The MIA Santa Cruz team met up with Jon from Ride Slovenia, an Irish MTB guide who has set up over there because of the quality of the trails. Instantly, Maurin Trocello and Aurélien Demailly were amazed by the riding potential that was close to Jon's B&B. Each valley is different from one another and the variety of trails and riding styles is near to infinite.
Jon provided uplift and guiding to the MIA Santa Cruz boys in order to show them the best trails Slovenia had to offer. Find more info about Jon's guiding business on his "Ride Slovenia"
Facebook page.
The MIA Santa Cruz want to thank all their sponsors for making this trip possible:
Santa Cruz, Race Company, Julbo Eyewear, Hutchinson, One Industries, SixSixOne, Novatec, Tioga, Camelbak, Aerozine Titanium, SunValley, HT Components, Taya Chains, KS, SB3, YTwo, MRP, Magura
Huge thanks obviously go out to Jon for his warm welcome and for the excellent trails he took us to. Thanks also to Antonin from Oqamy Visuel for his great work as a cameraman!
MENTIONS:
@one-industries ,
@JulboEyewear
www.youtube.com/watch?t=535&v=i9dZndkPnYw
I'd like too see some footage of it
I don´t have much videos from there, and I don´t take all the advantage from that crazy track, but I´ll put sth together.
Here u have a old video from some locals, last time I´ve been there the added some new jumps, so is not like in the video.
www.pinkbike.com/video/360025
In the video they take the DH track so they avoid many jumps.
Where is this place u show in the video? looks really sick.
a lot has been rebuilt from last years glaze that destroyed or changed a lot of trails that were very old and awesome.
the funny thing is, most of the guided tours are basically illegal because almost all trail riding is illegal here things are changing though. There is no control so you don't need to worry that you'll be fined. If you want to ride legally you can do so in a bike park, fire roads and....tarmac xD
Will also ask on the Ride Slovenia page. Are there a lot of legitimate legal to ride quality trails in the Julian Alps? Ie of the kind that can be showcased in the type of tourism focused multiparty Pinkbike and TripAdvisor stories we do?
Must say the valley trails look sublime.
Slovenia has a couple of laws concerning mountain biking in nature.
First there's the ZON (Nature conservation Law) it states that biking is permitted on paths unless the owner of the land or the maintainers of the path forbid it. BUT - it doesn't apply in the forest and on the paths maintained by alpine association of Slovenia. Those 2 areas pretty much cover every single trail there is in Slovenia. So you are allowed to bike everywhere except everywhere
According to the ZG (Forest Law) the penalty for the individual riding mtb in the woods (except roads, fire roads and stuff nobody is interested in riding) is 200-400€, penalty for the company organizing rides is 1500€, plus 500€ for the person in charge. Penalties for violating the ZPlanP (alpine association paths Law) are in the same ballpark.
On the other hand, nobody is enforcing these laws, so individual riding mtb in Slovenia should be fine. A company organizing rides and advertising this on the other hand, well, I wouldn't risk it.
One exception in loose enforcing is the TNP - Triglav national park, where rangers actually do enforce the laws (ZTNP) that are even stricter - apparently they can confiscate your bike. And TNP covers pretty much all of the Julian Alps.
Food and drink aren't QUITE as good as in many other places in Europe, but they're not far behind - and it's certainly easy to get into Italy (on a helluva fun road, to boot) or Austria should you need a change!
BTW: Great video!
Whatever, the political system had been changed 25 years ago, and geographically the northern Slovenia are still in the Middle Europe and southern part on the Balcan Peninsula.
- I HATE mentioning every sponsor down to underwear at the end of every article
Slovenia is great. It definitely is not "eastern Europe", and just a tiny little bit Yugoslavia.
The trails in the Soca Valley were ok, but not great.