You hear about these trucks and buses plummeting off cliffs all because they followed their sat-navs blindly. Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean.

Well, the moral of this weekend’s biking “action” on my part is that cyclists certainly need to think before they go pedalling off into the great unknown with only a Garmin for company.

As I mentioned the other day, I was headed for Serbia’s Tara mountain for the weekend, on a work trip that promised opportunity to do some cycling around this great MTB location.

Cycling in a winter wonderland

Having had a scare on the day of departure - the small bus was barely able to take the bike - I found myself on Saturday with 5-6 hours free and a GPS track of a nice little 40km round trip ridden by some of the Freebiking guys LAST MAY (note it is now March!)

Well, the 20 or so pictures I have posted on the MTB-Serbia gallery will tell a thousand words - see here for the March Tara mountain tour pictures - but suffice to say that after heading out from the hotel Omorika at Kaldudjerske bare, and turning off along a seemingly clear track, as indicated by the GPS, I quickly ran into snow. Then more snow. Then more and more snow.

And then I really ran into trouble.

You see, just because someone has ridden a trail in May sometime, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be clear in March. Not at 3500 ft up.

Basically I spent around 3 hours covering 10 miles, mostly dragging the bike through snowdrifts which came up to above my knees on occasion, my feet and the bike just falling through randomly through when I least expected it - very dodgy, you could break a leg like that! A lot of the time it would have been impossible to tell where the trail went were it not for the infallible GPS telling me my cycling compadres had been through there sometime last spring!

None of this was helped by the perishingly cold wind that was blowing in the exposed areas and I was a very sorry looking sight (and I’ve cut a VERY long and tiring story short) by the time I hauled myself into Mitrovac, the small settlement across the hills from the hotel I was staying. I certainly wasn’t cutting back across country, so there was nothing for it but a very long, AROUND, back to the hotel. OK, it was 20km, but believe me, it seemed VERY long after that “ride” through the snow and with my feet totally frozen.

Moral no. 1: Do not just assume you can follow a GPS track that someone else has created, certainly the time of year is something you should look into!

Moral no. 2: Just don’t bother trying to cycle above 800m elevation before mid-May!

Moral no. 3: If you’re going to give up, give up early! 10km through a snow-drift is TOO late!

Having said all this, Tara is a fantastic area for mountain-biking, well-mapped and if you’re thinking of coming to Serbia to mountain-bike, you should probably think about Tara. Just don’t come in March…!

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Posted on March 23rd, 2008 by markowe
Filed under: Biking - general, GPS, MTB Serbia (All)