Take the Green Way on Two Wheels Cyclotourism in Slovakia

Introduction Our duties and a hectic lifestyle in the past few years pushed cycling and active spending of our free time to the top of our leisure activities. After work we usually want to relax and cyclo-tourism is one of the best healthy ways how to release the stress we have at work or school. The magic of cycling is the perfect connection with the enviroment that is all around us. So let´s get up from your couch, forget your car, your duties and take your bike for a ride.

History of cyclotourism in Slovakia In the 90‘s, mountain bikes appeared in Slovakia and they‘ve totally changed the way of motion in a mountainous terrain, but also the vision of cyclo-tourism. In 1994, the first cyclo-touristy club in Slovakia was founded and called „Slovakian cyclo-club“. They have prepared a system of tagged cycle routes and step by step most of them were marked. Marked routes in cities, mountains and fields offer to cyclists a wonderful adventure throughout Slovakia. It depends only on them, what they want to see and where they want to ride their bikes.

Cyclo-tourism in Slovakia is just at the beggining The succes of cyclo-tourism in Slovakia depends on these factors – interesting cyclo-webs, wonderful landscapes and mainly on the attitude of people to cycling. We‘re getting pretty close to accomplish the first factor in comparison with other European countries. The second factor, there is no problem at all because we live in one of the most beautiful country, according to our enviroment and natural beauties. The biggest problem is with the“ mentality“ of people in Slovakia. Most of them still think that a bicycle is still just a tool which can take them to work. That‘s not true anymore, and people need to see the other opportunities which a bicycle can give them to fully awake up cyclotourism in Slovakia.

Through Slovakia on bikes Over km of cycling routes in Slovakia are legalized and marked. Marked cycling routes can be devided into two groups: routes for traffic bikes routes for mountain bikes. Cycling routes are also marked with different colours for instance a red coulour is used to mark long distance cycling routes, with blue and green colours are marked regional cycling routes and yellow is for short distance cycling routes. Since 2003 the Slovakian cyclo-club systematically has improved the quality of the cycling routes, including construction of resting areas, guide signs that shows monuments and interesting places etc. The best equipped cycling routes are built around Myjava, Veľká Javorina and Bradlo.

Which cycling routes are the most popular? To the most popular cycling routes along rivers belongs to Dunajská route, Vážska cycling route, along the river Morava and Moravian cycling route, also the cycling route nest near the river Poprad between cities Poprad and Svit. The best cyling routes focused on enviroment and monuments are Kopaničiarska, Kysucká, Oravská and many more. An interesting, newly added cycling route is „Hradná cesta“ that starts in Bratislava and leads around Žilina, under Strečno and back. There are a lot of things to see, including many monuments, castles, museums, and city reservations.

The presentation was made by Juraj Krkošek student of the III.T class Thank you for your attention

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein