I have been woefully neglecting this blog in recent times. My excuse is that I have been too busy riding. Actually, there hasn’t been as much of THAT as I would like, either, with the weather being decidely unstable in recent weeks here in Serbia with rain on and off all the time. Charging through the mud has never been my idea of fun.

Anyway, there will be a flurry of activity in the next few days as I finally publish the rest of my account of the 2008 Serbia Mountain Bike Trek, a trip we did back at the end of May. In the meantime, plans are afoot for the next trip!

Užice to Žabljak

My wife and I and a group of friends are going to the Montenegrin mountain of Durmitor on the 8th August to spend a week or so hiking, climbing and generally enjoying the peaks of 2500m+.

However, several of us (my dear wife not included, as she has made quite clear!) are planning to tackle a bike ride down to Žabljak, as ever taking primarily mountain routes through the south of Serbia and the north of Montenegro. Because in my opinion it is NO fun to cycle along highways, and we don’t have more than 4 or 5 days to complete the trip anyway, we are not going to start from Belgrade or Novi Sad, but get ourselves down to the town of Užice. From there we will be able to get straight into the mountains.

Check out the

Google Earth file with the route. Once again, I have used old topographic maps, plus the local MapSource edition to find some tracks through the mountains, as well as asking people who know the area. I have plotted the route in OziExplorer and then converted it into the KMZ format using the REALLY useful (and free) GPS Visualizer. You will see an additional red route - this is an alternative route we are thinking about, via the mountain of Čigota. It’s more scenic than the main route we had planned, but we want to visit some friends in Zlatibor, so we’ll see…

Have a look in Google Earth, tilt the view so it’s 3D and imagine yourself cyling through the wilds of Serbia! It’s not too late to join us…!

We leave on 4th August, if I don’t scoot off before then for some more cycling on Tara, and I REALLY hope that this time mobile blogging will be working and I can send live updates from the mountains!

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Posted on July 26th, 2008 by markowe
Filed under: MTB Serbia (All)