A beautiful alpine MTB route in the heart of Julian Alps. For those of you interested in WWI, this route offers great views over the battlegrounds of Soška fronta. Not to mention that the downhill is actually a walking path (mulatjera) from WWI and goes through the trenches.
The route is short, but there are no flat sections; either steep uphill or downhill. First part of the uphill is nice paved road towards the border crossing with Italy. Just before the border you turn left to a nice gravel road, which takes you to the top of this route. The uphill is not technical. I prefer the uphill from the northern side in the summer, because it’s a shorter and the forest offers a great protection from the burning sun.
You get to enjoy amazing views at the top. You get to see many mountains, which played an important role during the World War I (e.g. Rombon, Polovnik). This part of the front was called Soška fronta (named after the Soča river) and there were fierce fights going on between the Italians and Austro-Hungarians (the Germans joined later). If you’re interested in WWI I really recommend you visit the WWI museum in Kobarid.
The downhill is completely different story. It’s very technical and there are also some jumps built by the local trail community. In the fall the trails were covered with leaves and it was on many parts quite hard to follow the trail. Also, it was impossible to know the terrain below the leaves, which made the descent especially demanding. As you can see in the video, one of the branches I rode over pushed my rear derailleur between the spokes of the rear wheel, instantly tearing it off. So, almost all downhill was ridden without pedalling. Fortunately, the descent ends just about 1 km from where you park the car, so I didn’t have to push the bike for long.
Ride stats:
Start/End point: Žaga
Parking location: https://goo.gl/maps/WUjAvb2dZZT2
Distance: 22km
Ascent: 1.200m
Moving time: 2h 30min
Total time: 3h
Download GPX here: http://blog.ride-canopy.com/most-beautiful-xcm-mtb-trails-in-slovenia/
Create or modify route here: https://dev.ride-canopy.com/
Feel free to contact me at: marko[at]ride-canopy.com
Music credits: AShamaluevMusic
1 Comment
Slovenia looks beautiful!