1,841 kilometres. More than 52,000 metres of climbing. The plan was five days. In the end, I completed the entire Slovenian Mountain Bike Route in 6 days, 21 hours and 20 minutes - after a journey that turned out very differently from what I had imagined.
At 07:00 on 5 August, I left Kostanjevica na Krki with one number dominating the project: five. Five days to complete the entire STKP, with 43 official stages compressed into one continuous self-supported effort. It did not take long for the route to challenge that plan. Temperatures climbed above 40°C on the opening day, progress was slower than expected and, more importantly, the terrain turned out to be much slower than the numbers suggested.
I knew there would be hike-a-bike, but I had not expected quite so much of it. There were steep climbs where pushing was the only realistic option, rough descents, slow trails and sections where average speed simply disappeared. That was when I first realised the five-day target would be much harder to achieve than it had looked on paper. An elevation profile can show you how much climbing is ahead, but it cannot tell you how much of it you will do with the bike next to you.
The first days quickly became a rhythm of riding, eating, sleeping very little and starting again. Day two began at 04:00 after only a few hours of sleep and eventually led to Uršlja Gora, which became the hardest single climb of the entire attempt. By around three days into the ride, roughly 750 kilometres were behind me, but more than 1,000 still remained. At that point the reality was clear: five days was gone. The project had been built around that number for almost a year, so accepting it was not completely straightforward, but stopping because the original schedule was no longer possible never felt right. The new objective became simple: finish the entire STKP in less than seven days. Once I accepted that, the ride changed. It became less about chasing a schedule and more about solving whatever came next.
One of the lowest moments came after leaving Planina Kuhinja and heading towards Tolmin in the early morning. Progress was painfully slow. I was pushing the bike uphill and downhill, crossing one cow fence after another, and mentally I was starting to struggle. A kind lady at the hut had packed a strudel for me to take along, and for hours I had been thinking about stopping to eat it. When I finally decided it was time for that break, I realised I had lost it. It sounds trivial now, but at that point it felt genuinely devastating. When you are exhausted, sleep deprived and completely focused on continuing, very small things become incredibly important. That strudel had become the reward I was waiting for. When I reached Tolmin, I took a longer break to eat, sit down and reset mentally before continuing. That moment probably said more about ultra-distance riding than any of the big numbers.
What kept the ride interesting was how quickly the landscape changed. The STKP moves through Pohorje, Koroška, the Alpine regions, the Karst and the Adriatic coast before turning east again through Snežnik, Kočevsko, Bela krajina, Dolenjska, Kozjansko and the Slovene Hills. For such a small country, Slovenia seemed to keep changing endlessly underneath the tyres. Forests became mountains, mountains became limestone landscapes, eventually there was the sea, and then the route turned inland again towards some of the most remote parts of the country. That variability had always been one of the main reasons for doing the project.
The STKP was not just the setting for the challenge; the route itself was part of the story.
Eventually I reached Piran, but the coast was not the finish. It was the beginning of the final part of the journey. By then, sleep deprivation had become one of the biggest challenges. The route turned back inland through Slavnik, Snežnik, Loški Potok and Kočevsko before finally heading towards Kostanjevica. I had been awake for around 48 hours before finishing. At that point everything becomes much simpler. You stop thinking about 1,841 kilometres and start thinking about the next climb, the next shop, the next bottle and the next kilometre. You just keep moving.
In the early hours of 12 August, I arrived back in Kostanjevica na Krki after 6 days, 21 hours and 20 minutes. Not five days, but the full STKP completed in less than seven. Crossing the finish brought relief and pride, but the real emotions are still settling. After almost a week focused entirely on moving forward - and nearly two days without sleep - it is difficult to immediately understand what has just happened.
The project started with a very clear number, but what I got from it was much less precise. The STKP taught me that an ultra can change completely while you are inside it. The original goal can disappear, the plan can stop making sense and progress can become much slower than expected. At that point, you either keep fighting for the plan you no longer have, or adapt to the ride that is actually happening. The five-day attempt became a 6-day, 21-hour and 20-minute journey through Slovenia, and I think the story is better because of it.
The ride is finished, but the project isn't. The footage captured throughout the attempt will now become a documentary film showcasing everything that happened between the planned five days and the eventual finish.
