CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 46 km one-way ride from near Kranjska Gora, about 57 min of riding. The stops in between: Vrsic Pass and Trenta. The highest point is about 1,600 m. Vrsic Pass is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
12 km on Slovenia Vrsic Pass Road.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
For about 21 km this is Slovenia Vrsic Pass Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Kranjska Gora is the last real town in the Upper Sava valley, a ski resort in winter and a base for hikers and cyclists in summer, tucked so close to the Italian and Austrian frontiers that you can see both countries on a clear afternoon. It is a small place, about fourteen hundred residents, with pastel chalets, a main street of cafes and shops, and the Julian Alps going straight up behind it. The tall wall of Triglav's neighbours dominates the sky, and the fields around the village are neat, green and full of hay racks.
Read the complete Kranjska Gora write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kranjska Gora is where the day begins. Next is Vrsic Pass.
Vršič is the highest road pass in Slovenia, at 1,611 metres, and it comes with fifty hairpins, each numbered with a little sign. Twenty-four of them are on the north side, from Kranjska Gora, and twenty-six on the south side toward Trenta, and some are still cobbled, which is memorable on a motorcycle in the wet. The road crosses the Julian Alps through a landscape of grey limestone towers, scree slopes and larch woods, and you feel the weight of the peaks pressing in from every side.
Read the complete Vrsic Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vrsic Pass comes up about 12 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Trenta, mostly downhill.
Trenta is the upper valley of the Soča, the river that runs emerald green out of the Julian Alps, and arriving here from the Vršič hairpins feels like being let out into a quiet room. The mountains rise on both sides, the road runs gently beside the water, and the villages are small clusters of stone and wooden houses scattered among meadows and larch woods. It lies inside Triglav National Park, Slovenia's only national park, and the whole area has the air of a protected landscape: clean, calm and generously green.
Read the complete Trenta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 25 km into the recorded legs you reach Trenta. Next is Bovec.
Bovec sits at the head of the Soča valley, in a wide bowl of green meadows ringed by limestone walls that look as if they were stacked there deliberately. Kanin rises to the south, the high Julian Alps close in to the east, and the river that gave the valley its name runs cold and unbelievably turquoise just down the road. It is a small town of around sixteen hundred people, but in summer its population of kayakers, rafters, paragliders and riders makes it feel much larger.
Read the complete Bovec write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bovec closes the day.
Kranjska Gora → Vrsic Pass is 12 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Vrsic Pass → Trenta is 13 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.
Trenta → Bovec is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.