Montenegro Mountain Madness

Montenegro Mountain Madness is a single-stage, self-supported bikepacking event around Montenegro, with a shared start and finish, no aid stations and no support cars. It comes from Exploro.cc, the team behind the Trans Balkan Race and Istra Land, and riders can take it on solo or as a pair, each carrying a tracker.

The route strings together the rocky ridges of the Dinaric Alps and their remote huts, the misty canyons and gorges of the Tara and Piva rivers, and the cliffs of the Adriatic coast. The organisers say they built it for remoteness and climbing rather than pointless hike-a-bike, mixing quiet back roads with rough, rocky double track where resupplies can be far apart.

Exploro is frank that this is not a gravel race: the off-road sections are demanding enough that a mountain bike, or a gravel or monster-cross bike on chunky tyres, is the sensible choice. The event borrows its motto from the Montenegrin saying sve može, everything is possible.