Backroads biking trip in Croatia, May 2025

Backroads (biking) trip in Croatia, May 2025

Video length — 56 minutes
0:05 Day one, bus ride to pickup bikes
1:00 Day one, summary of the trip plan
2:00 Welcome reception at the hotel, day 1
2:25 Day 2, route rap, on the boat to Brac Island
9:10 Day 2, boat ride to Hvar Island
10:25 Day 3, route rap at the bikes
13:25 Day 3, details of the electric assist bike
16:10 Day 3, start of downhill biking video
37:40 Day 3, more details of the electric assist bike
40:45 Day 4, route rap on the boat to Korcula Island
43:00 Day 4, Croatian history, on board the boat
44:00 Day 4, Biking scenery on Korcula Island
46:00 Day 4, break for lunch at Konoba Albert, in Zavalatica
47:50 Day 5, biking scenery on the Racisci Route (2nd trip of the day)
53:10 Day 5, water taxi to the mainland
54:00 Day 5, Bus to Dubrovnik
55:40 Day 6, scenery from walking tour of Dubrovnik

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Biking Vacation Videos

The Backroads Experience Video

Backroads Biking Trip, Quebec, Aug 2010

Backroads Trip, San Juan Islands, July 2011 (23 min)

Backroads Biking Trip, Vermont, July 2012

Backroads Biking Trip, Nova Scotia, 2013

Backroads — Biking Trip, Netherlands, May 2014

Backroads — Biking in Bruges, Belgium, May 2014

Backroads — Biking in Florida, Everglades to Key West, Feb 2015

Backroads Biking Trip, California Wine Country, Sept 2015

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Backroads Biking trip, Mallorca and Menorca, 23 – 28 May 2023

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Electronic data from the Croatia BR Biking Trip, May 2025

slippery shower floors, when traveling — June 2025

(bring your own mat)

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Florida bike rides
Bike ride — Honeymoon Island, Jan 2023
https://youtu.be/5LzsqKegxko (43 min)

Ream Wilson Biking Trail, Clearwater, Florida, March 2022
https://youtu.be/aR-2ZDNci3Y (1 hr 23 min)

Introduction to the Courtney Campbell Causeway Trail, to Tampa, Florida, March 2022
https://youtu.be/WGkZvn6c7zk (12 minutes)

Courtney Campbell Causeway Trail, round trip, to Tampa, Florida, 4 April 2022
https://youtu.be/DgK0T_mxWwA (1 hr 18 min)

Duke Energy Trail, roundtrip, Clearwater, Florida, March 2022
https://youtu.be/rVsTOTsGwEo (1 hr 13 min)

Pinellas Bike Trail Florida, a video tour, south half mile 22 to 0, March 2021
https://youtu.be/qWJdW_X2CZM (1 hr 53 min)

Pinellas Bike Trail Florida, a video tour, north half mile 23 to 45, 12 March 2021
https://youtu.be/XueZkYhy-ek (1 hr 53 min)

Biking Tour of Dunedin to Clearwater (Florida), 22 Feb 2021
https://youtu.be/tfL_Ggxrdps (1 hr 18 min)

Biking Tour — Dunedin to Tarpon Springs, Florida, part 1, Feb 2021
https://youtu.be/YLv-ZoDmtOs (59 min)

Biking Tour — Dunedin to Tarpon Springs, Florida, part 2, Feb 2021
https://youtu.be/Q060Csav21I (1 hr 27 min)

Wall Springs Trail, Coastal Addition, 2023
https://youtu.be/R_VyTYjSHgE (19 min)

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Virginia Bike Rides

W&OD Bike Trail, a video tour, (mile 20 to 45), Herndon to Purcellville, Virginia, May 2021
https://youtu.be/dfeh67tMkZo (2 hr 21 min)

W&OD bike trail, a video tour, (mile 20 to 0), from Herndon to Arlington (Virginia), May 2021
https://youtu.be/vPhQLLmJ7Dk (1 hr 41 min)

Biking, Reston to Vienna (VA), on the Reston and W&OD Trails, Jan 2023
https://youtu.be/EmwB1yrhvCI (1 hr 49 min)

1-hour biking workout, near Fairfax, VA
https://youtu.be/0IwzzwzjOXk (59 min)

[Music] um so yeah I I wish there was that would make This is a bus ride to our starting point after having left the hotel we’re heading to where we’ll pick up our bikes and get them set up for riding a group of 25 participants backwards unfortunately I didn’t uh take my video camera with me as I was biking uh today but it was up on the hills and then from here on out it’ll be island hopping uh going on two or three islands and then back to the mainland before we u finish in Dravnik so what they did is we were on a a tour bus of sorts that took us up in the hills where we met with our bikes got them set up and then started biking and a lot of the biking was downhill a lot of it was uh switchbacks going either uphill or downhill but it was I thought a good experience it was uh 28 km before lunch and 26 km after lunch for those who did bike the whole way and most of them did as I as I recall only four of our 25 did not uh bike in the afternoon [Applause] oh yeah [Applause] now just uh uh things on slightly serious note so whatever uh is happening on the boat u we have to listen to our captains Steipe and rest of the crew so now it really doesn’t matter what what Evan Nina Nico and I say if the uh uh boat captain says “Hey guys go on the upper deck,” we go to the upper deck “hey guys you do 10 push-ups we do 10 push-ups right?” So just uh just to keep that in mind also when we are docking or leaving the port please make sure uh you might forget about it and it’s not problem but uh if we going to be more directive in these situations uh I apologize but the the sides of the boat they have to be always uh empty so we should not be walking because the guys the crew are running on the sides throwing the rope pulling the the boat and they have to have enough space so we safely uh dock that’s it now we have around 50 minutes to get to Posta to Gratch and in case I forgot something I might have forgot something uh I’m going to just uh announce it again but right now you can chill you can relax uh you already know the itinerary for the day um even though I’m going to go over it again everybody yeah so we’re going to repeat that even though we won’t be cycling today uh we expect this day to be awesome great time to kind of bond a little talk a little bit more uh we’re going to spend so much time together and then in the next days we’re going to have a wonderful cycling days uh so you don’t really have to worry that you’re not cycling today uh because we really want you to be safe we don’t want to be super wet or exposed to lightning and and thunder um with that being said maybe Nick wants to go to the over today and then uh Yeah beautiful thanks Tom uh yeah so like Dom said we have about a 50-minute transfer to Posta uh that’s where we’re going to start our adventure for the day um there’ll be a bus there waiting for us we’ll exit the boat is because we’re getting back on this boat this afternoon uh feel free to leave your dayacks on the boat just make sure you have your rain layer we’ll hop on the bus and then we set up a uh presentation of the stonemasonry school uh in Brach as I said last night Bachch is known for its limestone production very heavy in the in limestone and so they have quaries um and then they uh have a trade school where they teach uh some of the locals people really from all over Croatia that want to learn the craft of stonemasonry at this school uh we’re going to have the the gentleman who runs the school uh give us a presentation and kind of give us a little bit of information on on what that looks like um and then after that we’re going to transition back onto our bus and we’re going to take about a 30-minute transfer uh to a winery in the little town of B and at that point we’ll have some wine tasting they’ll have some olive oil for us some local produce and give us a little bit of insight on exactly how they process and and harvest their grapes and their olives and then CIPe is going to basically circumvent the island and meet us in that town of B in the afternoon our pickup time for that is going to be 1:30 um so we’ll set a meeting time we’ll let everybody know exactly where we’re going to meet we’ll transition back onto the boat and then from there we’ll have a 3 to 3 and 1/2 hour transfer depending on the on the weather over to Havar at that point it looks like we’ve been uh I mean I I feel like I could be a weather man at this point uh we have been studying the the hour by hour and uh it looks like the weather’s going to clear up and the sun’s going to come out on that transfer back over to Havar and then shortly thereafter that we’ll we’ll be served a big and and really delicious lunch on board so you guys will be well fed as always um and then we’ll finish our uh our adventure into Havar Town you don’t all have to stay in here for the entire boat ride uh there’s a nice kind of uh enclosed seating area up front if you’d like to go up there and then if you guys want to go up top uh you can go around the back of the boat there’s a small staircase that leads up and you can sit up there doesn’t look like we’re going to get too much rain on the on the way so anybody have any questions here we have a lot of bad weather predicted rain thunder lightning so we’re going to this town as we explained that it’s about a half hour to get there and then after we’ve seen that island we’re going to actually go to the other side of the island and pick up this same boat and then continue on uh to the next island which is So this is the island we’re on cross through it and the boat’s going to go around the end of it meet us on the other side their sister’s fiance [Music] so I just talked to the leader and that is Havar so we’re now to the other side of Ro where we’ll pick up the boat we left earlier [Applause] second and last stop here on Brochina Winery [Music] [Applause] [Applause] so just outside the winery is our boat waiting for us and once again it was raining there’s not been a good day to bike anyway which is why they had these touristy things to do and drove us from one side of the island to the other we’re about 2 hours into our 3hour boat ride to Havar [Applause] i didn’t take a video of the visit but there was this visit to Stonemason school anyway they give an example of how they cut and shape stone by hand as part of this educational program in the lead the real adventure was bus ride over the island welcome to day three really really awesome day planned for you guys and we’re we’re excited to execute it with higher and higher um you’ll start to have this really beautiful panoramic view the sea is going to be on your left and then on your right you’re going to see these geometrical plots uh of land okay and most folks are like what the heck is that you’re surrounded by it uh those are called the Stigrad planes so in the 16th century the Greeks migrated uh to all of these islands specifically Pabar and Cortula um and they were very uh they had a high aptitude for for agriculture however there was a problem the land was was very very rocky uh and so to plant their trees and all of their crops they had to move all of the rocks and what they did was because the Greeks were always kind of advanced in in all these different areas was they created these agricultural plots and the the land you’ll see is is very very sloped so the plot served two purposes the first was to delineate the land for their for their crops and the second was they created a really uh advant advanced for the time uh gutter gutter system so when it rained it rains very sparsely on this island uh they would collect the water through the gutters and they would have these big clay sistns at the bottom uh and that would be in times of drought they would save the water and then use it uh to to water their crops so we’ll have a view of that and it’s UNESCO protected so you can’t build on it um and they’re they’re perfectly preserved they’re hundreds and hundreds of years old so that’ll kind of be the first highlight of the day and then obviously the beautiful scenery at the very top of the hill I have some lavender sprigs right here um that is where our first port stop of the day will be so I know Don mentioned last night you’ll have the opportunity to buy some really cool custom Croatia biking jerseys uh she sells them up there uh there’s coffee there’s bathrooms uh there’s a beautiful beautiful view uh of the surrounding villages and see below um so we’ll have a support stop up there 10 15 minutes uh and then we will start our first downhill of the day okay so just to recap starting from here heading down first few kilometers downhill making a righthand turn and then the uphill begin so this is uh day three of our Croatian bike trip and this is the view from uh near the top of one of the mountains we’re riding up and the view probably gets better than this but uh this is where I decided it looks like a good photo op to to start now I didn’t get here all on my own uh this is a a back roads bike equipped with a a battery that’s another uh one of our group there who’s also got a battery and in the uh the transaxle area is a motor and so uh this control thing goes from eco to something to sport to turbo depending on how much assistance you want electrically and then this device a Wahoo GPS tells you where you are where you’re going and if you’re following the trail and it lights up some lights on the top of your off trail now I didn’t turn this on properly it says 7 9 km uh for the distance elaps but it’s really um another 3.3 km more than that because I realized I was at zero km after biking quite a ways so um so anyway that that takes extra instructions how to use which uh I don’t really necessarily remember now I brought along this rear view mirror uh miracle which uh was able to attach at the end of the arm handle and I brought along this uh cushion seat because the regular bike seats that uh Backro supplies are too skinny too skinny for my butt and then they they do supply this back carrier pack and then I’ve got a little lightweight backpack I’m also carrying because I’ve got a another uh I’ve got another helmet they they supply the helmets but I’ve got another helmet in the little backpack because um uh I’ve got a camera mount on that and so uh I might later put my video camera here on the helmet and uh video part of the trip as I’m biking but this I’m just stopping here because it looks like it’s a scenic overlook spot so this is a stop uh near the top of the hill restaurant um and this is a view from the top this is looking in the opposite direction where I was just looking so um great scenery up here yeah to Yeah exactly [Applause] heat heat so in going down a steep hill like this what what what I’m doing is feather the brakes i’m braking with my right and left to keep from going too fast down the hill the uh regulator device tells me I’m going 20 km per hour as slow as I’m going here and maybe of course driven by gravity since I’m not pedaling at all this is still morning on the third day of our Croatian backing trip of course day two was only uh boat ride mainly one of the reasons they call them back roads they try to give you tours of an area using back roads and that’s the theme of most of the bike trips they don’t try to take you on to busy thoroughares if they’re going to at all avoid it heat heat smooth road good heat heat heat heat heat down heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat heat [Applause] no doubt one of our trip leaders here going to tell us which way to turn this is a busy crossing so just stop for a track go ahead whoop [Applause] that looks good to me good to go oh hey that was just a uh a busy crossing as things go in back roads you want me to pass you sure on the left passing Heat heat [Applause] we’re back [Applause] [Applause] whoa so they have tour buses which are actually too big for the lane size around here but they still have them [Applause] heat heat i periodically I periodically glance down my uh Wahoo GPS just to make sure I’m on the approximate path you know I’m following the other members of the group happens to be my wife um we don’t get lost like we used to with the paper instructions of uh 2010 to 2015 all we had were paper instructions to make turns sort of uh a feature to look for but it was real easy to get lost in those uh those strips because you didn’t know how far you traveled and where the next turn was and how it all made sense that was the GPS that guides you through the whole route when you go off the route it uh starts making some funny sounds and flashing lights heat heat heat heat heat up here heat heat [Applause] on your left is that your camera going on that’s hilarious gopro and then he does upgrade a stationary bike right but I also post these online oh you’ll have to show us how to find them i’ll send you an email but it probably won’t be till like uh you got to stand up look at all the They don’t want us to go fast so again what was just mentioned by me is that I post these online and then if you look below the video frame there’s a a narrative section on YouTube there’s like uh three lines of print you can see and then there’s a more link click the more link it’ll open up the narrative section and in that narrative section which can be up to 5,000 characters long I I put links for all my other online videos of bike trips uh those that I uh and I post the same videos on Vimeo and they have more than they have several quite a few uh lines of print below the video frame and then you click the read more link in the narrative section that opens it up and then uh same thing up to 5,000 characters I can list links for prior videos that I posted uh for trips like this so the question is uh how much is enough for these videos we’ve already had a dramatic scenery perhaps I should pull over and uh put away the video camera switch back to my regular helmet since this is probably overkill for rural scenery [Applause] of Croatia the island of Havar h V A R another road crossing of potential danger [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] whoa [Applause] i’m waiting for all [Music] okay we got a little gap here not much heat heat [Applause] [Applause] yeah looks like a left turn here on the GPS yeah don’t fall off the lane here could be quite painful even though it’s only a couple foot drop off back there heat heat so another thing um if you’re riding on the the um electric bike all the gears are in the back a sprocket in the back which which has all the gears you change which is like 10 and then the other thing you get is a kickstand whereas all the other bikes which are are like three speeds in the front and nine gears in the back or whatever um 27 speed um you don’t get a kickstand with back roads so you got to find some place to lean the bike up every time you stop the bike but it’s real nice with the electric bike not only do you have some electric assist but you also have a kickstand so you just flip the kickstand down uh park the bike real easily okay so I’m going to shut this down because uh I’m believing there’s not any great scenery compared to what we just went over bye so here’s the setup uh with the the non-motorized bike uh no kickstand so you got to lean it up against a a wall or high curb or something but the rest of us with power have kickstands so uh been very handy with the electric for our afternoon biking session we uh climb back up to the top of a tall hill where this restaurant and gift shop thing is so it seems like sort of a a weird challenge and a weird trick to uh end back up here and do a whole bunch more biking the best part of the Echo’s adventure plus made possible for me by the power assist this is a carrier that attaches behind the fans which is mainly used as I understand it for the uh power bikes because they’re so much heavier uh these bikes are the lighter weight uh 27 speed power bikes which weigh uh 20 lb less 30 lb bikes or 25 lb bik put on special trays which is what it always used to be until they got the power assist bikes try not to put the power bikes up here because they’re a lot heavier hello of Portula which is known as the Little Dubnik uh designed by Venetian architecture hundreds and hundreds of years ago um it’s basically a Dubnik on a much smaller scale absolutely beautiful i think every leader agrees that this island is kind of kind of our favorite i mean we’ll obviously let you guys decide if if that’s the case but really looking forward to a great day of riding so let’s get into some specifics here again we’re starting in the town of Veluca and the first ride today is going to be 34.8 km about 35k 531 m of climbing okay so in miles and feet that’s 21 miles 1,600 ft okay so we’re starting our ride today and we’re going to head out and leave the village of Valle Luca and get on some more of those back roads one thing I want to call out is the first four kilometers of the ride today is going to be on a busier road so just be conscious of the cars and conscious of how you’re spacing each other apart okay after the main road section you’re going to go through the small little town of Blato blato means mud literally means mud uh the town used to be uh underwater covered in kind of like a swampy area um and then over time uh the water kind of uh receded and they three kilometers consistently up to our first support stop of the day which is going to be at the 11 km point okay 11 km is our first support stop of the day uh Nina’s going to be up there with some special treats for you guys um some local local treats local pastries that you guys can try out um before your first big downhill of the day okay so the downhill section uh is about 7 km consistently downhill and that’s going to essentially help us access the coastal part of our ride basically creation history or at least creation modern history is a kind of it really built its um uh identity on the war that was happening in the ’90s as well as Yugoslavia because nowadays still big portion of creation people lived in former republic of Yugoslavia yugoslavia was a socialist communist country uh that consisted of what nowadays is six separated republics so Yugoslavia consisted of Slovenia Croatia Bosnia Herzgoina Serbia Montenegro and Northern Macedonia so nowadays those countries are all for themselves had their own uh constitutions presidents prime ministers but in the past that country which lasted for 35 years uh uh 45 years excuse me um was ruled most of the time by only one uh leader one president and it was it was dictatorship not as strong dictatorship as in maybe some other socialist countries but still you didn’t have much freedom so this is day four on a new island the background strip i think this is Cula Island if memory serves so uh we just finished a 12 km uphill had a break at the top of the hill with the back van and then uh we’re on a downhill slope you know you usually think of uh your legs getting tired while biking but I’ve been noticing um here we go i’ve been noticing that my my my fingers are tired on the downhill from applying brace to keep from going as fast as that guy was going so back to the uh we go one two three those are people from our group get a feel for the uphill climb here or not except we’re going downhill [Applause] so this is the next town I’ll be going through and look at the view they have so this is uh 22 km into our trip today and we are approaching another little town and this is what I can see of their scenery so this is about uh 32 kilometers into our day and our stop for a lunch break [Applause] little bit hard to see the uh the mountains on the Jason Island swimming for y’all today is it now you can go now i’m going to go now so then [Music] let’s do it [Applause] isn’t good with the disc brakes and then breathing it’s like I’m breathing bags uh no there are day bags are down here already they’re down here already i was about to have a panic attack we got you so this is day four the afternoon bike ride and this is the view from about 6 kilometers into the afternoon ride and so this is uh 12 kilometers into the afternoon ride and this is a top of a hill we just went over a mountain it felt like [Applause] [Music] So this is day five of our bike trip in Croatia uh we’ve had two short rides this morning the first one is to a beach and then this one going through a little town and this the sort of scenery we have we’ve been biking along this uh roadway which parallels this waterway for um quite a while on this second uh trip of the morning but uh there’s only occasional views of the water so I stopped here because this is a much more of a panoramic view we’re stled out to the turning around point first trip we took to a beach and then back to the parking lot of the hotel where we started then we took off on this trip so this is about uh 16 km we biked for the second trip of the morning first trip was about I think 24 km and ends at this point but you can’t see much of the waters beyond because of all the boats in the way plus we’re not elevated anymore so this is the U-turn point we go back another 16 km which I think will take us right back to the hotel that we started from this morning again this is uh 16 uh kilometers into our second uh bike ride of the morning and this this was the boats I couldn’t see through to get some of this uh panoramic view and I think I can get uh a little bit better view up the hill uh of what’s around the the corner of that land there want to get a little bit more elevation wonderful scenery that all these people live in hi guys we miss you we miss you Laura thank you so this is just uh up the hill from the turnaround point 16 kilometers in the second part of the trip on day on day um five in fact uh I think we’re going to leave our bikes uh for the rest of the day um so any anyway the the harbor was off to the left there which is no longer visible and this is the view above these trees and we were paralleling this waterway for most of our 16 kilometers this morning but a lot of times we couldn’t see it because of all the surrounding trees what time do we leave 11:45 oh hey place for a an ambush rocking through Croatia [Applause] make it look like I’m going faster and that could be the last of them before the van hard to know hard to know this who’s who’s counting this is a fairly large group uh in fact the largest I’ve seen 25 uh participants plus um two backros leaders plus two support leaders hi Dave hi zoomed too much on that one dave I got this i got this i think I can i think I can so again that was that was a a couple who are using the manual bikes which makes hills so much tougher but that’s a true life experience of biking and then there’s surviving and just getting through it with the help of electric assist i guess another comment about this trip is uh what is the story with Croatians and steps in order to get to our restaurant we had to go up a whole long series of steps and once we got up to that area there we ended up having to go down a whole bunch more steps to get to the area where the restaurants were um with view of the water too much climbing we we had one rest uh one hotel that had a huge number of steps as well and there didn’t seem to be an elevator around well an elevator option around going up so many steps between the um the main desk and the outside and the main desk and the hotel rooms despite there being elevators also for parts of the way anyway just by coming on steps okay this is still day five we have left our bikes behind and we are uh on a water taxi leaving uh the last town which I should remember the name of but I don’t and we’re going to mainland right over here and then we’re going to get on a bus it’s uh 2 hours to de Brit where we have our final hotel uh tomorrow we’re supposed to have a a walking tour of up to the for two hours in the morning if they just dismiss us anyway that’s our latest state for the post and 2 hours to drop once we got hey everybody can you hear me nice great all right so we already had know pretty much everything just a few more few more pieces of information 2 hours approximately to get to Duronic to the Hilton Imperial there um in case you will be thirsty there are some uh water bottles here so let us know we can provide this to you um the road might be whiny at some point but I think we should be nice the the view is going to be very nice right hand side and uh we’re going to meet tonight at 6:30 in the lobby and then we’re just going to take a walk to the old town of Dur and have drinks and nice lovely dinner one of the beautiful spares over there nick and I will both at the reception however I’m going to be staying on the dinner with you because Nick stayed on day one and uh I think this is it i might use my microphone one more time uh if I forgot to mention something but yeah I’m protected and uh and we can have a group picture uh on the main square there once before the dinner it will be a nice lovely memory thank you guys and enjoy the ride okay day six of our back roads trip has breakfast followed by 2hour uh tour of downtown Dravnik and then a trip to the airport for us this is how it looks like and then the wall took a lot of climbing to get to the top here more steps than I care to count so they just Yeah yeah yeah yeah it’s so they actually physically put green screen and then they add they add it for the production and then this one is they’re standing over there the cameras are there inside the old town shooting towards us and this is us at St mar we are right here if you turn around and look up you’re going to see that the top bit is missing because it’s completely CGI except unlike the previous one you can’t tell CGI because it’s C7 and there’s 12 [Applause] yeah yeah yeah might as well can we move on yeah there’s a lot of fans and not many of us have said I