Hi there,
Our forum member Ervin recommends us to help Stuntzi at his fantastic and brave tour at the Balkans. So, here we are!
I have limited information’s that could help him on the trip across the Albania, Macedonia and Monte Negro. Hope that Ervin was translated to mtb-news forum my answers details to him about passing those 3 countries. It’s possible to help with some additional contacts in Macedonia and Monte Negro.
When Stuntzi reaches the Bosnia- he will be at home! We believe those Bosnian 11 Mountains higher than 2000 meters, two deepest European canyons; dozens of spectacular and exotic places should show to him soul of our secret mountain biker’s paradise. http://www.ciklocentar.com/?jezik=bos&x=25  Just need more to know about his expectations, time availabilities… It’s still enough time because Bosnia is so far at the moment.
Stay tuned and welcome at MTB Club/ Ciklo Centar forum!

Hallo Stuntzi,

I'll fly to Tirana - Albania tomorrow, and will be there until Friday. I'll try to find out more about prepaid cards, and MTB community in the country and get back to this thread. If there's anything else you'd like me to check out just ask and I'll give it a shot! 

Good luck!

thanks guys for all the help you want to give. wish i alreay was closer to bosnia, your place sounds really great. unfortunately, there´s still some 1000km and many mountains and weird countries inbetween...

i´ll try to read this thread here from time to time to check what´s going on. depending on mobile online data tarifs in the coming countries, that might not always be possible. you´re very welcome join my thread at http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/showthread.php?p=5862777 and post there in english, once you made it through the german subscribing procedure :-).

(i have a special email interface to that german thread and thus can read/post there even if the mobile internet is very slow or expensive.)

anyway, hope to meet some of you soon... have a look at all the pics on http://www.alpenzorro.de/heraklix/ meanwhile and tell me if bosniais up for the challenge :-)

greetings from paligo/vikos/greece,
stefan.

hi again... got a little problem at the moment. i had a resupply stop in Konitsa/Greece and got many new things from the post office. However, one packet went missing. Now i lack new tires (something decent 2.3" or 2.4") and break pads for Formula Puro/K18 disk breaks.

The big question... Where inbetween here and lake garda is it possible to buy such stuff? Any chance in Montenegro maybe? Bitola? Or in Podgorica? Or not at all until Croatia?

Where do you buy your bike stuff? Mail order? From where and how long would that take?

Also, if things arent available for buying, could someone in southern Bosnia (close to the border and my route) maybe act as a relay station? I could arrange another packet from Germany to be sent to his address and then cycle by for a visit! Is your postal service reliable in general for packets from Germany? How long does that take?

Anyway... start thinking... thanks for your help!

Hi folks,

I'm a member of the german IBC-mtb board (http://www.mtb-news.de) and follow the Live reports of stuntzi since his second report from Sardinia (Italy).

I don't know much about Bosnia, I just can remember the winter games in Sarajevo and the terrible war watching  the news on tv.
I know a little bit of the croatic islands and the highway going down from Austria to Greece, that's not much so I'm expect to learn a lot about Bosnia.

I have some general questions:
-Mines, how big is this problem (some people at IBC asking for this)?
-Maps, does any topo map exists  (e.g. maps which stuntzi could use on his PDA and e.g. Online-Maps better than GoogleMaps)(I don't know if he have any, except the old russian maps)

-Have you already any plans for the route of stuntzi in Bosnia?
After follow the discussion and view stuntzis planed route I have a question about the route (go now to Albania up to the lakes near Bitola (Macedonia) and afterwards back to Albania and than to Montenegro (Crna Gora?)).
What are you think about this route?

I think stuntzi is open minded, if you suggest a different route.
Would it make sense to go first to Dubrovnik and than go north in direction of Sarajevo instead of pass Montenegro in the north?

In general, I think it's not a bad idea just to visit the mountains (for trail riding), also passing some nice place (landscape and also villages). Okay, I know he don't like big cities and also not much the forest 

If you create a route as GPX-File or KML-File (e.g. with GoogleEarth) and show maybe also some pictures of interesting places, it would be perfect.
For the GPS-track, just put e.g every 5 km and on important places a point, that's good enough.

stuntzi just can view GPX-files on his PDA!
If you need help in creating GPX-Files out of KML (or other formats) just ask.

cheers
Ray

Hi Stuntzi,
Try to call +38923130035 Borche or email borce@elteh.com.mk Bike shop in Skoplje; or +38970307973 Bike extreme Shop in Bitola. You can try to find some of missing stuff there. If they haven’t what you need then we could send by my shop. Am I written I am bike shop owner? ;o)
We are Bosnian distributor for brands shown there http://www.ciklocentar.com/?jezik=bos&x=2 Look the tires at the Ciklo Centar site at: http://www.ciklocentar.com/?jezik=bos&kategorija=Gume
Choose tires that are available at the moment (Conti, Kenda, Specialized and Michelin): mark with “Dostupno: DA (green letters)”! “NE” marked with red letters mean that this tire ARE NOT AVAILABLE at the moment. We will send those tires at the place and time by your choice in Monte Negro, Bosnia or even Macedonia. Its pity I hadn’t this email day before to send it in Albania/Tirana, but it’s too late now. Everything could be done in next several days.
Brake pads: we normally have almost all by Kool-Stop but its full season time and our stock is almost empty. Stuntzi, is it too late for you to wait 10 days to get brake pads? If you use more front then rear brake and have better rear pads, just exchange it- this could give to you some extra braking time.
If you need to get anything from Germany or somewhere by post, you can count at our postal address to receive and we should resend to anywhere in region by our channels.
Our mailing address:
Ciklo Centar d.o.o Sarajevo
Hamze Celenke 58,
71210 Ilidža, Sarajevo
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Have a nice day

So, welcome Ray and all IBC-mtb board members to our bike community!


You will be pleasantly surprised! ;o)


People always ask about mines first at all! Yes, it's a problem but it isn't so big for us. We are using all available knowledge sources and routines to decrease mine danger at “zero”, THEN WE GO! Some of our club members are well trained professionals that share their knowledge and experience to others. It’s important to know that Bosnia have thousands of kilometers trails and gravel roads, also lot of mountain areas that are 100% safe by mine danger! You can spend 10 years riding your (mountain) bike in Bosnia without repeating the same trail twice time! We will guide Stuntzi at some of that trails.       


Would like to know how much time he plan to spend? Where to go after? Dubrovnik? We could combine 10 or 15 epic Bosnian trails in one 10 days ride or more? What he doing about gap between mountain rides (if have), is he rides it too or uses train/bus/hitch-hike transportation?


It’s sound nice, but have to check about Albania>lakes near Bitola part. How much we know about this area? Only local people could advice him to go or not to go. Maybe it’s easier to go to Bitola straight from Greece, THEN to get into Albania (Tirana> Dures maybe) and to Monte Negro (Shkoder>Podgorica border pass).


I recommend going to Dubrovnik after the Bosnian ride! We could make a big circle ride from east (after get in from Monte Negro) to center Bosnia, then to south (Mostar area) and to finish in Dubrovnik that is close from Bosnian border.


Need some time for making GPX or KML file. Stuntzi need 10-15 days to see almost all places shown at: http://www.ciklocentar.com/?jezik=bos&x=25.
Cheers

Nino, sorry.
I can understand that you are pissed off  to hear always the same questions about mines.

Wow, the pictures looks really great. Very similar to the Alps. 

@GusHansen and all others:
If you have information for stuntzi don't post it in the Chat at IBC, because he can't see it, if he is not online.
If he is online (see user list, to check if he is active), than you can communicate to him in the chat.
To go to the chat call http://widget.mibbit.com/?settings=c2b29ec7be5ab06b264f4f72aa343054&server=irc.freenode.net&channel=%23alpenzorro&noServerNotices=true&noServerMotd=true&autoConnect=true

But better post informations here in this thread, so nothing will get lost.
Important things, I or someone else can copy to the thread at IBC. He will received the post automatically via email.

The information of the bike shops I forward direct via email to him.

cheers
Ray

 

I understood Stuntzi has problems with his connection to the Internet.
Here's what I found out in Tirana:

Vodafone is a leading provider in Albania with over 90% coverage. They sell prepaid numbers only at "Vodafone shops" (in every city) and the number has to be registered to your name.
Mobile internet costs 93,2 Leke (Albanian currency) for 1 MB of traffic. The credit can be recharged with prepaid vouchers.

1 Euro is 130 Leke

Good luck!

ok... good news: i found decent tyres and even formula break pads in a bike shop in Ioanina. i call that a small miracle :-). thanks for trying to help me though, i am sure i need more stuff along the way and will make use of your bike shops then!

next, about my route: this trip is generally going from south to north. so i will enter bosnia somewhere from montenegro, maybe close to podgorica if this makes sense? i then thought about more or less following the borderline with croatia up north, because thats where the mountains are? feel free to suggest other ideas though.

but generally, the route should be more or less south to north. i dont mind taking detours left and right if necessary for good singletracks or to see nice spots. a few small ircles (daily roundtrip) are also possible if really required.

what i do not want is one big multiday round trip around bosnia or something and end up at the same point that i started. thats somehow against the purpose of my trip. the main destination "lake garda" should always be roughly kept in sight.

also, i plan on cycling everything. so if my general trip is at the western border and there's a beautiful mountain 200km off east out of my way across boring terrain, i will pass on that. no buses/trains unless absolutely required.

that probably means i cannot see all the beautiful parts of bosnia but have to make a selection. not so bad, i always like to leave some stuff "undiscovered" so i have a reason to come back one day.

hope this helps you a bit in planning my route :-). i welcome tracks in gpx format, waypoint coordinates (like: perfect 2000 vertical meter single trail decent starts at N29.12345 E23.4567).

but i also like to meet bikers and let them guide me along for a day obviously :-).

oh... one more thing. i like easy uphills (sealed roads without traffic, good dirt road, etc) and i like singletrails (easy or hard, doesnt matter) for downhill. what i do not like is singletrack going uphill, that somehow doesnt work for me :-).

ok, enough for now. greetings from ioannina/greece.
st.

ps: just to make one thing clear: i do not panic about mines at all. some of my readers are worried about me, but hey, thats good isnt it? anyway, i guess it's way more likely to get run over by a bus when cycling through Munich than to "accidently explode" in Bosnia. the war and its remains suck big time, but it's no reason at all to not go mountainbiking in bosnia. really.

i also do not think albanians cut your throat when you sleep at the side of the road and then sell off your organs. you always here that kind of crap from people living "on the other side" of a border. but i have travelled many countries in my life and was received friendly EVERYWHERE so far.

stuntzi is since Saturday in Albania.

See more picture on http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/showthread.php?t=396385
or on http://www.alpenzorro.de/heraklix/ including his route as GPX-track or KML.

He plan to reach today Macedonia near Ohrid.
We will see what the bike community in Bitola will show him.

He had some trouble with his stomach, so he stay 2 days longer in Greece.

Ray

Stuntzi was yesterday in Bitola and done a  ride with 2 local bikers:


He was to happy to ride trails  again, so he had no time for pictures   
may we can understand this 

At the moment he leave Bitola on the way to Ohrid.
He like Macedonia, so he will stay some days in Macedonia.
Unfortunately the weather is no so good.

Ray

hi map freaks.

i've heard some of you are quite good at using digital maps in bosnia. thats mostly oziexplorer i suppose?

i use a software called "pathaway" on my pocketpc. unfortunately, the map format is not compatible. but i found a simple stand-alone tool than can be used for conversion from ozi to pathaway format:
http://ozimapconverter.narod.ru/index_en.html

i dont have decent maps for bosnia with me. so if you want to help and have some maps on your pc, could you try downloading the tool and convert them for me? that would rock...

i welcome any kinds of maps, no matter if it's streetmaps, large scale overviews or 1:25000 topographic stuff.

in OziMapConverter, you have to enable the "create PRC" and "compression" and "8 bit" options. then you chose one or many .map files and the rest is automatic. the program creates one .PRC file for each pair of gif/jpg/png and .map file.

it's only those PRC files that I need. you could put them on a webserver somewhere and send me the http: link via email. i cannot download  it right away because it's too slow on mobile phone. but i have wlan from time to time and can get the files then.

thanks a lot....

stefan.

Hello Stuntzi,

I would like to welcome you and to say that I regularly follow your photos from your trip with mountain bike. It's really nice that you have free time to all that tours especially on the bike, which makes your trip a lot of interesting and exotic. Of course when you come to Bosnia and Herzegovina it will be the attraction for all because as I understood you are coming from Germany and that is particularly dear country to Bosnian because during the war has shown as a humanitarian country, which has received a lot of our people as refugees. Do not be afraid at all of mines in Bosnia, because our cyclists use it frequently so we can freely say almost every day and there have been no incidents as I know, so the roads for mountain biking are quite safe of mines and fully described in the book “Guide to mountain biking in the B&H”, which you can also get it from Nino.

By the way, can you write and send photos to us of the sanitary conditions in hotels of Albania, because I heard it is very tidy? What's tourist offer and prices of services? Do you have photos of beaches and the hotels for us to see it because a lot of Bosnians are asking to go on holidays in Albania? Also we can ask you all this when you come here back, so do not consider this as an obligation. Regarding Bosnia, Nino is only one that recognized the value of your arrival in B&H as well as the promotion of mountain biking in our country.

We are looking forward to see you soon ...