Bled and Bohinj: the lakes loop and the climbs above them

Bled and Bohinj are twenty-odd kilometres apart, both are lakes in the Julian Alps, and they could hardly be more different to ride from. Bled is a resort with a lake at 475 m, a castle on a cliff and coach traffic; Bohinj is a valley inside the national park with a bigger, quieter lake at 526 m and a road that ends at a waterfall. Since July 2026 the two are joined by a cycle route that is mostly separated from cars, which turns them from two places into one base. The lakes are the easy days. The climbs above them — Pokljuka, Soriška planina and the forest roads of Jelovica — are the reason to stay a week.

The two lakes, and the loop around each

Bled. The lake is 2,120 m long and 1,380 m wide, 144 hectares and up to 30.6 m deep, according to the municipality's own figures, and the town sits at 501 m with the castle hill at 604 m. The circuit of the lake is 6 km, on a road and promenade shared with everyone else in town. It is a pleasant thing to do at seven in the morning and a slow one at any other time. Treat it as the warm-down, not the ride.

Bohinj. The lake is 4,100 m long, up to 1,200 m wide, 318 hectares and 45 m deep, with 11.35 km of shore. The road runs along the southern shore to Ukanc and on to the Savica waterfall. You cannot make a loop of it by bike: since a 2021 amendment to the municipal traffic decree, cycling is prohibited along the northern shore between Mrenš and Ukanc, and the tourist board's FAQ is explicit about it. What you can do is the valley circuit the locals call "around Bohinj" — a maintained cycle path of just over 12 km through the Lower and Upper Bohinj valleys, fully paved and easy, with a gravel option over the Senožeta saddle for anyone on wider tyres.

The new Bled–Bohinj cycle route

This is the change. On 16 July 2026 the Slovenian Infrastructure Agency and the municipalities of Bled and Bohinj opened an approximately 20 km cycle route between Bled and Bohinjska Bistrica, most of it separated from motor traffic and running beside the Sava Bohinjka. Joined to the existing path on to the lake it makes an almost 28 km continuous connection between the two lakes, with rest areas at the St Hema ironworks and the Grmečica waterfall. The investment was close to 25 million euros, which for a cycle path in a country this size is a statement of intent.

For a road cyclist it does two things. It takes you off the regional road between Bled and Bohinj, which is the busiest stretch in the area and the one we used to warn people about, and it lets you start a climb in either valley without driving to it. A caveat for the first season: a section between Bohinjska Bela and Obrne was closed for landslide repairs until the end of August 2026, with a detour on narrower local roads and a piece of the regional road, so check the Bohinj traffic pages before you count on the whole line.

The climbs above Bled

Pokljuka. The forested plateau above Bled at 1,100–1,400 m is the big one and has its own guide. In short: a long, steady, shaded road climb from the Bled side to the biathlon centre at Rudno polje (1,347 m), a second road up from Bohinj through Koprivnik, and the forest road between them closed to cars in summer but open to bikes. It is the best-quality climbing in the area and the quietest.

The Radovna valley. Between the Mežakla and Pokljuka plateaus, the Radovna is the easy day — the Bled tourist board lists it as the valley for less demanding cycling, on a quiet road up to Mojstrana that suits any bike. Ride it as an out-and-back, or turn it into a loop with the road over the top of Pokljuka. The Vintgar gorge is at the bottom of it, on foot only.

Jelovica and Mežakla. Both plateaus have what the Bled tourist board calls a dense network of forest roads. They are gravel, they are steep, and they are a mountain-bike or gravel-bike proposition rather than a road one. If that is your thing, planning gravel routes by surface is worth a look before you commit a day to a road that turns out to be a logging track.

The climbs above Bohinj

Soriška planina. The pass at 1,307 m, by the Bohinj tourist board's figure, is the second-highest road pass in the country and 13 km from the lake. Road cyclists can climb it from three sides: from Bohinjska Bistrica on the Bohinj side, from Železniki and Sorica to the south, and from Podbrdo and Petrovo Brdo on the Primorska side. The Slovenian Tourist Board's suggested tour goes from Bohinjska Bistrica over the pass and down through the Baška grapa to Most na Soči on the Soča: 60 km with 700 m of climbing, which is a fair description of a climb that is long rather than brutal.

The road from Bohinj is steady and forested with the views arriving late. The descent to Sorica is the prettier side. Along the top there are the remains of Italian military positions from the inter-war border — bunkers and observation posts along the ridge — which are a short walk from the pass.

The lake road to Ukanc. Not a climb, but a ride: the shore road to Ukanc and on to the Savica car park. The tourist board's FAQ notes that the national roads from Ukanc to Savica, up the Upper Bohinj valley, to Pokljuka and to Soriška planina are all narrow and winding; camper vans and trailers are banned from several of the forest and municipal roads in July and August. Again: mornings.

The weather, and when to go

ARSO's 1981–2010 normals for Lesce, the station on the plain below Bled at 515 m, give a July mean daily maximum of 25.3 °C, 1,418 mm of rain and 1,993 hours of sun a year, with snow on the ground on 51 mornings — 15 of them in January — and 117 cm of fresh snow in an average year. Bohinj, enclosed between the plateaus, is in our experience darker and snowier still, and the plateaus above it hold the snow into April.

June and September are the months. The passes are open, the lake road is rideable at a civilised hour and the afternoons are less likely to end in a thunderstorm than they are in July and August. The overview of cycling in Slovenia makes the same argument for the whole country.

Where to base yourself

Bled has the trains, the shops and the traffic. Bohinjska Bistrica has the railway station on the Bohinj line, the start of the Soriška planina climb and the Koprivnik road up to Pokljuka, and is quieter by an order of magnitude. Our preference is Bohinjska Bistrica for a riding week and Bled for a weekend with someone who does not ride. With the new route between them the choice matters less than it used to.

More than 60% of the Bohinj municipality lies inside Triglav National Park, so the park's rules apply on the plateaus: bikes on roads and forest roads only, in daylight. And when the plateaus are under snow, any of the climbs here can be saved in Moveee and ridden in Moveee Indoor, which is the only way to ride Pokljuka in February that we can recommend.