Trans Balkan Race

The Trans Balkan Race is a self-supported off-road race along the spine of the Dinaric Alps, run by Exploro.cc, a small cycling club that scouts the route itself and also sells it as a guide for people who want to ride it outside the race. The organisers say the difficulty is not in technical tricks or contrived hike-a-bike but in the scale of it: long climbs, scarce water and big gaps between resupply. Riders apply rather than simply sign up, so the team can get to know them and make sure they understand what they are taking on, and pairs ride as one unit, sharing food, kit and the draft.

From the karst edge above Trieste the line slips into Slovenia's Čičarija hills and the forests of Snežnik, then crosses Croatia through Risnjak National Park, named after the lynx, and the white gravel highlands of Velebit, past Gospić where Nikola Tesla was born and along the Via Dinarica into the Dinara massif. Bosnia and Herzegovina brings the wide Livanjsko Polje, the Cincar highlands where wild horses roam, Blidinje and a hot drop into Mostar, then the primeval forest of Perućica in Sutjeska National Park. Montenegro finishes the job with Durmitor, the windy plateaus of Žabljak and Kolašin, and the long descent to the Bay of Kotor. The organisers warn of temperature swings of 20 °C in a few hours, bears, wolves and serious shepherd dogs, and villages that still carry the marks of the Yugoslav wars but greet riders warmly; a meal or a bed offered spontaneously by locals is allowed under the rules.

For all its hardness, the race has a human side. The organisers' 2025 dispatch on bikepacking.com describes the first checkpoint in Mazin, Croatia, as something like a family holiday home with warm food and a place to crash, and Café du Cycliste's account of two riders who met at sign-on and finished as a pair talks about storms, brutal heat, curious horses and a night in a hay barn. It all ends with a party on the beach at the finish.