This post is about a motorcycling tour I took this past August, with grad school friends Reinhard, Pete, and Ervan.
The back story: Reinhard has actually been motorcycling for a while; I think he took his first trip when he turned 40? ... something like that. Every year or so when we corresponded I would hear stories about some interesting ride that he'd gone on, which got me started thinking about it. Then a few years later Ervan started joining Reinhard on some of his rides (maybe he had already been riding for a while? not sure), and then most recently Pete also got into the riding game. The peer pressure was too much for me, so I decided to throw my hat into the ring -- got my license, bought a second-hand bike, and began to teach myself how to ride.
When it came time to plan our most recent reunion trip in Croatia, Reinhard floated the possibility of a motorcycle tour in addition to the big group gathering, and lo and behold, it actually came to pass.
The tour kicked off in Split, Croatia. [This post is picking up from a previous post covering the week before, a get-together with a larger group of friends].
A digression with general thoughts on motorcycle riding and the bikes for this trip:
I am relatively new to the world of motorcycle riding, having spent most of my two-wheeled career on a regular old bicycle. One of the hardest things to get used to with motorbikes is how ridiculously ungainly and awkward they are when you are trying to maneuver them at low speed or when the engine is off (for example, getting in and out of parking spots). You are sitting on top of something that weighs as much as a large upright piano, but you have to try to scoot it around by pushing with your legs. Worse yet, you have to keep the thing vertical -- it is a lot easier than you might think to let it overbalance, and when it does start to tip over, you really have to make a correction right away, because once it gets going downwards there is not much you can do to stop it.
In contrast, a motorcycle feels like an entirely different beast once you get it up to a decent speed -- very responsive and agile, much more so than a regular car, maybe even a sports car.
Cars vs. motorcycles: we (Americans) spend so much time either driving or being driven around in cars that we have totally brainwashed ourselves to not think about the possibility of a serious crash; with a very few exceptions, most people are completely comfortable and stress-free when they are on the road. This in spite of the fact that the potential for a fatal accident is always there, even in very mundane situations. If that oncoming car/truck in the opposite lane happened to veer a bit to the side for some reason while you’re busy tuning your car radio, it would be curtains for you, without any doubt. We've managed to program ourselves not to think about such things, however, so we make our way down the road every day without a flicker of worry.
On a motorcycle, however, things are different (at least for me). When I’m riding at a good clip (over the speed limit) on a road with tight turns and oncoming traffic, I am aware of the possibility of a crash every moment. It would take so little to send the bike off the road or into another vehicle, it’s hard not to think about such things (and this is undoubtedly a good thing -- the adrenaline definitely helps you pay attention!).
Riding on the flats or on a big superhighway is comparatively easy when motorcycling; big bikes are nice and stable at highway speeds, and it’s a piece of cake to make the sorts of gentle turns that are required. Where things get interesting is on the smaller roads: tight turns, steep grades, hairpins, bumps, gravel patches etc (on our tour we had plenty of all these).
In a car when you want to take a tight turn at speed, the best way to do it is to reduce your speed going into the turn (brake if needed), shift down, then once you are halfway through the turn (or ⅔) you start to accelerate again, then really hit the gas again once you've started to exit the turn. For a motorcycle the recipe is very much the same, except that there are more things to do with your hands: in addition to steering, you also have to work the clutch, the throttle, and the front brake, so it somehow feels a bit trickier technically (you are doing everything with two limbs instead of four).
Another noticeable difference I find between motorcycles and cars is the way the machine behaves when you ease off on the throttle. In most American cars (automatic transmissions especially), when you ease off on the gas you get more of a coasting effect (at least at first), whereas with motorcycle you don’t get this at all-- less gas translates very directly into deceleration. This takes getting used to, and it complicates the process of taking turns at speed.
One maneuver that I found difficult overall was passing/overtaking. Motorcycles have loads of power, so if you need to pass a slower car you definitely have the oomph to do it, but I sometimes had glitches with the timing when were on our tour (I have to admit that I cut it a little too close for comfort a couple of times). I think I need to be more aggressive about getting right up close to the car I’m going to pass, and/or downshifting just before the pass.
Long rides vs short rides: especially towards the end of this tour I definitely had problems with muscle soreness, both hands and back. I really hadn’t done any full-day rides prior to this outing -- longest I had spent on a motorcycle in one stretch was maybe three or four hours. When you are riding you need to keep yourself upright (meaning that your back and torso are working to keep you stabilized), and you need to keep a good grip on the bars with your hand (especially your right hand on the throttle; with your left it’s easier to have a looser grip). What this meant for me was that after two or three days riding, my hands were incredibly sore. I could still use them to ride, but when I got off the bike they were nearly worthless for things like manipulating buttons or zippers. Back pain was definitely an issue as well, especially for the last couple of days. I think the next time I embark on a trip like this I will try to take a few day-long rides in advance, to try to ease myself into it a bit more.
Maps/GPS: we had a lot of surprises in this department, both with the paper maps and with online maps. In general if the map showed a road leading from point A to point B, you could be certain that there was indeed some sort of road there -- what you couldn’t count on was the type of road. Our good paper map showed roads in green, red, and white. The green roads (very few of these) were the big highways -- no ambiguity there. A red road ranged anywhere from a very fast 2-lane (100 kph) to a winding country road with a 60kph limit. The white roads ranged from a good 2-lane paved road (80-90kph) down to a single lane gravel track that was almost impossible to ride on a motorcycle (4-wheelers/trucks only). This definitely led to a lot of “improvising” and rejiggering of routes during our trip, including a couple of times where we had to just turn around and retrace our route for a half hour or hour or so.
And of course, the video evidence, courtesy of Pete and Ervan (who were wearing GoPro cameras for portions of the ride):
https://2019.kelehers.me/group_croatia/sub_bmws/movies/Balkans-Lite.mp4
That's the short version, but it has bits and pieces from pretty much the entire trip. Plenty of good stuff there, right from the slow parts on the gravel roads all the way up to the super-fast highway. The clips are stitched together in a not-particularly chronological order, I should add.
More day-by-day details on the tour itself:
Saturday, Aug 3rd:
After our lengthy search trying to locate the office of our motorcycle rental place, we finally found it and got started with the rental. Signed the paperwork, put in the deposits, and got the various bits of gear repacked into the side cases for the motorcycles.
Of the four rental bikes, I wound up on the
Yamaha XT1200Z Super Ténéré (the other three were BMW GS1200s). I had worried that I had overpacked, but in fact I was able to get pretty much all of my gear into just the side cases (leaving the top case mostly empty) -- probably could have brought along more stuff if I had wanted. This bike was a good deal heavier and more powerful than the one I ride at home (1200cc engine displacement vs 650, weight of 575 pounds vs about 450 for my own bike), so that was a bit of a challenge, but really for the most part I was able to get it to do what I wanted.
The rental place had loaned us a couple of portable GPS units that were designed to go with the bikes -- took us a good long while figuring out how to get them turned on and operational [NB: they seemed to be working at the time, but later on during the trip we came to realize that they were in fact not really usable at all-- more on that later.]
Suited up and ready to leave the rental place:
Ervan and Pete getting loaded up:
The riders, pre-tour:
Once we left the rental office, we made our way to the north out of Split, then turned to the east and headed towards the border with Bosnia. Stopped for something to eat around 4:30 in the town of
Imotski. While sitting outside enjoying our food another motorcyclist pulled up; he turned out to be an Austrian guy living in Spain (he had lots to say about how good the motorcycling was in Andalucia).
Parking for lunch:
From there we headed across the border; the same road was not quite as zippy unfortunately, so that part of the ride was kind of a grind. Eventually we wound our way up into the mountains and then across a pass into a big sort of bowl-shaped valley with the city of Mostar down in the center (nice view). We drove through the city, then down to the south about 10km to the town of Blagaj, where we found a campground along the river that looked suitable. Not a very large operation, but it had spots available, so we parked our bikes and pitched our tents.
Crossing the border into Bosnia:
Setting up camp:
We walked over to the small restaurant attached to the camp and had a dip in the river (Neretva). Water was
very cold; I jumped in and splashed around for maybe 30 or 40 seconds before making my exit. We had a decent and relatively inexpensive meal; the people running the camp were friendly and helpful. The sleeping experience there left a bit to be desired -- there was music playing late into the night (2am? 3am? something like that), and I also discovered to my dismay that one of my fellow riders (who shall remain nameless) was a very loud snorer, loud enough to be heard even though he was in a different tent. [Since I am a snorer myself, it's hard to be especially critical here].
Sunday:
Nice sunny weather; we broke camp, settled our bill, got the bikes packed, and then headed off on our way up to the city of Mostar. We decided to visit the old bridge; we were able to drive in and park quite close to it in a private lot. Fair number of tourists; it was clear that the area gets a lot of visitors, and it was clear that this part of the city has a distinct Muslim atmosphere (the mosques, the people walking around, etc). We took in the “new” old bridge (the original having been destroyed back in the 90s, then rebuilt). It seemed like a pretty good replica to me, from the photos I’d seen. The views from the bridge are nice, and the river is also quite lovely.
We visited a small museum there with accounts from the war and photos taken by a journalist from New Zealand, that was interesting. After that we decided to have some coffee, so we sat down at a cafe not far from the bridge down the bank just a ways. “Bosnian” coffee is very Turkish-inspired: small copper beaker filled with ridiculously strong mud-like coffee, served with a cup and a separate glass of water. We watched a guy getting set to jump off the bridge into the river (it is fairly high up, so they go in feet first) -- they clamber around for a while passing the hat asking for contributions, then at a certain point jump in… fun to watch.
Approaching the old bridge from the west:
View to the north from the bridge:
More shots in and around the bridge:
Looking at photos from the war:
Coffee, Bosnian style:
Here's a photo sequence from Reinhard of the guy jumping off the bridge into the water:
After that we hit the gas station, then struck out to the northeast on our way to the Blidinje “Nature Park” east of Sarajevo -- we had been told that there was good riding to be had in that area.
On the way we had our first escapade with maps/GPS/roads: we chose a route that looked like it would get us there a bit more directly to the northwest, without having to circle around to the south. The road started out OK, fairly small but still very ridable, then eventually after a half hour or so it shrunk down to a single lane road, and then another 20 mins after that we came around a curve and found that the pavement had turned to gravel (and not especially nice gravel either, not like the better dirt roads you find in Vermont and New Hampshire). This was near a tiny town called Bogodol. Our paper map had no indication that the road was changing in this way -- same deal with Apple maps (Google actually showed the road petering out into a much smaller trail, but this was hard to see without looking for it).
We dithered for a while, then Reinhard drove ahead for 10-15 minutes to explore. While we were there a car came by and we got a chance to talk with the driver -- he told us that the gravel road extended for quite a long way, so at that point we decided we would call it quits and turn around. We retraced our route for 15 mins or so, then picked up another road south to the larger road that we had been trying to avoid. Annoying, but what can you do. We also stopped for lunch at around that time, visiting a place called Lavanda (later found out that it is a franchise operation). Photo at lunch:
Bosnian cuisine: Pete was brave enough to order a dish entitled "Squid in a Jug"; this is what it looked like (he reported that it was actually very tasty):
The ride after lunch into the
Blidinje park area was a lot of fun -- lots of low gears and tight turns making our way up into the mountains and down into the park. The park itself was also enjoyable riding territory; there was a sort of bowl without a lot of tree cover, so we had amazing views as we were zooming along on the road (it had a sort of wide-open quality that you get sometimes out in the American west). Photo from Ervan while on the road:
We stopped at a monument partway through that had a big cross on top of a stone escarpment and took some photos.
View out in the park:
For the next section, Ervan led the group, followed by Pete, myself, and then Reinhard. At a couple of points the road really straightened out, and (predictably) Ervan poured on the gas, so we got up to a pretty good clip. We followed the road to the north and east and eventually approached the edge of the park -- this section was also gravel, but in slightly better shape than the road we’d hit before, so we sucked it up and muscled our way through it, eventually making our way down to the town of
Jablanica .
We headed east again from there; the road runs on the south side of Lake Jablanica, which is man made (due to a dam and hydro plant to the west). Larger road, more traffic, fair number of tunnels along the way.
We eventually made it to the town of
Konjic , where we stopped to reconnoiter. At this point it was becoming clear that we were not going to be able to make it to Sarajevo before dark at our current pace, so we decided to look for a place to camp for the night. Prospects in Konjic looked pretty dim, so we decided to improvise -- we headed to the south to a town up in the mountains (about a 20km ride). On the way:
That turned out to be quite a hair-raising ride -- incredibly steep, narrow, winding road (took us way the heck up and then down again into a valley). After a couple of false starts we did manage to find a decent place to camp -- we were a bit short on Bosnian money, but Reinhard managed to talk the owner guy (very surly, reminded me of a Marine drill sergeant) into accepting part of the fee in Bosnian marks and part in Croatian kuna. We had a nice swim, a modest dinner, and then turned in for the night.
Reinhard swimming (unlike the Neretva, the water in this lake was at a pleasant temp):
My trusty tent, a 1-man Sierra Designs borrowed from my dad:
Cats! We saw cats all over the place in Croatia and Bosnia, every campground seemed to have a set of resident felines:
Hanging out before dinner:
Another less than perfect sleeping experience I’m afraid -- more late-night carousing/singing/music, this time weird yelling/chanting drinking songs (at least that is what it sounded like). Hmm. I was also pretty chilly (it was down in the 50s); when I packed for the trip I was assuming we would be cycling along the coast (where it is very warm), as opposed to being up in the mountains, so I had to put on a lot of my clothing to stay warm (brr).
Monday:
We got a not-too-early start, heading out at around 10am. We decided that we would just give Sarajevo a miss and instead head directly for Montenegro, so we continued south on the road that we had used to reach Jerevo. Google Maps seemed to think that this was a viable route, so we forged ahead, and the first half hour or so was fine. Once again, however, the road began to get smaller, and at about an hour into the ride we came around a corner and found that the road had turned to gravel, arg. We did a few more explorations to test the waters but then had to turn back around and retrace our steps (back down to Konjic).
Somewhat sketchy-looking sign around the spot where we had to turn back:
Lunch!
We had lunch there at a small restaurant along the river, then resumed our previously planned route, which took us in through Sarajevo and then down to the south from there. That was a decent ride although there was one white-knuckle section that I will remember for a while: we were on a fairly busy two-lane road, and at a point where it began to climb up into the mountains, it split into three lanes (two going up and one coming down, with slower traffic on the right). Reinhard, who was in the lead, saw this as a good opportunity to pass a bunch of slower traffic, so he zoomed ahead. I did my best to follow; it was a bit hair raising -- carving along on the middle lane passing cars on the right with cars and trucks hurtling along on the left in the opposite lane.
Later on the ride we got onto the A1 superhighway (toll road) -- that was nice, since the speed limit was a good deal higher (100kph in the tunnels and 130 out on the straightaway). We made our way through Sarajevo without stopping, then got onto the highway heading south. Lots of very different road conditions again -- everything from the big roads to the really little ones, some with a lot of traffic and others with almost none.
Navigating the outskirts of Sarajevo:
At one point we were riding along and a police car came up behind us -- didn’t try to pass, but was just following closely (we tried to be on our best behavior). A bit later on we encountered some really aggressive/crazy drivers -- cars that would zoom up from behind and then try to pass on sections of the road where you had no business trying to pass (not enough visibility). We eventually made our way up into the mountains again and along a very crowded route, somewhere between 1 and 2 lanes, finally leading into the border station with Montenegro.
Waiting in line for the border:
Interesting study in contrasts: the last section of the road up to the border station was gravel and in poor shape, then immediately after the station there was a bridge over the river that looked as though it was made of 2 by 4’s, really rickety (in spite of this there were a number of big trucks rumbling across):
Once we had left Bosnia the road changed completely, well paved and with much nicer contours. The next section was a lot of fun -- the road ran along the side of a steep canyon wall with the river below, with tunnels cut into the rock every so often, so you would be zooming in and out of them. This eventually led up to a big hydro dam on the river Pivo (odd name for a river, since the same word means “Beer” in Russian and in Croatian).
After the dam we rode along the lake, then finally rolled into the town of Pluzhine. Pluzhine seemed maybe a bit too built-up, and we spent a fair amount of time poking around looking for a campground -- after looking at the map we decided to head to the most remote one (Vrbnca), which involved another 10-15 min ride.
This campground overall had a real “back end of nowhere” feel to it, but there were some nice things about it as well -- the common area had a nice oval-shaped stone terrace that had been built around an old apple tree, and the area was decorated in a very quirky/interesting style. Tape/CD player disguised as an old TV set (?!?), belting out Montenegro (Montenegrian?) music, to add to the local vibe. We were able to roust one of the managers and ask for some food (preceded by a couple of rounds of beer, yay).
After the ride, getting ready for dinner. I am taking the opportunity to get some lower back stretching in (as weird as it looks):
Another rather cold night sleeping for me -- I wound up putting on my cycling pants and as much of my other gear as I could to stay warm (knew I should have brought a warmer hat!). I got up once to use the bathroom, and the star-gazing was superb, very little ambient light, so you could really see the Milky Way.
Tuesday:
Nice warm shower this morning, that definitely gave me a good start to the day. We broke camp and got everything packed up, then had a couple of cups of coffee provided by the campground folks. Hands very sore this morning, probably as sore as I’ve ever felt them (the two other times that come to mind were the day after a marathon wood-splitting session, and the day after a long afternoon water-skiing in Hilton Head).
This was a long riding day for us; we made it all the way from Pluzhine in Montenegro down through Bosnia again and back into Croatia to the seaside town of
Obevic. Lunch in the town of
Trebinje, which was good-- cafe right on the river side, another fine al fresco meal on the bank of the river. Photo:
It was a nice long ride, my back was definitely complaining towards the end. During the breaks I spent a fair amount of time on the ground trying to stretch things out. On the road:
Towards the end of the afternoon we made our way across the border again from Bosnia into Croatia; the crossing point we picked was almost comically tiny: single bored-looking Bosnian guy in a small depot, then a few yards down the road a similar setup with a Croatian border guard. The whole scene looked like something from a New Yorker cartoon.
Battlements in the coastal down of
Ston, where we stopped for ice cream:
A selfie taken while lying on the ground trying to stretch my back:
We finally rolled into “Kamping Galvan”, a place right smack on the beach and in the thick of it (no shortage of visitors). I was a little worried it might be too crowded at first, but it turned out to be a good pick. Set up the tents, then walked down to the ocean for a nice swim.
Pete, Reinhard and Ervan wanted to walk into the center of town for dinner, but it was about 9:15 at that point, so I decided to give it a pass and get some extra rest. It was a good night of sleeping (warm again thank goodness) for the most part, albeit with a spectacularly noisy cat fight at around 2 or 3 (I got back to sleep after that without any trouble).
Wednesday:
Last riding day-- up on the early side around 7:30 so that we could pack things and get out on the road in time to catch the ferry. The ride up over the hillside to Trpanj, where we caught the ferry back over to the town of Ploče (very gritty and industrial waterfront there).
On the ferry:
The ride from Ploče to Split was on the superhighway, so we had once last blast of adrenaline while seeing how fast we could get the bikes going. Posted speed was 130kph with 100 in the tunnels, but there were some big open straightaways where we were able to go quite a bit faster. I think my max was around 190kph trying to keep up with Pete and Reinhard (Reinhard said afterward that he hit 225 at a couple of points whew).
The traffic was pretty horrendous getting into the main part of the Split; fair number of pushy / badly-behaved drivers. We finally made it to the rental place, handed over the bikes, repacked, took a couple of photos, then fired up our cell phones and requested various Uber rides... Pete was off to his apartment with Rosana, and the rest of us to nearby apartment that I had reserved for the occasion.
The expression on the Uber driver’s face when he pulled up and saw how much luggage we had was pretty funny, but we did manage to convince him to unlock his doors and we somehow squeezed all of our bags and bodies in.
Had a shower and a short nap, then Reinhard and I decided to walk over to meet up with Pete, Rosana, Chau-Wen, Blue, and Jane at their apartment. Predictably we had another “weird GPS” moment, where the Google maps idea of the building’s location was off by a lot from where it actually was. Lots of retracing of steps, then finally once we got to the right vicinity we were rescued by Rosana who walked out on the balcony and yelled down at us.
Dinner at a restaurant called "Bepa" in the old part of town; it was a nice meal with good company (and maybe a bit more civilized than what we were used to out on the road). Photos:
Thursday:
Ervan and I shared a ride in to the airport together, so we got one last chance to admire Split.
Sadly, we never did get a chance to visit this place (it was right next to our rental apartment). Maybe next time:
Ervan as always was eager to engage the locals, so he decided to ask our driver for some of his perspectives on the troubles back in the 90’s and how things had evolved over time since then. The driver was definitely interested in responding, so we got an earful, and I think I actually learned a few things in the process. I realize now that the American perspective on that whole era was very much colored by the fact that the press coverage didn’t really start until well after a lot of damage had been done by Milosevic (I had forgotten that he was actually president of Yugoslavia for a while after Tito).
After that, it was onto the plane and heading back to the USA. Definitely good to be back in the land of soft beds and hot showers, not to mention riding by automobile -- my hands and lower back are going to take a good while to recover!
