The Schiesels by bike

Riding the Peninsula In no time at all, Zuljana was in our rear view mirror and we were ready for a good ride. The climb out of the village was pretty much 0 to 300 meters in five kilometers which turned out to be what the day would be - up and down. Most of the climbs were about 8 kilometers, but the descents were just as long. The grades were good most of the time. Dan handled all the grades with ease but I was not doing as well, especially after we tried a shortcut that did not work. It added about 6 kilometers of extra uphill, at very steep grades. Lesson here - only go to Trstenik if you want to visit, do some eating, swimming and hiking and don't have another 50 kilometers ... read more

Krk and Rijeka Our plan was to arrive on Krk island by ferry from Merag on Cres and travel most of the day ending in the city of Rijeka for an overnight ferry to Split leaving at 20:00. Krk had wonderful cycling. It was more rolling than Cres. We rode from the port of Valbiska inland and across through Vrh to Krk town. After exploring Krk's fort and old city and enjoying lunch in a local konoba, we realized it was threatening rain. We skipped a side trip to Vrbnik and instead took the main and only highway from Krk to Rijeka. After enjoying about 5 kilometers on a bike path that started just outside Krk, we shared the road with too many cars, buses and trucks. This is the only dedicated bike path we saw ... read more

Why not? On September 6, 2010 we left JFK airport for a self-guided bike tour of Croatia. The trip has been years in the dreaming stage and most of the past 9 months in the planning stage. People asked "Why Croatia?" We used to say "why not?" but now we say “Because it is so special.” In reality, we wanted to ride in a country with a temperate climate that had not become generic. We thought Croatia was that place and found it was. This is our third self-guided bike tour. We toured Tuscany and Ireland with our friends Diane and Bill. This time we were on our own. As with the other tours, we took our own bikes. Lorry's is an older aluminum frame Klein SuperComp. Dan's is a pretty new PedalForce carbon frame bike. ... read more