This was, once again, supposed to be a mellow day, Just 85 km, and only one notable climb, near the end of the day. 250m max elevation. Easy, right? Except for the headwinds, lightning, hail, and forest fires.

Day 3 had a lot of distance planned, but it should be easier (I thought) because I was starting in the hills and ending at sea level. I took some time to see the most picturesque spot at Plitvice, an overlook where you could see the most impressive waterfall cascading into a blue-green pool, then got on the road, which was a mix of pavement and dirt road. There was more dirt road than I’d anticipated, so the ride wound up taking much longer than expected, and I didn’t arrive in town until well after dark.

Yesterday’s unpleasant traffic inspired me to revise my route plan for the day. The RB-02 route I’d discovered continued to the west of Karlovac, and I usually prefer a longer, hillier ride to a shorter, more trafficky one. It turned out to be a good choice, although over the course of the day I learned a lot more about the perils of Croatian way-finding.

The first day of the tour was expected to be mellow, only around 70km, with a high point of 220m. But, information about bike routes in Croatia is fairly spotty. Neither Google nor RideWithGPS have reliable data, and there appears to be little in the way of local cycling maps. There is a list of national cycling routes available from OpenStreetMaps (which integrates with RWGPS) but they’re not comprehensive, and, as I found out later, are of widely varying quality.

So, while I expected to have to do some creative way-finding, I didn’t anticipate quite how creative it would have to be.

I was spending two months in Europe after finishing a study abroad program, and a group of friends had planned a bike tour in Croatia during the time I was there. Theirs was an organized tour with van transfers, which wasn’t what I wanted, so I decided to see if I could do a solo bike tour, more or less following their itinerary. What could go wrong?