Kackar Mountains and Black Sea Valleys

Black Sea forest rising into high Caucasus valleys.

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Why this ride

Black Sea forest rising into high Caucasus valleys. The road: D010 and mountain roads. Distance and riding time are estimates from the checkpoints until the road is measured on this page.

Roadbook

1. Trabzon start

   Trabzon looks north to the Black Sea and turns its back on the rest of Turkey, and the mountains behind it help. The Pontic Alps rise steeply from the coast, with cloud forests, tea gardens and hazelnut orchards, and the city climbs the slope in layers of apartment blocks and old houses. It was the capital of the Empire of Trebizond, a Greek Byzantine splinter state that formed in 1204 after the Fourth Crusade and survived until the Ottomans took it in 1461, outlasting Constantinople by eight years. The church of Hagia Sophia, a thirteenth-century building on a terrace above the sea with frescoes still visible inside, is the best reminder of that time.

   Forty-odd kilometres inland, the Sumela monastery clings to a cliff face above a forested gorge. It dates, according to tradition, from the fourth century, and the painted walls and the sheer drop are astonishing, though the walk up can be steep and crowded. The road up the valley is a good ride in itself, with climbing bends through spruce forest and a surface that suffers in rain.

   The coast road, the D010, runs east toward Rize and Georgia, with the sea on one side and mountains on the other. It is a busy road, packed with trucks and minibuses, with tunnels and bridges that have improved things in recent years. The real riding begins when you turn inland, where side valleys offer long climbs into the Kaçkar range and a gradual shift from coastal humidity to alpine air. Rain is frequent, mist is common, and you should pack waterproofs even in summer.

   Trabzon has a quarter of a million inhabitants, so fuel, food and workshops are plentiful. This is the land of hamsi, the Black Sea anchovy, cooked in a dozen ways, and of cornbread, butter, and strong tea. Football is a religion, and Trabzonspor shirts appear everywhere. The best months are May to September, though the hills stay damp, and the sea is warm enough to swim from July.

2. Rize stop

   There is hardly a hillside around Rize that is not covered in tea. The bushes grow in neat green terraces up to hundreds of metres above the coast, steep enough that pickers use ropes and the road clings to the slope in hairpins. Rize is the tea capital of Turkey, and this is also the wettest part of the country, with cloud and drizzle most of the year, which is exactly why the plants thrive. The town has a pleasant hill park above the centre where you can drink tea at a table with a view of the sea, and a small castle on the ridge above the centre gives a view over the roofs and the sea.

   The coast road, the D010, brings you in, but the real interest lies inland. Valleys lead south into the Kaçkar mountains, with villages like Çamlıhemşin and the plateau pastures near Ayder, where the Hemshin people keep traditional wooden houses and stone bridges. Roads there are narrow and often wet, with sharp bends and rockfall after storms, and fog can come down fast. If you plan to ride into the high country, start early and check conditions, because the weather turns quickly and mobile signal fades.

   Rize has about ninety thousand people, so there is no trouble with fuel, repairs, or a proper meal. The local cuisine is butter-rich, with muhlama, a molten cheese and cornmeal dish, and fish from the Black Sea. Rize tea is served in small tulip glasses, strong and sweet, and you will be offered more than you can drink. Hotel owners and shopkeepers are often happy to talk about the harvest, which runs from May to September.

   The best time to ride is late spring and early autumn, when the days are clear and the air is fresh, though rain can arrive at any time. Winter brings snow to the high passes and the road beyond Ayder may be closed for months. Traffic on the coast road is heavy, so for the smaller valleys plan an early start and take your time on the hairpins.

3. Artvin finish

   Artvin is a mountain city in the far north-east of Turkey, built in steep terraces on the slope above the Çoruh River, and it feels like the end of a long road in the best sense. The valleys here are deep and narrow, the forests are dense and the sky is often full of cloud pushed in from the Black Sea. Roughly twenty-four thousand people live in the city, so fuel, food and a bed are all easy to find, and the road down the valley leads on to Hopa on the coast.

   The Çoruh is a powerful river, famed among paddlers, and in recent years it has been dammed in a series of hydroelectric projects that have changed the valley and put some older roads under water. The landscape is a mix of pine and beech forest, high pastures and small villages perched at improbable angles. The region is also the old Georgian borderland, and the valleys around Artvin hold ruined churches and monasteries from the medieval Georgian kingdoms, some of them wonderfully remote.

   The riding to get here is dramatic. The roads climb and drop through gorges, often cut into rock walls above the river, with tunnels, tight bends and a surface that ranges from good to rough after landslides or heavy rain. Weather can be wet, and mist in the valley changes visibility quickly, so ride within your sight line and keep your visor clean. Trucks and minibuses use these roads too, and local drivers pass with more confidence than is always wise.

   Near the city, in early summer, the Kafkasör festival draws crowds for traditional bull-wrestling on a high meadow, a custom that is more about the contest between the animals than any harm. The area is also known for its honey and for hearty food, with cornmeal dishes, local cheese and fresh trout in the valley restaurants. After a long ride through the Kaçkar valleys, a hot meal, a view across the terraced hillside and a bed with a window facing the river are all you need.

Where this sits

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