Climbing Slovenia’s Most Epic Road – The Mangart Saddle 🚴‍♂️

Welcome back to our Europe cycling adventure! 🚴‍♂️ After arriving in the beautiful mountain town of Bovec, we settle in for another unforgettable day. On day three, we tackle one of Slovenia’s most iconic climbs — the mighty Mangart Saddle 🏔️. It’s a stunning high-altitude ride with tunnels, switchbacks, and unreal alpine views.

This is part two of our journey from Ljubljana to Munich via Slovenia, Italy, and Austria — a multi-day ride full of challenges, laughs, and incredible landscapes.

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📍 Route: Bled → Bovec – https://www.strava.com/activities/15570120453
🗻 Route: Mangart Saddle – https://www.strava.com/activities/15580113376

Morning viewers. It’s my birthday. [Music] Power power power. It’s day two in Slovenia and we are going from Lake Bled to Boec. Today we are about maybe 10 mi into the route. It’s only going to be 60 mi, maybe just under. And there’s one massive climb as well in it. There’s also going to be a little bit of gravel as well today. As you can see, it’s dry, but it’s looking very angry in the clouds up there. We do have a little cafe stop at about 25 miles just before the climb. So, yeah, we’ll uh do some bits of gravel up to that and then stop there and have uh at least a coffee. [Music] All right, we just did pretty big descent and I think George might have got some footage possibly. Um, basically lost everything that we’ve gained since bled and now I think it’s going to be flat for about 10 miles to the cafe. Just stopped some pictures cuz it looks really nice here. the mountains in the background in the water. It’s pretty warm now. Well, warm enough. Glays are staying on, but um yeah, it’s going well so far today. [Music] Right, we’re just at the cafe now. Just ordered Well, George got a bite to eat. Some toast that’s not come yet. Got coffee and a piece of cake cuz I had plenty of breakfast so I don’t think I needed another sandwich. We’re about to do this climb. We’re going to even though the route going to take us on gravel road decided to do the road. So yeah, just a crap way to see it. I’ll put it on the screen if it’s not showed up. But yeah, it’s 6 1/2 miles, 2,300 ft, average of 7%. So yeah, pretty challenging. It’s got some cobbled sections. Looks pretty narrow. So might film some bits on the way up, but maybe not. So the next time you might see us might be when we’re at the top. [Music] Okay, we made it to the top. George has just arrived. He’s just over there. As you can see, the view is uh pretty stunning up here. I just stopped and had a bar while I wait for George. He’s going to come over. Might see if they do some coffee or something at that little shop that’s just there where the bikes are. [Music] All right, we just stopped. We’ve done some of the descent. I think we filmed a tiny bit between us. We got stuck behind the scenic for a long time. Um, but it was still we didn’t really want to film it that much because we were concentrating too much on the descent itself. Yeah, you can see here the mountains in the background look stunning. That’s my bike there because we’re having a bit of an off bike adventure cuz we saw a little bridge. So, we’re going to walk across a little bridge and uh we’re going to hope that it supports us. It does say no cycling on the bridge. This is well dodgy. [Music] It is very rocky with that. That is insanely low. Beautiful. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Okay, we’ve made it to BVC. We’re at Hotel Alp. George gets to do the check-in dance now where you go and try and persuade them to let you put bikes in the room and then they don’t let you inevitably. Um, but hopefully they’ve got a solution that works or they just let us, which would be awesome. So yeah, made really good time coming here. We did the last bit on the gravel. I don’t know if I caught anything. George might have filmed something. Um but we did, as you saw, go down to the water, which was really cool. So yeah, um going to shower up, get changed, then go and explore BC and see what it’s got to offer. Good morning. It’s day three of bike packing Slovenia. Today though, we are going to stay here for two nights. BCK. So we did a night yesterday, going to do a night tomorrow. That’s cuz we’re going to go up and do the Mangart. It’s the best day since we got here. Blue skies, got the mountains in the background. I’d love to tell you which one we’re going up, but I have no idea. So, I’m just waiting for George. He is down at the hotel that’s just around the corner. I came up here cuz it’s a bit of a nice place to film. Um, we stayed in Bovette last night. Like I said, we just had a bite to eat. We had a burger and and some potatoes. Seems like everywhere in BC kind of does burger and fast food. It’s a pretty um it’s a pretty active type place. like everyone doing kayaking and and water sports because there’s loads of uh really nice sort of like rivers and stuff around here off the mountains. There’s quite a lot of cycling as well. We saw loads of cyclists yesterday, but they’re mainly I would say so like ebikers and tourers. Probably people that have got camper vans and got some ebikes on the back and just go out for a nice little ride on the bike path. But yeah, it’s it’s a beautiful place to be. It’s quite busy with cars. Hopefully the Mangal’s not too busy cuz I think it’s towed for cars and they restrict the number of cars on it. It is a bit of a treat day because the bike has had the luggage removed for this climb since I can leave it all in the hotel this time. Um I do stuff quite a bit of weight on here. So there are going to be tunnels in the Mangard. So I’ve got front and rear lights. Got my top tube bag in there. I’ve got my snacks. Um my tools in case something happens like a puncture. I’ve got like a a multi-tool and stuff and like the hotel key and stuff. Just one bottle today with some electrolytes in. Don’t think I need to put any carbs in that because it’s only going to be a 30 mile ride including the climb and I’ve got three bars with me as well. And hopefully there’s going to be a cafe stop or something like that in addition. So fingers crossed. Don’t need any more nutrition than that. Um I always carry just a tube there even though I’m running tubeless. You just never know. Um and then obviously I’ve got the W as well. George is here now. I’m a shy deer in the headlights. She’s coming over and I’m just standing there like it’s like a rip tide on the inside. Keep it together, man. You could drown in those blue eyes. She said, “Hey, isn’t it funny how we always seem to meet in every place in town? Yeah, I must be lucky. I will fly. You can take me high. [Music] Right, this is the bottom of the mangart. You can see a cyclist in the distance there. And I think you’ll just about to see George pop up there between the bushes right above my finger. Maybe there he is. Looks like he’s filming. So yeah, um as you’ll have seen, the views are pretty stunning. I um it’s hard, really hard just to get here where the segment starts. I’ve pulled over. I’m going to just sort out all my stuff. Going to put the camera away. Might put my earphones in and then just yeah, roll to the top. I’ve had a bite to eat. Although that feels like a long time ago now cuz even though it was only like 3 miles ago, there was a lot of elevation ago. Annoyingly, I did forget to start my wahoo. So, I missed the first four miles of the day, but doesn’t really matter. It was a bit lumpy, so I missed a bit of elevation, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll have a look at Georgees to compare how much I lost. But yeah, so uh the next time you see me, it’ll be at the top. If George does any filming as he climbs it, I will I’ll put it in now. All right, we made it to the top of the climb. Um the very climb on top of mountain is up there behind me as you can see in the clouds. It was It’s not actually that tough a climb. I try to keep it sort of like high 200. So, I don’t know how long it took because I lost the live segment on some of the tunnels. The tunnels are pretty long and dark and you lose GPS in them. And on one of them, just over halfway up the climb, I lost the live segment. So, don’t know how long it took. So, yeah, I’m just going to have some energy gummies. I’m going to walk up to this little viewpoint here, take some shots. Don’t know where George is. Um, he was pretty ahead of me when I set off as I showed you set off at the beginning and then um I overtook him about a quarter of the way up. One of the advantages of having a gravel bike though is having SBD shoes so you can actually walk places when you get to the top and you’re not just kind of hobbling around on it. Uh road cakes. [Applause] [Music] Right, George has caught up. He’s just up there putting some arm warmer and jacket on. As you can see, my jacket’s on. It’s got a bit chilly up here. Yeah, we’re going to descend. Um George is going to get some shots as we descend. He didn’t get any coming up, so you won’t have seen any so far. But um yeah, he’s going to get some shots going on the descent and I’ll put them in kind of now because I think I’m just going to put my camera away and just enjoy enjoy it. Yeah. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] All right. I wasn’t intending to film any of the descent. Stuck the GoPro in my mouth and just filmed some of the descent. So, I’ll have been able to show you some of the tunnels which are pretty dodgy. It gets really dark and I don’t know which ones I caught on camera. I can’t remember. But some of them I really slow down in cuz all of a sudden I’m just blind. I can’t see anything and there are like some really shallow potholes in the ground. So yeah, it’s just a bit dodgy. Um but yeah, this is now the barrier which stops too many cars going up which is an absolute godsend cuz it’s bad enough with the cars that are there. So if there was a freefor all with loads of cars, it’d be even worse. Um, there’s cheese and drinks here, but I don’t know if we’re going to stop or if we’re going to carry on because further down there are more choice of cafes. [Music] All right, we’re just rolling back into Boec now. We did stop for pizza on the way down, but I ate it that quick. I forgot to record it. It was very nice pizza and a couple of coffees. Can of Coke. Yeah, we’re going to uh get back to the hotel, have a shower, maybe have a walk down to the river, see what it’s like down there. So, I think I will take the camera for that, but then that’s going to be the end of filming today. Yeah. Don’t know what happened to George. I think he must have stopped to take some pictures. cuz he was right with me and then then he wasn’t.