89.5 km, 2,158 m
At the hotel, I discover the breakfast of champions: Žemlovka, žemľovka or Scheiterhaufen, it’s a sweet bread pudding made of apples and rohlíks or veka (I’m not yet sure what these last two are), soaked in milk, and topped with a soft, toasted (Italian?) meringue. I have four helpings just to make sure I’ve learned how it should taste.
It has wee’d down most of the night, but as we leave the hotel, the weather is (like us) a bit worn out, and only managed a bit of spitting. We head out in a group of nine, along a repurposed old railway track. It’s an easy pace and we’re happy, but it is quite muddy, with under-the-breath comments like “feckin’ cyclocross” and “should have bought a XXX gravel bike”.
We’re going to need a chance to warm-up the muscles as most of today seems to be in the uphill direction. The first climb of the day begins in Riegersdorf, a sharp 500m kick up the Wurzenpass. As we join the road, a large group of ~15 Croatian bikers swing past. They’re riding classic (AKA ancient) 50cc (at most!) mopeds, heavily laden with holiday gear. The Wurzenpass is tougher than we, or it seems, the Croatians, were expecting. As the gradient tips to 20%, we overtake them pushing their bikes. Everyone’s in good spirits though, and they swing past again, with tooting; their rear-mounted Croatian flags proudly fluttering. The road is smooth and wide, but quite busy, so weaving up is not an option. At 20%, many of us (all?) are out-of-gears. An efficient cyclist moves the pedals in a circular motion. So OK this sounds obvious, but what each pedal stroke should feel like, is kinda like kicking a door shut, then wiping your foot on a mat. Here, I’m pedalling ‘squares’: hauling each pedal up, and stomping the opposite one down. My knees are not fans of this one.
At the second steep section, the bikers are congregating, a cacophony of struggling engines, the air turning blue with 2-stroke effort. One of them produces a tow rope, and with a grin and a wave “whoosh they were gone”!
At the summit, we pass into Slovenia. We need to keep a sharp eye out here; there’s a reasonable chance we’ll be beasted up the hills here by Pogačar’s nana (or more likely, great nana…). The Slovenian cyclist, is now also known as the Pink Pantha for the many pink outfits he wore as leader of the 2024 Giro De Italia. And he’s not the only famous cyclist from round here (Primoz Roglič, Gorazd Štangelj, Blaža Klemenčič, Luka Mezgec and Marko Kump…). Hope there’s something in the water, ‘cos I’m drinking gallons!
A steady pull through Podkoren (ski lifts visible to the S), Tarvisio, then on a smooth, wide cycle track alongside the river Slizza, and through Piezut, Ciutte, Riofreddo and Muda to our lunch stop at the old mining town of Cave del Predil, on the lower flank of Mount Manga. All the cafes are shut, but Graham and Martin arrive with supplies, and we feast on cheese, ham and tomatoes sandwiches, with slices of butter (it’s a bit cold), which I’m hoping might lube up my knees a bit.
The Manga Pass is another behemoth ~10km 1200m climb up through pretty pine forests then out onto alpine pastures and a summit at 2055m. The Garmin goes batty with every tunnel as it loses GPS, but everntaully, concedes we’ve reached the summit. There’s a couple of small rock falls near the top, and snow still on the road. The weather is closing in, and the tantalising views disappear, it reminds me of the French style of cooking ‘on papier’.
Steve Kenny joins me at the summit, there’s time for a quick botanical grovel (gentians!), but the temperature is dropping and it’s raining quite heavily now. Steve punctures on the sharp rocks, and I guiltily leave him behind (reasoning that others are coming up – btw, he’s fine and back at the hotel now – I’ll buy him a beer). Shivering and draggin the brakes, I retrace the route back down, teeth chattering, and air a bit blue again (it’s not the 2-stroke this time). Instead of swearing, to keep warm, I butcher my way through pronunciations of the beautiful towns and villages of Stmec na Predelu, Log pod Mangartom and Spodnji Log, into the bath at the Hotel ALP, Bovec. The cycling and Slovenia are stunning, even from inside a paper bag. I’m definitely coming back here again.
Liz wibbling#4 Slovenia
The women here are the 5th tallest in the world (1.674 m); the men are only the 10th tallest (1.803 m). They also smoke a LOT, and are the 3rd biggest drinkers of wine (43.7 litres per capita; we’re at 20th, with 27.5 L). They love sports (skiing, cycling, hiking) and potatoes (with an annual Roasted Potato Festival, sadly we’ll miss this). Every spring, Slovenians get their motorcycles blessed by priests, this explains their terrifyingly bold mountain descents. To us, I think the most famous thing about Slovenia is that is it the home of cycling incredible Tadej Pogačar. He was born in Komenda, Slovenia, a village ~20km north of the capital Ljubljana. Our route strategically misses this, so we’ll (hopefully) not get beasted up a hill by his nana.
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