8/3 to 8/19/2022 – Another year, another tandem tour! For 2022 we were torn on a variety of places and but ended up choosing Croatia. Then, in the final week before the trip we perused the forecasted weather… and it looked like a prolonged scorcher… so we pivoted within the same flights to the higher elevations and forests of Slovenia (plus we got a BUNCH of nudging and info from Jedd + Whitney). We landed in Zagreb, Croatia and biked out of town the next day with a plan to loosely tie into the Slovenia West Loop route plus swing by a handful of other lovely huts within the incredible network established throughout the mountains along the Austrian, Italian, and Croatian borders before looping back to Zagreb.

After a few days of scorching riding we started to find our rhythm: good dirt roads tucked into the woods, Union’s delicious Radlers, filling the framebags with Börek, and free camping at RV parks/rest stops. We also started to stumble upon these unique little blue and white trail markers basically whenever we were on top-tier dirt roads… but couldn’t figure out what they marked (other than the riding we wanted to do!). Then, mid-way through the trip we met a kind gent at Poštarski dom na Vršiču (the AWESOME hikers hut atop Vršič Pass in Triglav National Park) who was bikepacking and clued us into the STKP. It turns out this is gem of a bikepacking route that covers ~1,800 km while connecting from hut-to-hut throughout the mountains of Slovenia on primarily dirt roads. The mountain bike route was put together by the Alpine Association of Slovenia (PZS) as an alternative way to utilize the network of huts. We basically utilized this route for the remainder of our trip and it delivered all the adventure we could ask for (including the daily “Slovenian Sandbag”)!

Slovenia was another lovely trip filled with friendly folks, beautiful landscapes, delicious food (especially at the huts), and world-class-cycling.