Two Days of Biking and Two Riders Down

By the second day of riding we already lost two members of our group to bad accidents. One guy went down on slippery pavement and dislocated his shoulder. The second buy went down on a big descent and broke his collar bone. Thankfully he just happened to be an orthopedic surgeon so he was in his own good hands. I shutter to think what the medical facilities look like in Montenegro and this was a very good lesson to the rest of us to BE CAREFUL while riding. And that wasn’t easy due to so many distractions.


The views from just about everywhere were spectacular, plus all the random animals that roam the sides of the roads got me every time.


I could just never get enough of watching and photographing all the stray donkeys, cows, goats, etc. and it made for dangerous riding.


Add to that the fact that some of the roads were in bad condition and the hills were very steep. This was unlike most any biking that we’ve ever done before. I definitely redefined the word “hills.” That is for sure.

And I have to say it was the most exciting biking we’ve ever done. At one point I asked Karlo, “How many people do you think have ever seen this site?” I’m sure that number is a crazy small number as we were in the most remote area of Montenegro in the middle of the mountains, on a very poorly maintained, seldom traveled road that started in the middle of nowhere and brought you to the other side of nowhere. There was expansive nothingness everywhere, but the most breathtaking nothing I’ve ever seen.

We biked from the water straight up to this point in less than 5 miles. Lots of uphill but the views were worth it.

This ride was about 35 miles, which sounds like a crazy easy ride for us, but it wasn’t at all. It took us all day as the hills were killers. Remember my description of Kotor? The Bay surrounded by high cliffs. We’ll we had to bike out of there. We started the morning with a bang and biked straight up and over the mountain to get out of the city. It was an immediate 400 meter climb. That got the legs warmed up quickly. In total we climbed more than 800 meters this day and in English terms that’s about . . . well, a shit load of feet in the air. But it was all worth it. At one point we had an 8 km descent on serpentine switchbacks with the views of mountains everywhere. Actually, all the roads that we cycled were cut into the side of the mountains and we basically went up and over a couple different mountains. Exhausting.