How many paved roads and how many macadams can I expect on the Trans Dinarica cycling route?
What is the road-gravel ratio on Trans Dinarica? Does it run only on paved roads? How much macadam can I expect? This information also indirectly answers the question of what bike should you use to embark on (in our opinion) one of the most beautiful cycling routes in Europe. Let’s look to the data from our fieldwork.
When planning and researching the Trans Dinarica bike trail, we were guided by two main ideas: to ride away from established, busy routes and the crowded tourist spots, and at the same time to make the route accessible to as many cyclists as possible. This perfect ratio is difficult to catch on every stage: sometimes you will not meet anyone for the whole day except for a surprised shepherd, and sometimes you will have to inhale some smelly exhaust from buses and trucks, which in the Balkans do not necessarily meet high ecological standards (it’s getting better… slowly). However, at this moment we can already offer you a fairly accurate answer regarding the surface under your wheels.
Expect about 80% road and 20% gravel
Roughly speaking, we can say that about 80% of the entire cycling route is asphalted, but of course the ratio varies from stage to stage. So far, we have also recorded a stage with as much as 99% macadam (that’s in Croatian part of Trans Dinarica). Let’s add a subjective opinion that you have the feeling that there is more gravel when cycling – which is logical, since you ride slower on macadam.
When we talk about unpaved surfaces, this mostly means well-maintained, hard macadam roads, which can also be passable by a normal car. There are also a few stages that contain sections with poorer macadam with larger stones. These is marked in the navigation packages.
Detailed info on the final map and in GPS navigation packages
In the Trans Dinarica map and GPS navigation packages you can get all the data with detailed ratios for each stage of the route. Expect longest gravel sections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (almost half), and the least in Montenegro and Kosovo (only two percent). Now you can already plan to buy or prepare a bike for your next unforgettable cycling adventure.
