Trans Julius is not an ordinary competition – it’s an adventure among friends and an opportunity to share a bicycle passion. This year, our editor Justyna and Marek (balkanyrudej.pl) have the pleasure to take part in the preparations for this amazing event.
Slovenia welcomed us with majestic mountains and beautiful weather. Marek is familiar to these areas – together with his wife Ola, they visit more and less known areas of the former Yugoslavia, but this time together we went to help the local team with preparations of the competition.
Our task is to mark the trails, correct bends and… forest raking. Yes, it’s not a joke – basically all decent European bikeparks are picking leaves from the trails.
However, returning to Trans Julius itself, these are not typical competitions in some bikepark or trail park. According to Vesna Stanić – the brain of the entire operation – the idea of the event is the integration of the cycling community, not only from Slovenia. We expect riders from more than 10 different countries.
In short, it will look like this – we will go every day in a different place, and in the evening we will eat specially prepared local food and especially brewed beer for this occasion. The event is accompanied by concerts and a competition for the best cycling photos taken in Slovenia. In fact, it is one big festival of Slovenian culture, which requires a lot of logistics from the Primož Ravnik, the before mentioned, Vesna and several friends who are on team of Trans Julius organisers. First of all – each of the competition days will be held in a different place – and not in the bikeparks. It is on their heads to provide transfers for competitors into different places, which, for example, for the town of Most na Soči involves … going by a unique “bike train” traveling through a tunnel that normally takes cars with passengers every two hours. Another issue is the permission for the use of land – in Slovenia, most of the lands and forests are in private hands and to be able for contestants to ride in: Cerkno, Most na Soči and Bohinj, requires a lot of paperology and an agreements with the locals. In addition, there are also standard things to do for competitions to happen around the world like: insurance, promotion, etc. They have “a little” work to keep everything buckled up, and that every participant was satisfied.
We, however, focus on the preparation of trails. On Monday – on the first day of “technical assistance” we visited Most na Soči. And we must go there by this special train but this time with a car. In practice, it looked like this: a locomotive comes with a flat trailer, which is entered by car and we feel a little bit like on a ferry. It takes about 30 minutes to travel through the tunnel excavated after the First World War, while traveling through the mountains would take us about 3 times as much. Sometimes the level of water rises in the tunnel and due to flooding, the running of the train is not possible. But ride in it is quite a pleasant experience and certainly guarantees you a scenic views between the next sections of the tunnel. However, after reaching the starting point of Most na Soci trail, surrounded by beautiful Julian Alps, we got to work. We have to refresh the existing route, by cutting grass, raking loose stones, and of course – taping the course. In several places, the improvement required bands, on our own initiative we also improved some jumpsi and their landings. The run will take just few minutes for the contestants, but it took us almost all day to go down and clean it. The route in Most na Soči is a pleasant and smooth single trail with several sections of roots, and a lot of flow.
On Tuesday, we landed in the forest, above Podbrdo. At the top there is an old military road from the Second World War and some bunkers. Views over there are just incredible, see for yourself! This trail is totally different – definitely steeper, with a lot of larger and smaller stones, and slippery roots. On flat sections there are wet leaves which we have to clean out. Interestingly, under wet leaves we found hailstones, which despite the hot weather, stayed in the litter for over a week and did not want to melt. Also the day number 2 passed under the sign of a rake (called in our Polish-Slovenian speech grablje) and leaf blowers.
On the third day of preparations, we went to the forest seen from the window of our guesthouse, in Bohinjska Bistrica. Due to the presence of a nearby lake, in the morning the fog rises from the forest and some time must pass before everything dries out. But with still wet leaves and grass, we started to clean the trail, equipped with a mower, a leaf blower, a rake and a hatchet. On the spot it turned out that the conditions on trail are again totally differently than on the other trails and riders will have to face here some wet clay, some rocks and a lot of the roots. We sorted out what we could, leaving the other team to take care of the trails in Cerkno, which we will see for the first time on the day of the competition.
As you can see, each trail has different advantages – there are smooth singles, but also decent rock and root gardens that after rain will become a huge challenge. However, in dry conditions, all elements are passable and even less-enduro riders will easily handle them.
On the other hand, the friendly atmosphere of the entire team as well as the climate of the prepared trails is easy notice – they are supposed to give mostly joy and fun, without much pressure and without focusing only on the result.
Timetable Trans Julius Bike Adventure:
- 20 june – Cerkno
- 21 june – Most na Soci
- 22 june – Bohinj
- 23 june – Bohinj
Fingers crossed for Marek’s start!
Official website: trans-julius.com