526km, 10,096m and Three Countries: My 28-Hour Cycling Adventure from Slovenia
At 4:36 in the morning, I rolled away from home in Luče with a fairly ridiculous day ahead of me.
The route on my bike computer would take me out of Slovenia, through Austria, across northern Italy and eventually back into Slovenia.
Along the way were some huge Alpine climbs, quiet mountain roads, a road closed to normal traffic, Slovenia's highest paved road and eventually an entire night on the bike.
Twenty-eight hours later, I arrived back in Luče.
The final numbers were:
🚴 526.2 km
⛰️ 10,096 m of climbing
⏱️ 25 hours 36 minutes moving time
⌚ 28 hours 10 minutes elapsed time
🌍 Slovenia • Austria • Italy
There was no support vehicle, no feed stations and no finish-line gantry waiting for me.
Just me, my bike and everything I needed to get myself around the route.
And somewhat surprisingly, I absolutely loved it.
Why Ride 526km in One Go?
The idea actually started before we moved to Slovenia.
During the Covid period, when I was still living in South Wales, many of the endurance athletes I coached started inventing their own challenges because there were no races taking place.
I developed a serious case of FOMO.
So before leaving Wales, I came up with my own farewell challenge: a solo, self-supported gravel ride from Bangor in North Wales to Cardiff Bay.
Rather than taking the sensible route, I tried to cross Wales using as much off-road terrain and accumulating as much elevation as possible.
It ended up at around 480km with more than 8,000 metres of climbing and took approximately 26 hours.
After moving to Slovenia, another idea gradually formed.
Could I create a ride from home with more than 10,000 metres of climbing?
It sat in the back of my mind for years.
Then, earlier this year, I broke my leg.
Strangely, that helped make the decision for me.
There was always going to be a reason why this wasn't the perfect year to attempt something like this. Breaking my leg reminded me that sometimes you just have to get on with these things.
So this was the year.
Leaving Luče Before Sunrise
I left Luče at 04:36.
I was excited rather than nervous, although my body apparently hadn't received the memo.
Despite deliberately riding very easily, I felt terrible on the first climb. Stiff, sluggish and generally rubbish.
Not exactly the start you hope for when you've got more than 500 kilometres still to ride.
Fortunately, things soon improved.
I headed north from Luče towards Pavličevo Sedlo, crossed the border and descended into Austria before taking on Schaidasattel.
From there I continued towards Ferlach before following the mountains that form the border between Austria and Slovenia west towards Villach.
There was a very long way to go, but I was settling into the ride.
Joining the Alpe-Adria Cycle Path
Around Villach I joined part of the Alpe-Adria Cycle Path, the long-distance cycling route connecting Salzburg in Austria with Grado on the Italian Adriatic coast.
It was completely different from the riding I'd been doing earlier in the day.
There were bikes everywhere.
Tourers with panniers. Bikepacking setups. Couples. Groups. Older riders. Younger riders. People who looked like they were riding for the day and others who appeared to have packed for several weeks.
After spending hours riding alone, seeing so many people travelling through the Alps by bicycle gave me a real boost.
Everyone seemed to be having their own little adventure.
I crossed into Italy and spent what felt like an eternity gradually descending along the cycle path.
I'd covered a substantial distance without accumulating too much more climbing.
That was about to change.
Passo Cason di Lanza: The Climb I'll Remember Most
Of all the famous roads I included in this ride, the highlight ended up being one I knew relatively little about beforehand:
Passo Cason di Lanza.
As I approached the road there was a sign saying that the pass was closed.
Underneath it was another notice with something written on a piece of paper.
Unfortunately, my ability to speak Italian extends to ordering coffee and pizza and not a great deal more.
I decided to see how far I could get.
Important note: mountain-road conditions and closures can change. Always check current access information and follow local restrictions rather than assuming a route is passable because I happened to get through on this particular day.
What followed was probably the most memorable section of the entire 526km.
The road narrowed as it disappeared into the valley.
With virtually no vehicle traffic, vegetation was beginning to creep onto the tarmac. The mountains gradually closed around me until it became obvious that the only way out was going to involve going considerably upwards.
And then the road simply went up.
Hard.
I passed a beautiful old farm before disappearing into the forest and a succession of steep switchbacks.
At one point I could look across the valley and see another section of road clinging to the opposite mountainside alongside an enormous scree slope.
I remember looking at it and thinking:
I'm somehow going all the way over there.
Eventually, I was.
Higher up, I reached an open barrier and found part of the reason for the closure. A section of road had subsided badly enough to prevent normal vehicle access, although it was possible to negotiate with the bike.
Near the summit I encountered large concrete barriers and carried the bike past them.
I was slightly concerned about what I might find on the descent, so seeing a motorbike approaching from the direction I was heading was reassuring evidence that the road beyond was passable.
Then came mountain huts, Alpine cows and a long descent on rough, occasionally potholed tarmac.
It was wild.
Quiet.
Beautiful.
And completely unexpected.
Looking back at the entire ride, Passo Cason di Lanza was probably my favourite part.
Deeper Into the Italian Mountains
From there I continued through a part of northern Italy that sees considerably fewer international tourists than the country's famous cycling regions.
That was part of its appeal.
The mountains were spectacular, the roads were quiet and between the climbs I could rejoin sections of cycle path and simply tick the kilometres off without thinking too much about traffic.
My fuelling strategy was deliberately uncomplicated.
I carried two large bottles and refilled them at fountains along the way. I also carried energy bars and sweets, using shops when available to supplement what I had with me.
For much of the day I was aiming for roughly one bar per hour alongside carbohydrate drink and around 750ml of fluid per hour, adjusted according to the weather.
The system was working well.
As temperatures rose during the middle of the day, I reapplied sunscreen, kept eating and drinking and continued south.
Eventually, the route turned back towards Slovenia.
Sella Nevea in the Evening Light
By late afternoon and early evening I was climbing towards Sella Nevea.
This was one of those sections where everything seemed to come together.
The temperature had dropped.
Traffic had largely disappeared.
The road climbed through a series of beautiful switchbacks with increasingly impressive views towards the surrounding peaks.
After so many hours on the bike, I was still feeling surprisingly good.
I climbed through the ski area and eventually descended towards somewhere I'd wanted to see for a long time.
Lago del Predil
I'd seen photographs of Lago del Predil before the ride.
It looked spectacular on a screen.
It was considerably better in real life.
The lake sits enclosed by the mountains of the Julian Alps, and arriving there towards the end of such a long day made it feel even more special.
There wasn't much time to hang around, though.
From the lake I climbed towards Predil Pass, eventually crossing the border back into Slovenia.
As you climb, the road gives you fantastic views back across the lake and towards the surrounding mountains.
And once I crossed back into Slovenia, I had one particularly important objective.
Mangart Before Darkness
I wanted to climb Mangart before nightfall.
The Mangart road is the highest paved road in Slovenia and one of the most spectacular pieces of road cycling I've ridden anywhere.
I've ridden it before.
It is extraordinary.
Tunnels disappear into the mountainside, narrow sections cling to exposed slopes and the views across the Julian Alps become increasingly ridiculous as you climb.
This time I reached it in the early evening.
The light was beautiful and, despite everything already in my legs, I was excited just to be there.
Perhaps slightly too excited.
Somewhere on the climb, I'd stopped paying enough attention to eating.
I pulled over—not because I felt particularly bad, but because I wanted to move something from my backpack into my pocket.
I put my feet on the ground.
And suddenly thought:
Whoa.
My legs felt like jelly.
I was wobbly and weak.
It was the first proper warning I'd had all day.
I'd become so absorbed in the climb that I'd neglected the basics.
There was only one sensible response.
I ate an entire bag of Haribo.
Problem solved.
Temporarily, at least.
Because I now had another issue.
The Race to Bovec
Night was approaching and my food supplies were getting dangerously low.
I didn't need a restaurant.
I didn't even particularly want a proper meal.
I just needed somewhere—anywhere—that would sell me enough calories to get through the night.
I descended Mangart knowing I had less than an hour to reach the Soča Valley and find somewhere still open.
Eventually I reached Bovec.
The time?
20:55.
I found a bakery.
It closed at 21:00.
Possibly the most perfectly timed bakery visit of my life.
I bought two enormous slices of pizza, burek, two coffees, a Coke and a couple of cakes.
I ate what I could, stuffed the rest into my pack and prepared for the night shift.
Ironically, this huge injection of "real food" didn't actually make me feel particularly good.
Up until that point I'd been happily ticking along on sports nutrition. Suddenly filling myself with a mountain of stodgy bakery food left my stomach feeling considerably worse.
Sometimes simple really is better.
Into the Night
Leaving Bovec meant descending through the Soča Valley.
It was actually a nice way to transition into night riding.
I could settle into the darkness without immediately having to tackle a huge climb, and eventually I reached Tolmin.
From there I joined a road I knew extremely well.
It climbs from the Tolmin area towards Soriška Planina before eventually dropping towards Bohinjska Bistrica.
I'd ridden it many times when I lived in this part of Slovenia.
I'd never ridden the whole thing in the middle of the night.
There's something strange about climbing a mountain in darkness.
You're moving slowly enough that it doesn't feel particularly dangerous.
Your world shrinks to the small patch of illuminated road immediately ahead of you.
You don't see the summit.
You don't really see how far you've climbed.
You just pedal.
At one point I passed some people having a party in a car park.
They cheered as this random cyclist appeared out of the darkness and disappeared up the mountain.
I continued climbing.
And strangely, I never really became sleepy.
The night passed considerably faster than I'd expected.
Familiar Roads Feel Different in Darkness
After descending towards Bohinjska Bistrica, I started climbing again towards Pokljuka through familiar roads above Bohinj.
These were roads I knew.
But at night they felt completely different.
By now another problem was developing.
My lights.
I'd brought one powerful main bike light and a smaller light on my head.
My strategy was to use the smaller light while climbing, when my speed was low, and preserve the large light for faster sections and descents.
Then the smaller light died.
That left the main light.
Eventually that started warning me that its battery was getting low too.
For the first time all night, I found myself staring towards the horizon and actively hoping for daylight.
Fortunately, it was coming.
Dawn, Bled and a Vending Machine
As the sky began to brighten, I descended towards Bled.
I was running low on food again, but I knew something useful awaited me at the bus station.
A vending machine.
At that hour of the morning, it might as well have been a Michelin-starred restaurant.
I restocked, ate and took stock of the situation.
The night was over.
Most of the serious climbing was behind me.
Now there was really only one job left.
Get home.
The Long Road Back to Luče
From Bled I began working my way towards Kranj and Kamnik.
After the drama of Italian mountain passes, Mangart, night riding and failing lights, these kilometres were relatively uneventful.
But that's often what the end of an ultra-distance ride becomes.
You stop thinking about the entire distance.
You just keep moving.
Eventually I reached the final climb towards Črnivec.
And that's when the significance of what I'd done finally started to sink in.
I was going to finish.
I climbed over Črnivec and began the descent towards Luče.
Twenty-eight hours after leaving, I arrived back where I'd started.
The Strange Thing About Finishing
I wasn't destroyed.
My legs weren't even the part of me that hurt most.
By the end, my neck and shoulders had suffered considerably more than my legs.
While I was riding, I actually felt weirdly normal.
I was in the zone.
Pedal.
Eat.
Drink.
Navigate.
Repeat.
It was only when I stopped that things changed.
After spending 28 hours existing inside this tiny world of bike riding, I suddenly stepped back into normal life.
There were normal people doing normal things.
And that was when I realised how dazed and disorientated I actually was.
On the bike, everything had felt completely logical.
Off it, I suddenly realised:
I've just ridden a bicycle for 526 kilometres.
What Did I Learn?
Probably the thing I'm most pleased with is how I paced the ride.
There was never a point when I seriously considered stopping.
There was no dramatic middle-of-the-night existential crisis.
I wasn't hallucinating.
I didn't fall asleep on the bike.
And despite the Mangart wobble, my legs continued doing what I asked of them for the entire ride.
Mostly, I just had a blast.
There are certainly things I'd change.
During the planning I'd considered including Monte Zoncolan, but decided that might be a little ambitious within an already enormous ride.
Having finished feeling as good as I did, part of me now wonders whether I should have included it.
That's probably how these stupid ideas begin.
But the biggest surprise was still Passo Cason di Lanza.
I'd built a route containing famous places such as Mangart, Lago del Predil and the Soča Valley.
Yet the road I knew least about became the one I'll probably remember most.
There's something quite fitting about that.
Watch the 28-Hour Adventure
I filmed parts of the ride as I travelled through Slovenia, Austria and Italy—from the early optimism to the mountain passes, the Haribo rescue mission, night riding and the final journey home.
Watch the video here:
View the complete ride, route and elevation profile on Strava:
https://www.strava.com/activities/19058332497
Cycling From Slovenia Into Austria and Italy
One thing this ride reminded me of is just how extraordinary this part of Europe is for cycling.
Starting from our base in Luče, I could ride across Slovenia, into Austria, through the Italian Alps and back again without putting the bike in a car.
And you certainly don't need to ride 526 kilometres to experience it.
There are beautiful mountain passes, quiet roads, gravel routes, traffic-free cycle paths and cross-border adventures that make considerably more sensible day rides.
If you stay with us at Discovering Slovenia and want to explore the area by bike, we can help with route suggestions, GPX files, bike hire, transfers and local knowledge based on the type of riding you enjoy.
From relaxed valley rides to proper Alpine climbing days, there's an awful lot to explore.
And no...
10,000 metres of climbing isn't compulsory.
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