Meet Herzegovina 2024.
Herzegovina cycling clubs are once again launching a cycling tourism initiative, i.e. the recreational road event "Get to Know Herzegovina". Our goal is to promote the beauty of Bosnia and Herzegovina through recreational cycling, while at the same time we want to open the new cycling season in a special way, and educate drivers about the increased number of cyclists on the roads.
Our bike ride will stretch for 129 kilometers, starting from the city of Mostar, passing through Široki Brijeg, Grude, Ljubuški, Čapljina, all the way back to Mostar. Each city on the route will warmly welcome the participants of the cycling event, present their cultural and natural sights and host them like a good host.
Special joy awaits us in Ljubuški, where we will visit Ivane Brlić Mažuranić elementary school in Humac and support the youngest bikers at Dječjoj utrci “Kids Race Gračine”. After that, the road leads us to the beautiful Kravice Waterfalls, and further to Čapljina, where two cycling clubs await us, promising twice as much fun!
After a short break in Čapljina, the ride follows the Ćira railway towards Mostar, where just 7 days later the first Ćiro bicycle race in 2024 will be held, gathering the wider cycling community.
Gathering and departure of all participants of the "Meet Herzegovina" event is at 10:00 a.m. in front of the Croatian Home Herceg Stjepan Kosač (Rondo).
Before departure, the organizers will explain the rules of the cycling event and, if necessary, divide the participants into two groups: FAST and SLOW, each with its own guidelines that are important to follow. Also, the Mostar Cycling Club will provide an accompanying vehicle with water, bananas and quick service.
You can view the cycling route HERE (link).
More info Facebook event (link).
Sponsors of the event are: HT Eronet; Continental Tires; Škoda Apolo.
Thank you for coming and visiting our beautiful Herzegovina! 🤗 🚴 ♂️
Organizer
Široki Cycling Club from Široki Brijeg was founded with the aim of developing cycling in Široki Brijeg and the West Herzegovina County. The address of the club is Fra.Valentina Zovke 12, Široki Brijeg, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Optimized Bike cycling club was founded in 2022 with the aim of developing cycling in the town of Čapljina. The club is located at Trebižat bb; Egret.
The Grude Cycling Club from Grude was founded with the aim of developing cycling in Grude and the West Herzegovina County.
Cycling Club "Čapljina" was founded in 2019 with the aim of promoting, developing and improving cycling. In accordance with the goals of the club, the club operates in the field of sports - cycling. The club is independent in achieving its goals.
The activities of the club are: work planning and development of cycling sport
- organizing and conducting member training in order to prepare for competitions
- teaching and training of club members,
- organizing cycling competitions,
- participation in competitions,
- management of sports facilities of which the Club is a user,
- routeing of new bicycle paths,
- promoting cycling as a way of life,
- encourage the understanding and adoption of ethical values through playing sports,
- cooperation with related organizations in BiH and abroad,
- organizing public forums, round tables, professional presentations and demonstrations on the topic of cycling
The address of the club is Gojka Šuška bb; 88830 Čapljina.
Cycling club Ljubuški from Ljubuški was founded with a aim development of cycling in Ljubuški and Zapadnohercegovačka County. The address of the club is Zrinsko Frankopanska bb, Ljubuški, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Cycling Club Mostar was founded in 2011 as a non-partisan, non-governmental, non-profit association of citizens founded with the aim of promoting, developing and improving cycling sports in the area of Mostar and the entire Herzegovina-Neretva County/Canton.
The goal of BK Hercegovac is to contribute to:
- development and improvement of cycling sport;
- development and improvement of mutual relations of its members in the spirit of sportsmanship and tolerance.
In achieving its goals, the Association performs the following activities:
- advocates:
- for the promotion and popularization of cycling;
- participates in cycling events in Bosnia and Herzegovina and abroad;
- organizes and implements sports and other actions and activities with the content of cycling sports,
- represents the common interests of the members of the Association before city, county, state and sports bodies and organizations;
- connects and approaches organizations of a similar orientation in the country and abroad;
- provides assistance to its members in traffic, sports and technical education.
The association for the promotion of cycling "Hercegovina bicycling" was created as a result of the need to promote cycling in Herzegovina in a comprehensive way, with the desire to gather around it all relevant cycling employees and cycling clubs in order to jointly try to brand Herzegovina as a region desirable for cycling, and which would ultimately contribute to the popularization and massification of cycling, but also to the creation of preconditions for the development of cycle tourism, which in recent years in Europe, but also in the world, is increasingly expanding and becoming an important tourist branch.
Association HerzegovinaBike was founded on February 8, 2013. and gathers members of cycling clubs from Herzegovina. Since its foundation, the association, together with the ministries of resources (Tourism, Culture and Sports), has been actively promoting cycling as cycling tourism first, and then as sport, recreation and a way of life. So far, we have presented a number of projects of active cycling as a sport and recreation, of which we would like to highlight: Bicycle caravans of friendship "Mostar - Vukovar" which gathered over 1,000 cyclists from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Croatia, International bicycle road races "Hercegovina Classic", International multi-day the "Blidinje BIKE Festival" event, which gathers thousands of cyclists and tourists from several countries through a three-day organization, and she was also the holder of the project to mark the European Car-Free Day and organized several cycling events in urban areas. Association "Hercegovina Bicikl" gathers cycling clubs from the areas of Mostar, Široki Brijeg, Posušje, Grud, Drinovac, Ljubuški, Čapljina, Neum, Trebinje, Ravno, Stolac, Jablanica and Rama.
The association for the promotion of cycling "Hercegovina bicycling" together with REDAH participates in several projects related to the sports and tourism promotion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and independently implements the project "By bike through Herzegovina", which passed the competition of the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism and the Firmaprojekt fund of the established from USAID and SIDA organizations. The association is also an active partner in the revitalization project of the Austro-Hungarian narrow-gauge railway, popularly called Ćiro, a project that has received worldwide positive attention and has been covered by many foreign media, and which connected Mostar and Dubrovnik via a bicycle route. Also, together with the West Herzegovina County Office for EU Integration, we implement and actively participate in the implementation of the "CYCLING RURAL" project, which aims to promote rural tourism through bicycle paths and cycle tourism offers. Furthermore, for several years now, the association, in cooperation with the Bicycle Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina and tourist associations, has been implementing a training project for cycle tourism guides, and together with the Regional Development Agency of Herzegovina "REDAH" has been implementing the "Bike Friendly" project in which we educate motels, restaurants and inns about cycle tourism. cyclists as guests and we assign them BikeFriendly tags.
Venue
Mostar is a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located on the banks of the Neretva River and is the cultural and economic center of Herzegovina, as well as the largest city in Herzegovina.[2] Mostar is the administrative seat of Herzegovina-Neretva County[3] and the university, cultural, economic and political center of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mostar is a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located on the banks of the Neretva River and is the cultural and economic center of Herzegovina, as well as the largest city in Herzegovina.[2] Mostar is the administrative seat of Herzegovina-Neretva County [3] and the university, cultural, economic and political center of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Position
Mostar is located in the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the central part of Herzegovina. The city area of Mostar can be geographically described as the hub of northern, western and eastern Herzegovina. The Neretva Canyon stretches through the center of the city, which is why Mostar is known as "the city on the Neretva River". The Mostar Lake reservoir was created by the construction of the dam for HPP Mostar on the river.
Geographical location
It is located 132 km southwest of Sarajevo and 57 km northeast of Ploče. It was created in the transitional area from the low Herzegovinian karst to the mountainous area, where the old trade route from the hinterland crossed the Neretva and continued towards the sea. Mostar is an important traffic hub. It is located on the railway line Ploče (Croatia) - Sarajevo, and it also has an airport. The unique architectural-urban complex consists of part of the former bazaar with shops, artisan workshops, etc., and the approach to the approximately 20 m high stone bridge from 1566 (Old Bridge), which is under UNESCO protection.
Mostar extends into three basins. In the north is Bijelo polje, where most of the northern suburbs are located. In the center is the Mostar basin, where the city of Mostar and most of the western suburbs are located, and in the south is Mostarsko polje (Bišće polje), where most of the southern suburbs and Mostar's industrial zone are located. Bišće polje is the local name for the aforementioned basin, while the name Mostarsko polje is used on different maps.
The most famous hills around the Mostar basin are: Hum, Brkanovo brdo, Galac, Orlovac, Mikuljača, Žovnica, Planinica and Fortica, and the town itself is located at an altitude of 60-80 meters.[2] Two mountains located near Mostar are Velež and Prenj. Neretva and Radobolja flow through Mostar, and in the immediate vicinity of the city there are: Drežanka, Buna, Bunica and Jasenica.
Climate
The view from the Žovnica hill on the western city suburbs and the city of Mostar, dominated by the mountain Velež.
Mostar has a moderate Mediterranean climate with mild but cold winters (with little or no snow), and in hot summers temperatures in the shade can reach up to 45°C. Mostar was the warmest city in the former Yugoslavia, and today in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is, along with Athens, the city with the most sunny days a year. Snow in Mostar is rare. The winters in which the snow stayed in Mostar for more than 15 days were: 1955/56. (15 days), 1962/63. (23 days), 1984/85. (27 days), 2004/05. (15 days) and 2011/12. (26 days).
One of the snowiest winters was in 1971, when 37 cm of snow was measured. There were snowy winters in 1929, 1940 and 1956. Mostar was completely blocked on February 4, 2012. The snowstorm, which lasted more than 60 hours, caused a traffic collapse and paralyzed life in the city. A state of natural disaster has been declared. On February 5, 2012, 88 cm of snow was measured.
The highest measured temperature, the highest average amount of precipitation and the highest number of hours of sunshine measured in Bosnia and Herzegovina were in Mostar. On July 31, 1901, 46.2 °C was measured. In Mostar, the average annual rainfall is 1,515 l/km², while the number of sunny hours in a year is 2,291. On January 24, 1963, the absolute minimum temperature was -10.9 °C, and on July 13, 1984, the absolute maximum air temperature of 41.2 °C was registered. The mean annual temperature is 14.6 °C, the winter 5.8 °C, and the mean summer temperature 23.2 °C.
On August 6, 2008, the temperature at 1 pm in the center of Mostar reached 39 °C, and even 56.4 °C was measured in the sun.[7] At exactly midnight, on the night of Thursday, July 16 to Friday, July 17, 2009, an air temperature of 29.3 °C was recorded in Mostar, which is the highest night temperature recorded since 1893, when meteorological measurements were officially conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mostar was among the warmest cities in Europe in September 2011, which was declared the warmest September in the last 65 years. On September 15, 1987, 40.6 °C was measured in Mostar.[9] On December 14, 2011, Mostar dawned covered in fog, which is quite unusual for this city.[10] The average annual temperature in Mostar in 2011 was 16.2 °C, the same as in 1994, and the warmer of these two years was only 1950, when it was 16.9 °C.[11] With an air temperature of 40.3 °C on July 8, 2012, Mostar had the highest temperature measured in Europe.[
124 l/m² of rain fell in Mostar since Cyclone Juliana on February 12, 2013, which is the highest measured amount of precipitation, not only in the Balkans, but also in Europe. On the same day, Mostar received the second highest amount of precipitation in the world.[13] In the first three months of 2013, 999.7 l/m² fell in Mostar. This quarter is also the wettest in Mostar since 1955, and the previous wettest period was in 1970, when a total of 878 mm fell, or 122 l/m² less. Also, the newly set record amount of precipitation for the month of March is 415.7 liters, which was just measured in March 2013.
The climate in Mostar has changed noticeably in the last ten years. The previously extremely dry climate is today more and more humid, which makes the summer heat unbearable and often ripe for the declaration of a natural disaster. Mostar has a pleasant climate suitable for growing different types of fruits and vegetables. Autumn and winter in Mostar can be extremely rainy.
