| alyas19. 05. 2017 20:28:32 |
Cycling ascent to Slavnik usually starts from the town of Kozina - Hrpelje.
If you arrive from far away, the three most important things for a person are: starting orientation, suitable parking, and how easy it is to find the very start of the path. When you exit the highway, you'll first encounter a multitude of shopping centers in Kozina, an indistinct new town center, and quite a few intersections and diverse directions of local roads. The easiest is to park the car on the large gravel parking lot by the library or train station in Kozina, from there head towards Hrpelje or the road leading to the Starod border crossing and Croatia. In Hrpelje, at the intersection in front of the municipal building on the right, stands the only sign for Slavnik, where you continue along Slavnik road past some blocks and new houses, to the end of the industrial zone on the right. From here follows a logical continuation onto the gravel road into the forest towards Slavnik, … a sign would be welcome here, but there isn't one.
The road to Slavnik (about 11 km) is initially flat, then rises more or less evenly (turns slightly downhill twice in between), since it runs through the forest it's quite shady, therefore mostly viewless and boring for the most part, the surface is quite rough gravel with lots of debris and stones, suitable exclusively for mountain bikes with good tire tread. No orientation puzzles further on, simply always follow the main - wider road, the rest are junctions or exits to smaller forest and fire trails. With the first views above to the summit and below to the sea, you'll be rewarded only in the last part of the cycling, where the slope of the climb also becomes a bit steeper. Below the summit you can also take some shortcuts on footpaths, but sooner or later off the roads you'll have to dismount and overcome some obstacle on foot. Otherwise, the road leads right to the mountain hut on Slavnik, above it stands a large telecommunications tower, right at the top a stone with a painted panel on the surrounding views.
For the descent down to Podgorje you choose among several options, all of which are demanding for the cyclist and the bike, as the paths are much narrower, steeper, and rockier, some quite adrenaline-fueled, if you're not skilled at it or don't have the suitable bike, it's better to return along the ascent path back to Hrpelje.
This time I extended the trip from Podgorje via forest shortcuts past Brežec to Podpeč, continued towards Črnotice, Petrinja, Ocizla and Klanc, and returned to Kozina from the other side. I recommend if you have some stamina left, … very scenic, solitary, peaceful, with nice landscape under the karst edge, where unfortunately the consequences of last year's big railway fire are still quite visible in nature and the environment.
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