The race took place just a few miles from Slovenia, in Trieste. There is a really good network of natural single track trails here, tucked away on the hills above the maritime city. The race had 5 timed stages and with the transition between stage, this made the total distance 30km. We turned up saturday to find the trails quite muddy, but still great fun to ride. Practice day was good, but pretty tiring for me as I had hardly been on the bike since end of last season.

Sunday brought race day and different conditions to the previous day, the sun appeared and the trails dried up nicely. It was mixed fortunes for all of us, Rachael who has trained hard coming into this season, was in first place after stage 1. But another competitor crashed in front of her on the second stage, causing her to crash and resulting in her tearing her rear brake hose. Left with only one brake she was forced to pull out. Sam was riding good all weekend and finished 45th. I snapped my chain on the first stage and had to run back to the van to get another, leaving me 5 minutes late for the second stage, not really sure how I did overall. I was put in other riders slots for the rest of the race and am pretty sure my result is a bit messed up, only my first stage time seems correct. My fault really, should have checked with the timing people as it all got a bit confusing.

So first enduro race under the belt and it was a really good experience. The Italian organisers did a great job and the race had a nice relaxed vibe. I certainly enjoyed this form of racing, and will do more of the Slovenian rounds if I can. But the best thing… I discovered more new trails that I never new existed for us to ride.

Now we are getting ready for winter, but before the snow arrives we have been out in the search of more new trails to ride next year. I just visited the town of Ajdovščina which lies at the bottom of the last big mountains before you reach the south of the country and the coast. I had heard of this place a lot from Slovene riders, so had to check it out. If you want somewhere to ride here in the winter, but cannot because of snow, you head south, and this place is usually somewhere at the top of the list, of places to go. When you arrive, you know straightaway where to head, there is just one long wall of hanging rock that dominates the town. This is one of Slovenia’s main wine growing regions and you can see an Italian influence everywhere, neighbouring Italy is only 30km further west.  Even speaking to the locals, with my not so great Slovene was a little challenging, as their dialect is a little different to what you find more northward.

There are some nice downhill tracks here between 10 and 15 minutes long, that you can do your own shuttles on. But I was here to explore the all-mountain possibilities. I have a friend that once stayed here for a month, he rode pretty much every day and reckons he did not ride half of the trails on these hills.

The trails we found mostly started from the ridge line and descend from there. The riding here feels different to the more alpine north of the country, there is an abundance of flowy singletrack, through ultra dry pine forest with smooth limestone boulders thrown into the mix, it really keeps you on your toes. We were quite taken with the trails here and will be back very soon!

We  also rode at Krvavec mountain, which has some excellent trails that the local riders have built, these are very demanding, hard on both bike and body, but the resort is now making official tracks that will also cater to more novice riders. It’s great that so many of the resorts are now recognising mountain biking and the visitors it can draw in the summer months, it’s exciting to hear of all the new trails in the making here in Slovenia! Good times….

We also did some hiking from Logarska dolina just up the valley from us where Rob and Rachael could test out new prototype Berghaus jackets.