N°882.Sljeme

1030m

 

When we got up in the morning it was still a bit rainy. There goes the idea to cycle up Sljeme. This is a BIG near Zagreb that Sven brought up. he wrote in a mail: "On the BIG 1000 list I can see Sljeme as number 882, and Sljeme is in Zagreb. So, you can add another notch to your trophies, unless number 882 is below your reputation." Well of course it is not. I hadn't checked really as I do not want to plan too much BIGs to avoid that too much holiday time is spend on cycling. But the idea was that perhaps we could combine Sljeme with another visit. By the time Sven and Renata arrived at the camp site it was still raining. Not so hard but still raining. So we had coffee first and Sljeme was considered but not really thought of as an option. As it was dry when we finished our coffee, we decided to change clothes and then to drive up to Sljeme to see if it's feasible to cycle or not.  Sven guided us through Zagreb again to the foot of Sljeme. It was damp but dry, so let's go ! We took the bikes and got started. Compared to Großglockner, Vršič and Mangrtsko Sedlo, Sljeme is not so tough. But it is a nice climb. The road was very peaceful, almost no cars. This is due to the fact that on the south side of Sljeme there are two roads. The SW side is for descending traffic and the SE side is for ascending traffic. I have forwarded this information to our cycling Club and the SW side is now taken out of our list of climbs as it cannot be used, too dangerous, to reach the top of Sljeme. So the road we were cycling on was only for traffic going to the top. The road took us up through the woods via a numerous hairpins. We could see the clouds hanging between the trees when we got higher. It looked like we were cycling through a tropical rain forest . Marloes didn't feel so well (I was not allowed to tell this to Sven and Renata as she didn't want them to feel guilty that they had suggested this climb) so I was cycling ahead again to try to motivate her to keep up the pace. This is not normal. Normally Marloes rides up front so she can determine the pace of cycling. I had several times that I thought we were close to the top. But each time the road turned and the road continued to climb. It took us 49 minutes and 51 seconds to climb the 11.8km to the top (14.2 km/h). As you can see, Sljeme is of a different class then the other BIGs we attempted and again the heartbeat computer acknowledges that: average heartbeat 163 beats/minute, 44 minutes and 46 seconds in between 80%-90% of my maximum heartbeat and 25% fat burned out of 714 Kcal. When we arrived at the top the others were just on their way back from the chapel that is situated near the actual top