The Wobbling Sprocket

The author removed the question mark behind Slovenia from the title of this piece.  He did the right thing.  Slovenia’s success in sports is no surprise.  It’s an outdoor wonderland and has had all sorts of sports success.

People in the US will be hearing a lot more about Slovenia in the future as the US and Slovenia are in the same World Cup qualifying group (along with England and Algeria).  Don’t be surprised if Slovenia advances and the US does not.  The former will let it all hang out and go for broke from the get go.  The US has tons of injuries and has yet to show much team chemistry.

What’s this have to to do with biking?  Nothing…just when you’ve been there a few times, you begin to take notice of a place that has it’s sports crazy act together.

The Real Olympic Champs: Norway, Austria…and Slovenia – BusinessWeek.

We love Ljubljana.   Both the Croatia Tour and the Slovenia tour start and end there.  It’s laid back and is chock full of enchanting street cafes.  It’s also full of history.  There are roman ruins that you can go see in the basement of the museum.  It was a cultural cross roads and, in some ways, still is.  I’ve wandered around town photographing nothing more than front doors.  They are massive and spectacular.  You can see some here.

It seems that, in addition to having a coffee in  one of the many sidewalk cafes, we can now have a glass of raw, unpasteurized milk dispensed from a street side vending machine.  This seems down right un-American.  However, it does seem completely appropriate for Slovenia which is dotted with beautiful dairy farms and picturesque haystacks.

I don’t profess to know the pro’s and con’s of raw milk for general consumption.  I do know that I would be more likely to drink some in Slovenia than in the US.   Most people actually do a lot of thing overseas that they would not do at home….swinging above and plunging 30 feet into the Nam Song river outside Vangvieng and eating cicadas and a lot of other things come to mind.

We’ll have to check it out next time we are off to Ljubljana….

Raw milk on tap — in Ljubljana « The Bovine.

It’s a little hard to capture some of what happens on tours.

Part of the deal is food. It’s not always fine dining with white table cloths (although, at night, it usually is).

Everyone is on their own for lunch. Who would have thought you could find big ol’ burgers in Slovenia? Once we found them, it was tough to resist. Especially when they are man sized burgers that have you contemplating what life without burgers might actually be like. As it turned out, given the “bunnage” to meat ratio of these, life might actually be a lot better. It was kind of like eating a loaf of bread, with a side salad. It did take two hands though.

Slovenia Cycling

Slovenia Cycling

Slovenia Cycling

It isn’t all big burgers. We had some great fish and seafood including these trout on the ride into Tolmin. The restaurant is right above a pen where they have live trout. Slovenia is known for world class fly fishing for trout.

Slovenia Cycling

Slovenia Cycling

After a long day in the bike saddle, what might be better than to stop in the lounge at the hotel and relax with a cup of coffee or a tall cool one?

….it certainly is not, however, to spend more time in the saddle…..a horse saddle. But that is exactly what we did in Tolmin. Giddie up, cowboys (and cowgirl)!

Slovenia Cycling

Slovenia Cycling

Slovenia Cycling