Day 5 was Klement’s last day riding with us, and it closed out a long, gravel-heavy pull. We’d traded the tents for an apartment the night before, and I won’t lie, staying in a place with walls beats camping almost every time, even if this one was infested with ants. The trade-off was worth it: outlets to charge everything, a shower, and room to spread out instead of living out of the panniers. We knew we needed to re-supply before the hardest stretch was over, and Klement had been sharing his carb-and-electrolyte drink and his gels all along, which had been crucial. My other sandal was starting to break too, the first one having given up its strap days ago, and there was no finding replacements. We stopped in town to restock and hit a bike shop hoping they could sort Mike’s rear rack, but no luck there either, and the shoes were expensive enough that I didn’t pull the trigger. There was a beer-and-fries stop in Ajdovščina along the way, and then an absolutely exhausting finish. Except for the final climb of the day, it was gravel almost the whole way, and that climb, coming at the end of a long day, was my hardest of the trip. I didn’t have the heart rate to do it in one go and had to stop two or three times to gather myself, then grind out the final ten miles to camp. We rolled in right at sunset, pitched the tents, and got drinks and dinner ordered before the kitchen closed and the rain started. Showers, early to bed. 53.74 miles, 5:20 rolling at 10.1 mph average, 3,550 feet of gain.
Day 6 was the one where the group started to split up. The rain came through overnight along with the trains and the car alarms, and I slept well enough until about 4 in the morning before I couldn’t get comfortable again. There was a bit of a lump in my throat knowing we’d soon say goodbye to Klement; it had been good riding with him and getting to know him. Risto and Alesha drove out so that Risto could ride back to Ljubljana together with Klement, and after that it was just Mike and me. We made an executive decision to skip the first big climb of the day, which went straight up on unkept gravel overgrown with grass, and took the main road around instead. Lunch was good pizza and beer, spicy with pesto, though I still can’t tell if it’s Italian or Slovenian style to leave the center of the pizza a little undercooked; I keep having to roll the soggy end toward the bubbled crust just to eat it. A driver in a white VW spat at us while we rode, which set a tone for a day of traffic buzzing past. There was a bit of hike-a-bike through some of the gravel sections, but we stayed under four hours of riding, and the climbs felt manageable knowing a rest day was ahead. We settled into Ičići, the cheaper end of Opatija where all the fancy hotels and money are. 44.48 miles, 3:47 rolling at 11.7 mph average, 2,703 feet. And with that, we finally hit the coast.
Day 7 was the rest day, and the plan was to do nothing. I’d slept hot and woken with a headache, so it started with water and ibuprofen, then we combined our laundry and got a load in. The air is drier here on the coast, no dew on the tents, so everything dries out fast. We packed a little sling with water, towels, chargers, and sunscreen and spent most of the day at the beach, proper rest. Bakery items to go, then sitting down for a macchiato and, in Mike’s case, a piña colada. We took a bus into Opatija proper, the tourist hotspot, found a waterfront bar, and took a couple of dips in the salty sea. A late lunch somewhere else, a walk back toward camp, and another stop at the Romero beach bar we’d tried the night before for beers and burgers before calling it a day and getting ready to ride again.
Day 8 was the sharpest yet. I slept better, less air in the pillow and no earplugs, though my sleeping pad has developed a small leak somewhere. We started just after 7 in the morning and there was already a fair bit of traffic on the road out. It got worse from there. Mike tried to shave the climb out as best he could, but it put us on a main road with heavy traffic, no shoulder, high winds, and a steep, long climb. When it was done, it came in as my highest elevation gain ever recorded on Strava, though Montana predates the app. It was cold, which was a relief on the climb but not so nice on the descents. The day ended in a proper nowhere, a remote pocket right on the edge of Risnjak National Park and firmly in what I took for bear country. Walking back from dinner I could’ve sworn I heard a bear growling in the distance, then a gunshot. It set the heart going, though Mike later found out from someone local that the sound was actually roe deer doing their calls, and the shot was an unrelated rural one. False alarm, but we weren’t taking chances; for a few dollars more than the tents we got outlets and showers, and no bears. 48.92 miles, 4:54 rolling at 10 mph average, and 5,351 feet of gain.
Five days in, the legs are carrying stories, from the gravel grind of Day 5 to the fog-free first swim of the rest day to the biggest climb I’ve ever recorded on Day 8. We’re into the home stretch now, heading back over the border into Slovenia tomorrow.