Bicycle Tours in Slovenia

Our recent bicycle tour in Slovenia, September 2011

Bicycle tours in Slovenia are a great experience. Slovenia is a wonderful country, located in Europe, south-east of Austria. There we decided to have our next bicycle trip.

Our Bicycle Tour in Slovenia, Day by Day

Bicycle Tour in Slovenia – Day 1: Ride near the Farm

Briefing by our guide, Danielo

A warm-up ride along magical routes near an ecological farm, on the Slovenian Alps, near Prevalje. After enjoying the homemade breakfast, we started biking from the ranch, along a typical mountainous view, After about 4 miles of continued climbing, we reached a nice single track. 20 miles later we’ve ended our first day of our bicycle tour in Slovenia.

Bicycle Tour in Slovenia – Day 2: Downhill Mt. Petzen

Beautiful view from Mt. Petzen

We’ve started the day with a relatively calm morning bike ride, to the Slovenian – Austrian border, towards Mt. Petzen. Thankfully we climbed up Mt. Petzen with the sky lift (highest point – 2126 m).

After eating a giant Wiener schnitzel on the top of the mountain, we started our gorgeous downhill ride. A ride along Santa Helena led us back to the town of Prevalje, where we ended our great day at the local bar, drinking a local Lashko beer.

Bicycle Tour in Slovenia – Day 3: Into Cerna Zinc Mine

Inside the mine, with our guide

This was a very special riding day. Starting with a moderate climb and some forest single tracks. Then we had lunch near an old wooden church, following a steep and technical descent of 400 meters to the mine entrance.

At Cerna mining town we heard some stories about the people who have made their living from mining lead and zinc from the ground. Then we started our special 4-mile ride deep in an abandoned mine, using bicycle headlights to illuminate our trail.

Bicycle Tour in Slovenia – Day 4: Slovenian Alps Panorama

Panorama view

Another spectacular riding day along the Slovenian Alps, visiting the highest farm in Slovenia. We rode on scenic dirt roads and had local excellent home-made food for lunch. From there we rode downhill to the most famous Dolin in Slovenia, and back to our hotel.

Tip: If you're taking a cycling tour of Slovenia, expect steep gradients.

No trip to Slovenia is complete without taking in its spectacular alone scenery, but the Julian Alps' most rewarding cycling trails are frequently the most challenging ones.

To get the most out of your cycling vacation in Slovenia, start training for steep gradients before you set off.

Our Bicycle Tour in Slovenia - 2011

What Did We Take With Us?

The weather during that time of year (September) was still quite warm, so we did not have to take winter cycling gear with us. We just had our summer riding clothes.

Bicycle tours in Slovenia are usually guided, and ours was no exception. In addition, most of our rides were circular, we did not have to carry along too many things - only the necessary minimum accessories that we usually carry for a regular biking trip back home:

One pair of cycling-shoes (with cleats)
Four sets of cycling clothes, including cycling shirts, shorts & socks
Bike riding gloves
Helmet and helmet liners
Power gel: about 3 packages for each riding day.
Outdoor first aid kit, including sun protection cream and pain-relief cream (Ben-Gay)
Biking sunglasses
GPS: On some biking blogs, they say that bicycle GPS is not really required (especially for bicycle touring). Still, we decided to take with us our GARMIN ETrex GPS, just in case
Camera: We had a camera for still pictures. For video, my experience with a helmet video camera was not that great (see our trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand) - so I decided to use my good old Sony DV camera instead.