you must purchase a Vignette sticker which you can buy at tourist offices and service stations on the motorways.

Switzerland is famous for it’s Alpine passes so there is not much else to say about the Swiss roads as far as biking goes.

Petrol is usually about 10 cents per litre more expensive on the motorways than on the other roads and at the time of writing it was about 1.90 Euros per litre.

I do not remember seeing many speed cameras in Switzerland but there are a lot of police patrol cars on the motorways, these patrol cars regularly stop drivers to check that they have a Vignette allowing them to use the motorways. The fine for not having a vignette is way more than the cost of buying one so be warned.

I did not buy a SIM card for a mobile phone whilst I was in Switzerland so I have no information about how to do this.