Distance covered: 62km Max. elevation: 1005m Punctures: 1 (Rob) Current location: N 43′37.55, E 20′26.25, 630m asl

Today was a chance to get ourselves warmed up in the relatively civilised lowlands with a big ridge ride in a circle south of Kaona. Here the peaks reach a mere 1250m in height and the trail around 1000m at its highest point. Round here there is plenty of evidence of human beings - most of the farms are inhabited the year round, which is often not the case once you get higher up. Also we hit tarmac several times so made quick progress with some great views of rolling countryside, perfect for a rest after some tough climbing and rough trails to negotiate on our first day. This ride is different to last year’s - this time we do not have the entire route mapped out on the GPS which we can just follow, but only have rough waypoints saved, plus the printed topo maps, so there is a lot more guesswork and negotiation about the route. However, we managed to navigate our way through the hills, hitting the tarmac early if anything (we’d have preferred to do more cross-country but got jumpy about the time), and since we had made a good early start and got back to camp in plenty of time we loaded the bikes onto the Niva and set off along some hair-raising tracks to try to reach our next goal - Tolisnica - which will be our base for the next two days, and from where we can tackle the much more daunting mountain range of Cemerno. Tolisnica is much more isolated, very few locals but somewhere to wash - an ice-cold stream, the sound of which will also help lull us to sleep after a good, tiring first day. Morning postscript: in the end it was the pitter-patter of rain and and the crash of thunder that lulled us. I don’t know how, but the Mickey Mouse tent held out and we are dry as a bone and raring to go, with the 1600m high ridge of Cemermno to conquer today.

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Posted on May 20th, 2008 by markowe
Filed under: MTB Serbia (All)