Last year a group of us took an amazing 250 mile trip across the wilds of Serbia - on our mountain-bikes of course! Have a look here if you missed that!

We want to repeat this amazing experience, and to give more people the chance to get to see the mountains of Serbia from the saddle of a bike. I met up with Rob over the weekend and we came up with an approximate plan, which he’s been toying with for a while. We got out OziExplorer and some maps and plotted a basic (VERY rough) route, which you can download here (in OziExplorer .plt format and Google Earth .kmz format), and you can see a little snippet if you click the picture on the left. So what’s the basic plan?

Serbia Mountain Bike Trek 2008

Dates: 18th-24th May 2008

Length: approx. 300km (hard to judge at this stage)

Location: Southern Serbia, starting from the village of Kaona near the famous Guča (famous for its traditional Serbian music festival) and then through the area of Dragačevo down to the mountain of Golija (which we rode some of last year). Along the ridge of Golija westwards and then all the way down almost to the Montenegro border and westwards along the mountain range of Pešter. From there we head northwards up to the Sjenica lake (Sjeničko jezero, which we missed last year) and maybe around it. This was a new idea of mine, haven’t run it past the others yet, but it makes sense. And then over to Ivanjica, which is not so far from where we started out. Doesn’t look much on the map, but it’s a good 5-day ride, we assure you!

Ride type: If you follow this blog then you will know we are not adrenaline junkies, rather our riding is in the “freebiking” spirit - cycling as a means to enjoying the fantastic nature of Serbia. Most of the riding will be through mountainous areas, with the highest elevation probably at Jankov kamen on Golija, which is 1834m (around 6000 ft), though most of it is around the 1200-1300 m mark. Riding is on farm and forest tracks, mostly reasonable quality, no dodgy single-trail stuff, not that far from home! A lot of it is very wild, but we usually hit civilisation at least once a day and stock up on necessities. You do need some basic fitness to challenge some of the inclines and we also recommend at least a reasonable quality hard-tail mountain bike (no Wal-Mart/Tesco jobs, and something better than a Polar or Capriolo would be advisable if you’re from Serbia).

Accommodation: We decided that the easiest way would be camping again - there is not much in the way of hostels out in the wilds anyway, and it was a great experience last year.

Transport: Most probably there will be one vehicle carrying our stuff around - we certainly don’t plan to lug our tents up and down the mountains! We still need to find a couple of more sedentary types who are willing to drive and meet us up at planned rendezvous points every evening where we will set up camp. As for getting down there, most of us will probably take public buses down there and stow our bikes on board, unless we find at least one more person with car plus bike racks. If you need to get to Serbia, well, get in touch and we’ll help you with that!

Number of participants: Well, that’s up to you! We would like to have at least 3 or 4 people besides me and Rob, probably going up to 8 at the most, since things get straggly beyond that.

Cost: It won’t cost you anything other than what you pay for travel and supplies. I think we spent about 50-100 EUR per person last time.

So, if you are thinking this might be the adventure of a lifetime, then get in touch with us via the comments option on this blog, or by sending an email to [the name of this blog, or just webmaster]@itsgottabered.com.

Why not try something new? Try Serbia and see what it has to offer mountain-bikers - we’d love to have you along. Remember, Serbia is still wild and free…!

If you think others might want to read this post, don’t be selfish, click above to AddThis to Digg, Del.icio.us or just about any other bookmarking service and share and share alike!

Popularity: 16% [?]

Posted on April 7th, 2008 by markowe
Filed under: Biking - general, MTB Serbia (All), Serbia Bike Trek! | No Comments »

It’s not every day that you get to go on a weekend work trip to the mountain of Tara, one of Serbia’s premiere mountain-biking areas.

So what do you do? Go to the seminar, and stare dreamily out of the hotel window all weekend, thinking about how great it will be when you come here to cycle one day?

Of course not! You gotta fight for your right to bike!

You check to see if there would be a problem putting your bike on the organised bus (of course there isn’t), you fight tooth and nail for that “Afternoon - Free activities” slot to be put in the program (which you will obviously spend sitting around in the hotel bar, right?), you get the guys on the biking forum to send you a GPS track from some previous trip so you don’t lose too much time and away you go!

So I am heading off to Tara for the weekend and very much looking forward to my first proper bit of mountain-biking this year. Reports to follow. Just hope there isn’t too much snow left lying around!

But my advice is if you see a chance, grab it! No-one is going to actually hand the opportunity to you on a plate - just tell them, “If I go, the bike goes with me!”

If you think others might want to read this post, don’t be selfish, click above to AddThis to Digg, Del.icio.us or just about any other bookmarking service and share and share alike!

Popularity: 18% [?]

Posted on March 21st, 2008 by markowe
Filed under: Biking - general, MTB Serbia (All) | No Comments »