The Kvarner Bay, or simply Kvarner for Croatians, is located in the north of Croatia and is bordered by the Istrian peninsula to the west and the Croatian coast (Hrvatsko primorje) to the east. The largest city with around 150,000 inhabitants is Rijeka - our location Novi Vinodolski is around 30 kilometres to the south, opposite the island of Krk. A few kilometres away from the hustle and bustle of tourism on the coast, bears still roam the sparsely populated, partly rocky and largely forested hinterland, whose mountains reach an altitude of up to 1,400 metres. Our second location, Krk, separated from the mainland by the Velebit Channel, is the northernmost island in the Bay of Kvarner and, at 405 square kilometres, together with its neighbouring island of Cres, which is just as large, the largest island in the Adriatic. The highest point on the island with its varied landscape is the 568 metre high Obzova.
Beyond the motorway, the main road along the mainland coast, there is a heavenly calm. On the 130-kilometre tour through the hinterland, we encountered perhaps 50 cars, most of them around the village of Brinje near the motorway. On the second lap on the mainland, there were just a dozen cars. On the island of Krk, all hell breaks loose on the main roads during the season, but apart from short passages, our routes take us along smaller, less busy roads. Long climbs are few and far between, but the constant ups and downs are also good for the legs. The roads, both on the mainland and on Krk, are often a real patchwork, but they are rarely brutally bad. There are a few nasty ramps on tours 3 and 4 in particular, so you should equip your bike with a "lifebuoy" and/or compact crank.
You can find the entire travel article with these tours and the GPS data in the download area below:
- Tour 1: Krk Tour (101 kilometres, 1,900 metres in altitude, max. 12% gradient)
- Tour 2: Taxi boat tour (99 kilometres, 1,500 metres in altitude, max. 11% gradient)
- Tour 3: In the hinterland (77 kilometres, 1,600 metres in altitude, max. 18% gradient)
- Tour 4: Panorama trail (125 kilometres, 2,200 vertical metres, max. 15% gradient)
