Ridemaro
Karst & the Coast
Limestone plateau, dry stone walls and the descent to the Adriatic on the last morning. The easiest of the four, and the one most people book first.
Gravel tours · Slovenia · Since 2018
We run small-group gravel tours across the Karst plateau, the Soca valley and the foothills of the Julian Alps. Groups of eight, two guides, a van that moves your luggage between guesthouses while you ride.
Each one starts and ends where a train can drop you. No airport transfers, no coach hours.
Limestone plateau, dry stone walls and the descent to the Adriatic on the last morning. The easiest of the four, and the one most people book first.
River gravel, two long passes and a rest day in Kobarid. The valley road is closed to through traffic for eleven kilometres, which is the best hour of the week.
Our hardest week. Forestry roads above Bohinj, two nights in mountain huts, and a final day that is downhill for forty kilometres straight.
Run once a year during harvest, based in one guesthouse in Goriska Brda with a different loop each day. No luggage moves at all, which makes it the most relaxed thing we do. Twelve places, and they usually go by March.
Breakfast at the guesthouse. Bags outside the door by eight, the van takes them ahead.
Roll out together. First hour is always easy, whatever the profile says.
Coffee stop. The group splits into two paces here and regroups at lunch.
Lunch somewhere with a terrace. Long stop, nobody is in a hurry.
Arrival, bags already in the rooms. Bike wash and a mechanic looking over anything that made a noise.
Dinner, and the route for tomorrow on the table.
Most people do. We meet you at the station, box storage is included for the week, and there is a workstand and a spares box at every stop. Tyres of 38 mm and up, please — the Karst chews narrower ones.
Eleven aluminium gravel bikes in four sizes, 42 mm tyres, 1x drivetrain, rack mounts. They live in the van and get serviced between tours. Pedals and a saddle you like are the two things worth bringing.
One bag per rider, up to twenty kilos, plus a small daypack you can access at lunch. Wheels, spare bars, a floor pump and a first aid kit ride along too.
Rain jacket, two bottles, whatever food you like between stops. That is genuinely it — there is no day where you are more than two hours from the van.
If you can ride a hundred kilometres on a Sunday and get up on Monday without hating it, all four tours are fine. The Julian week assumes you have done a few long climbs before.
You get in the van. It happens on most tours, usually on day four, and nobody makes anything of it.
Roughly sixty per cent unsealed. Forest and farm tracks, some limestone doubletrack, no technical singletrack anywhere.
Yes, from six people, any week in the season. Tell us the dates on the form below.
Getting to Slovenia, lunches, and anything you drink after dinner. Everything else — beds, breakfasts, dinners, guides, van, bike wash — is in the price.
Tell us roughly when and which route. We answer with what is left and a price, usually the same day.
Base
Vipavska cesta 22, 5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenia
Phone
+386 5 335 1180
Season
April to October
The booking form sends us a name, a contact and what you wrote. We keep it while we are talking about a tour and for one season afterwards, then delete it. Riders on a tour give us an emergency contact and anything medical the guides should know; that lives on paper in the van and is shredded at the end of the week. We do not sell anything to anyone and there are no advertising trackers on this site.
A place is held for seven days once we confirm it, and confirmed by a deposit of thirty per cent. The balance is due four weeks before the start. Cancel more than eight weeks out and the deposit is returned in full; inside four weeks we keep it unless we can fill the place, and we usually can. If we cancel a tour — it has happened twice, both times for weather on the high routes — everything paid comes back, but travel to Slovenia is your own arrangement and we cannot cover it. Bikes we rent out are insured; bikes you bring are yours to insure.