Velika planina and the Kamnik Alps foothills

Velika planina is a high karst plateau above Kamnik, an hour from Ljubljana, with what the Slovenian Tourist Board calls the largest herdsmen's settlement in Europe on top of it: some 140 huts with spruce-shingle roofs that reach almost to the ground, occupied by shepherds and their cows from June until September. Almost everyone goes up by cable car. The question for a cyclist is what, exactly, you can ride there — and the answer is more complicated than the postcards suggest.

The plateau itself is closed to motor traffic and open to bikes only on gravel; the road riding is on the approach roads below it, which are excellent and mostly ignored. This post covers both.

The plateau: what is allowed

The facts, from the operator, Velika planina d.o.o., which is the municipal company that runs the lifts:

• The cable car runs from Kamniška Bistrica at 555 m to 1,412 m, over 1,668 m of cable, and has done since September 1964. It carries 320 passengers an hour, runs on the hour from 8:00 to 18:00, and takes bicycles for an additional fee. The bottom station is about 10 km from Kamnik, 3 km short of the end of the Kamniška Bistrica valley.
• The chairlift above it, the six-seater Šimnovec installed in 2023, goes on to 1,665 m at Gradišče, the summit. Bicycles are not permitted on the chairlift.
• Motor vehicles on the plateau are, in the operator's words, "strictly regulated and mostly prohibited" under the Nature Conservation Act and a municipal ordinance. Visitors are told to use the cable car or the footpaths. The only official road from the Kamnik side to the car parks below the plateau is the state road Podlom–Kranjski Rak; from the Gornji Grad side the turn-off is a few hundred metres before the Črnivec pass.
• The car parks are at Rakove Ravni (open all year, 1.5–2 hours' walk to the huts), Ušivec (40–60 minutes) and Mačkin kot (30–45 minutes); the roads to the latter two are not cleared in winter. A car pays €12 a day.
• Cycling on top is on forest roads, paved roads and marked routes only. From the upper cable-car station it is 2.5 km to the Zeleni rob inn and about 250 m of climbing to the top, and the operator asks riders to stay on the gravel roads to protect the alpine turf. The advice is to take the cable car by 9:00 to avoid the queue.

So: a gravel or mountain bike goes up in the cable car, rides the plateau's gravel roads through the settlement, and either comes back down the same way or descends by the forest roads to Mačkin kot and Kranjski Rak. A road bike has no business on top, and the road from Kranjski Rak to the car parks is a dead end for it, in the sense that there is nowhere to go once you arrive. That is fine — the road up is the ride.

The roads below

Kamnik sits 25 km from Ljubljana at the mouth of two valleys, and the road riding around it is a set of three approaches to the same mountains.

• Kamniška Bistrica. The valley road from Kamnik through Stahovica to the cable-car station and on to the source of the Kamniška Bistrica river is a dead end of around 13 km with a steady, gentle rise and the Kamnik–Savinja Alps closing in on three sides. It is the easiest ride in the region and one of the prettiest, and in our experience it is where the weather arrives first.
• Podlom–Kranjski Rak. This is the state road the operator names as the official approach to the plateau car parks. From the Tuhinj valley side it climbs through forest to Kranjski Rak, the saddle below the plateau, at a little over 1,000 m by our reckoning — official pages do not publish the altitude — with the last kilometres to the Rakove Ravni car park steeper than the rest. Traffic is visitors to the plateau, so go early or midweek. It is the one long, consistent road climb the region has.
• Črnivec. The pass between Kamnik and Gornji Grad on the Savinja side, a few hundred metres past the Velika planina turn-off. It is a lower, gentler crossing — again, we could not find an official altitude, and our estimate is around 900 m — and it turns the Kranjski Rak climb into a loop: up from the Tuhinj valley to Kranjski Rak, back down to the junction, over Črnivec, and home through Gornji Grad and the Tuhinj valley, or on to the Upper Savinja valley and the roads described in our Slovenia overview.

The Tuhinj valley itself, running east from Kamnik towards Celje (60 km away, according to the tourist board), is rolling farm country with a main road and a web of quieter parallel lanes, and it is where locals ride when the mountains are in cloud.

A day on the plateau, and a day below it

Gravel day. Ride from Kamnik up the Bistrica valley to the cable car (10 km), pay the bike surcharge, go up early. Ride through the settlement on the gravel roads, out to Gradišče for the view if you are willing to push the last part, then descend the forest road to Mačkin kot and Kranjski Rak and drop back to Kamnik by road. That is a long day with most of the descending on gravel, so gravel surfaces and route planning applies.

Road day. Kamnik, Tuhinj valley, Podlom, Kranjski Rak, back to the junction, Črnivec, Gornji Grad, home. Roughly 80 km with something over 1,300 m of climbing by our estimate. All asphalt, one serious climb, one gentle one, and views of the plateau you rode past.

Weather and season

The plateau is at 1,400–1,665 m and behaves like it. ARSO's high-mountain station in the same range, Krvavec at 1,740 m, has 154 days of snow cover a year, a January mean of −3.7 °C and a July mean daily maximum of 15.5 °C. Velika planina is a little lower and a little milder, but not much: the operator's own parking notes say two of the three car-park roads are not cleared in winter, and winter tyres and chains are mandatory on the rest. Take that as the season definition.

June to September for the plateau, when the herdsmen are up and the huts are occupied — the tourist board puts the cows on the pasture from the end of spring to September. May and October for the roads below, which are lower and dry out sooner. Afternoon storms are the summer hazard and the Bistrica valley gets them first. In winter the plateau is a ski hill and the approach roads are a cold-weather ride on the days they are clear.

Practicalities

Kamnik is the base: a medieval town with the railway line from Ljubljana, and the tourist board says a little over a quarter of the municipality is protected under Natura 2000, which is a way of saying the hills behind it are quiet. Save the two days in Moveee's route builder and the profiles will show the difference between the Kranjski Rak climb and the Bistrica valley at a glance; the Kranjski Rak road also rides well in Moveee Indoor in the months the car-park roads are under snow. For finding the lanes in the Tuhinj valley, how to find climbs near you is the general method.

The short version: the plateau is for gravel bikes via the cable car, the roads below are for road bikes, and the herdsmen's settlement is worth the surcharge either way. Go on a weekday, go early, and do not try to drive up.