Vršič pass by bike: 50 hairpins, cobbles and how to ride both sides

Vršič is 1,611 m, which makes it the highest road pass in Slovenia, and it has fifty numbered hairpins — twenty-four on the Kranjska Gora side and twenty-six dropping into Trenta. Most people ride it once, from the north, turn round at the top and go back down the way they came. That is the wrong way to do it. The north side is the climb; the south side is the descent; and the loop that joins them back together is one of the best days you can have on a road bike in the Alps. Here is how each side rides, what the cobbles do to your pacing, and what changed at the top in 2026.

The north side, from Kranjska Gora

The climb starts in Kranjska Gora at 811 m and is 12.2 km to the top, according to the tourist board's own description of the route. That is 800 metres of height gain, which works out at an average of about 6.6% — our arithmetic, not a published figure. The organisers of the Juriš na Vršič hill climb, which uses this road, put the timed section at 11 km with 801 m of climbing, an average of 7.25% and a maximum of 10.8%. The two sets of numbers agree once you allow for the flat kilometre out of the village past Lake Jasna.

The shape of it matters more than the average. The first kilometres through the forest are the gentlest. From roughly the Russian Chapel — a wooden Orthodox chapel a third of the way up, built in memory of the Russian prisoners of war who constructed the road during the First World War and gave it the name Ruska cesta — the hairpins come closer together and the gradient settles into the 8–10% band between them. The bends themselves are the point of interest. The road is asphalted but, in the tourist board's careful wording, "in some places even paved", which means cobbles. On Vršič the cobbles are in the hairpins rather than on the straights, and they are the original stone setts, not a decorative strip.

The last kilometre eases and then flattens onto the pass itself, with the wall of Prisojnik on your right and the Ajdovska deklica — the face in the rock — looking back at you. There is nothing subtle about the view.

Riding cobbled hairpins without losing the wheel

Every bend on the north side is a small decision. The inside line is the steepest and the roughest; the outside line is longer but smoother and a full percentage point or two easier. On a dry day, ride the outside, seated, in a gear lower than you think you need, and let the cadence drop as you go through rather than standing to punch over it. Standing on wet stone setts is how people spin the rear wheel and, occasionally, fall over at walking pace in front of a coach.

• Gear for it. With a 10.8% maximum and stone in the bends, a 34×32 or lower is not overkill. Our guide to gearing for climbing covers why a lower bottom gear costs you nothing on a climb like this.
• Stay seated through the stone. The reasons are in seated versus standing on long climbs; on cobbles the traction argument wins outright.
• Watch for coaches. The road is narrow and the tourist board's own cycling page says as much. Coaches take the whole hairpin, and in high season they are frequent (see the bus note below). Hold your line and let them go.

The south side, into Trenta

The descent to Trenta is longer, wilder and less visited. Twenty-six hairpins take you from 1,611 m down through the upper Trenta valley towards the source of the Soča, and the road here is not cobbled — it is narrow asphalt, with a few short unlit stretches under overhangs, some rough patches after the winter, and long sightlines between the bends. It is a proper descent rather than a technical one, but the surface changes without warning and there are no barriers on some of the outside edges. Descending well here is mostly about braking before the bend, not in it, and about not trusting the road to be the same as it was on the last one.

Three things worth stopping for on the way down. At the 49th hairpin, counting from Kranjska Gora, a side road leads to the source of the Soča, a fifteen-minute walk from the hut at the end of it — the upper part of the path is protected with pegs and cables and is not a thing to do in cleats. Below it is the Juliana Alpine Botanical Garden. And at the bottom, in Trenta itself, is Dom Trenta, which is both the Triglav National Park information centre and the valley museum, and a sensible place to refill bottles.

Riding both sides: the loop

Ridden as a crossing from Kranjska Gora to Bovec, the Soča valley tourist board's Juliana Bike stage 3 is 62.9 km with 1,585 m of climbing, because the descent to Trenta is followed by a long, gently falling valley road past the Soča gorges to Bovec at 452 m. That is a good one-way day if you can arrange to get back.

Getting back is the interesting part. In the 2026 season the municipality of Kranjska Gora introduced a revised traffic regime at the pass and, with it, free buses in both directions between Kranjska Gora and Bovec from 1 June to 30 September, running daily in the peak period from 26 June to 31 August. The press release does not say whether the buses carry bikes, so check before you plan on it. The full loop by bike — over Vršič, down to Bovec, back over the Predel pass to Tarvisio and up the old railway cycle path to Kranjska Gora — is a long, magnificent day with two passes in it, and it is the ride we would build a trip around.

If you would rather keep it to one climb, ride the north side, descend to Trenta, and come back over the pass from the south. Two climbs of Vršič in a day is not unreasonable, and the southern ascent is the quieter of the two.

What changed at the top in 2026

The pass has had a barrier system for some years to manage traffic into the restricted zone. For 2026 the municipality changed the rules: from 15 June passage through the barriers is free and unlimited in time, but parking at the very top of the pass is not permitted at all this season, and the right-hand lane in the barrier areas is closed. For a cyclist the practical effect is a quieter summit and fewer cars nosing about looking for a space. It also means that if you are meeting someone with a car, arrange it at Koča na Gozdu or in Trenta rather than at the top.

When it is open, and how to check

The road is closed in winter for snow and avalanches, and when it is closed cars can get only as far as the hut at Koča na Gozdu on the north side. Reopening depends on the snowpack and varies from year to year. ARSO's climate normals for Rateče, the nearest station at 864 m, show snow cover on 117 mornings a year, still 21 of them in March and 7 in April, and the pass is 750 m higher than the station. Do not plan on riding it before May, and check the day before.

The place to check is the national traffic information centre, which lists closures and roadworks on the pass road; the works that come with a new traffic regime at the top are exactly the sort of thing a guidebook will not tell you about. The overview of cycling in Slovenia has the same advice for every pass in the country, and how to plan a cycling trip covers keeping a lower alternative ready.

Summer weather is the other variable. Rateče's July mean daily maximum is 23.8 °C, which sounds mild until you remember that the top of the pass is colder and the descent into Trenta is long enough to chill you thoroughly. Take a jacket even in August.

Racing it

The Juriš na Vršič — the "assault on Vršič" — is the road's own hill climb, organised by the Kranjska Gora tourist association. In 2026 it is on 29 August with an 11:00 start; entry is 28 € in advance or 35 € on the day, with online registration from 1 April to 24 August. It is a mass-start climb of 13.5 km, of which 11 km are timed, and it is one of the few days when you can ride the hairpins without traffic. If you have never done one, hill climb events covers how to pace something this long.

If you cannot get there in season, the north side is a good candidate for riding indoors: save the route in Moveee and it can be ridden in Moveee Indoor over the winter with the gradient reproduced from the elevation data. It will not give you the cobbles, which is either a loss or a mercy.

The short version

Climb from Kranjska Gora: 12.2 km, 800 m, 24 hairpins, cobbles in the bends, ride them seated on the outside line. Descend to Trenta: 26 hairpins, no cobbles, rough patches and unbarriered edges, brake early. Stop at the Soča source turn-off at hairpin 49. Come back over the pass or round via Predel. Check the traffic centre the day before, expect it to be closed until May, and take a jacket. In 2026 nobody parks at the top, which suits us fine.