Day 1: Slovenia – CP1

All riders were assembled at the start line in LJubljana at 7 a.m. on a Sunday in okay-ish weather conditions. After "papa serpent" Bruno gave the go we immediately headed for the first big climb which caused the field to blow up an riders to form a long line with positions depending on climbing prowess. In Slovenia that was still the main criterium as the trails were, a few exceptions aside, rideable even by those without MTB tires and gearing.

Rolling hills and still high quality gravel roads followed until the big challenge of the first day, the climb up to the Sveta Trojica where the first checkpoint was located. Steep, deteriorating ramps with gradients north of 15 percent forced me out of the saddle as my puny gravel tires often lost traction. Amazingly after day one it was no longer possible to reach that checkpoint as the site was used for exercises by the Slovenian army. Riders that passed it this late had to skip the checkpoint with the noise of gunfire in the the background. Not that a fire drill would faze the Serpents who were about to cross into black bear territory.

Rolling into Postojna with sunset I felt incredibly fatigued. By that point I already had climbed over 3000 m which my legs took as an excuse to declare a strike. I got myself two kebabs to get some energy back in the system but struggled to get down half of them. I just sat there for a while until I stopped shivering, stowed the kebab in my saddle bag and went on my way again, huddled in my down jacket.

Rain started to pour down just a few minutes later but stopping early was not an option – the room I had booked was in a youth hostel another 40 km down the road in a village past Cerknica. Tough luck, I thought, but the rest of that trip wasn't half bad after all as the involuntary pause at the kebab joint reinvigorated my spirits. Rolling through the dark in the downpour was almost a pleasant experience, reinforced by the largely good roads and hardpack gravel of Slovenia.

When I arrived at the youth hostel I couldn't wait to get in the dry so I mixed up doors and by accident barged into the private quarters of the proprietors at half past eleven. They took it calmly and even helped me get settled. Nice people! The garage was crammed with bikes and every square centimeter of radiators in the hallway was covered in wet cycling clothes. Fortunately I had some heated real estate of my own in my room.

Somewhat battered I downed a kebab and went to bed.

Day 2: Mainland Croatia – CP2

Sleep management being something I suck at I forced myself to get in a full night of sleep regardless of the certainty that the field would already be out and about early. I had my six hours and started out after the morning rain almost subsided.

Item number one on the day's itinerary was a loop around the Sneznik castle. With that out of the way we headed into the high mountains. The Slovenian part consisted of decently ridable forest roads but it got rougher when we entered Croatia. Up near CP2 on the notorious Guslica climb the roads were horribly degraded at times. The Guslica dead end itself was largely unridable in both directions. For completing the effort of climbing all the way to the top we were greeted by thankless fog and chilly wind. The downhill was a time consuming hike-a-bike as well for those without front suspension.

After Guslica it was technically downhill all the way to the coast.

However that downhill is a contender for the biggest tease in a bike race: to even get there one has to climb multiple steep medium size hills, endure a gratuitously technical hike-a-bike on the shore of a water reservoir – Lokvarsko jezero –, and an oddly out of place seeming western movie set. That road to Fuzine was a soul crushing series of setbacks.

The descent was fun but too short and steep to make up for the hours preceding it. I reached the coast with the sunset and had a pizza together with a rider from Hungary during which we discussed the latest news from the race chat: people shared photographic evidence of a bull on the route guarding the entry to the isle of Krk. "I'm not scared of the bull. I breed bulls for a living!" – can't argue with that, can I?

Nevertheless I decided I wouldn't face the bull alone. Fatigue wise I hadn't finished for the day and the weather was rather pleasant so naturally I wanted to get a few more kilometers in. The bull said no. In the dark I couldn't see the beast from behind the electric fence which we had to open and cross in order to continue, but I head something make large animal noises. For all I knew the bull was already lurking in the bushes on the other side of the fence, poised to impale a cyclist or two with its horns. I turned around and went back to the bridge where I encountered a Dutch fella who shared my lack of enthusiasm for facing a bull in its territory in the dark so we decided to spend the night on the parking lot above the road next to the Krk bridge.

That turned out a lucky decision: two more riders joined us after a while and after a pleasant, dry night under the sky with a view of the Rijeka coast we broke camp with sunrise to finally brave the bull. Who apparently was sleeping in that day so the only megafauna we met in the fenced off fields was a bunch of donkeys. Others however later recounted their stories of bull encounters so the bull warning definitely wasn't a fake.

Day 3: Krk – CP3

What kind of island would be guarded by a bull? Going into the race we were all aware of the mythical hike-a-bike near Baska in the south, little did we know the effort it takes to even get there, let alone what comes after.

The trails were relentless. Sharp linestone rocks littered the surface. Again the MTB crowd flew away into the horizon while many on more gravel-y rigs would do the sane thing: dismount and hike. Progress was sluggish at best. On Krk I hiked maybe not half the distance but certainly half the time. While carrying the bike up the Baška wall is a gimmick, the rest of the hikes seemed gratuitous and pointless - it's not that some interesting sight or view awaited us at the end, just more sheep and standard mediterranean scenery.

Borrowing a Czech expression: Mam Krk po krk! All I wanted was to complete the set route and reach the ferry to leave the island for good. Which after a long slog I eventually did. A bunch of riders were already assembled next to the ferry, similarly yearning to exit this cursed place, and more were rolling in steadily. Together we crossed the sea to Cres in the afternoon.

Another wall awaited us right off the ferry but I wasn’t bothered too much by it, I was still surfing the high of having put Krk behind me. A few of us decided to take on the southern loop still that evening but many called it a day after the Krk experience. I went with the former, and it was the right decision as Cres proved far more rideable compared to the nightmare hike that was Krk. Plus it was a scenic ride down there with the view over the Valun bay and a completely paved road back – the southernmost point of the entire route. We completed the loop around 9 p.m. and then gathered near the port of Cres – the town - for a pizza as the rain set in.

With about half the route and more than half the route completed, I slept well that night.