How this works

Passklar keeps four kinds of information apart, so you always know where a number comes from.

Pass status. A daily job collects the status of each pass with its source and the time it was checked. If a report is older than 36 hours, the site shows the pass as "unknown" rather than guessing. Pass status is for orientation; always confirm with official road information before riding.

Weather. Forecasts come from MeteoSwiss Open Data (CC BY 4.0, "Source: MeteoSwiss"). Each pass shows a valley point and a summit point. Where no summit point exists, the summit is estimated from the valley at 0.65 °C per 100 m and labelled "estimated".

Opening history and estimates. Past opening and closing dates come from curated, sourced records. An opening estimate is shown only when there are at least 4 past seasons, as the middle half (25th–75th percentile) of past opening days, always labelled "estimate based on N past seasons". It is a statistic, not a snow forecast.

Safety and prices. Helmet stars come from published SHARP results; approvals from the ECE 22.06 and EN 17092 labels. Nothing is crash-tested here. Prices are checked weekly at shops in Switzerland, Germany and Austria and shown as the landed price in CHF: price converted at the weekly rate, plus shipping, plus 8.1% Swiss import VAT on goods and shipping, plus the carrier's customs fee for foreign shops. See the landed price calculator.

Money. Some links are affiliate links. They never change a ranking. See the affiliate disclosure.

How we rate

Passklar gives two kinds of stars. Both are calculated from data shown on the page. They are not reviews by riders: there is no vote count and there are no comments. The weights live in the configuration and may change.

Passklar rating (passes). Five sub-scores from 1 to 5: Riding fun (30%) from the maximum gradient, length and counted hairpins (once a source counts them), later the share of curves; Views (25%) from the summit altitude, viewpoints and a glacier or lake in the description; Road (15%) from the road width, ±0.5 for surface notes in the source; Quiet (15%) from traffic (little traffic = 5); Facilities (15%) from food, stays and fuel on the pass. If a value is missing we do not guess: it does not count, and the data coverage drops. Below 60% coverage it says “provisional”. Values marked “unconfirmed” and the still incomplete list of places to eat count half. Rounded to half stars.

Ridden by Passklar. Once the owner has ridden a pass himself, his rating counts 50%, with the date. There are no such entries yet.

Today's rating. A separate daily value: it starts at 5 stars and deducts for the conditions at the summit around midday: rain from 40% (−1) or 70% (−2), thunderstorms from 30% (−1), felt temperature at riding speed below 5 °C (−0.5), below 0 °C (−1), below −5 °C (−1.5), wind from 40 km/h (−0.5) or 60 km/h (−1), an event with unclear effect (−1), an approach notice (−0.5). Closed passes, an unknown status and event closures get no stars.

Passklar score (gear). Safety (65%): SHARP stars for helmets (ECE 22.06 required, otherwise 1 star), the EN 17092 class for jackets and pants (AAA 5, AA 4, A 3, B 2, C 1), ±0.5 for CE L2/L1 armour. Value (35%): the price incl. shipping and import vs the median of the same category and safety level. Hands-on (40%): only after our own test with a written verdict. Without a safety rating, 3 stars at most.

Only the best get promoted. From 4.0 stars a product gets the “See best price” button, a place on the home page and in the default list view. All others stay visible under “Show all”, with their safety data but no highlight; the shop link is then a plain text link. The affiliate disclosure applies to all links.

Rider votes are not switched on yet. Before they are, we will describe here how votes are collected and checked (one vote per device and pass, rate limit, moderation, shown only from 5 votes).