GIVI Magazine - Novembre 2016

ENGLISH TEXT captions 1) LAKE OF BLED IS SITUATED IN HEART OF SLOVENIAN ALPS, CLOSE TO MOST BEAUTIFUL ALPINE ROADS. BEST VIEW IS FROM CASTLE. PREDJAMA CASTLE WAS BUILD IN MEDIEVAL TIME JUST ON MOUTH OF CAVE. THIS CASTLE IS SITUATED 11 KM FROM POSTOJNA. ADRIATIC SEA AND CITY IZOLA, VIEW FROM HILL LOCALLY CALLED BELVEDER IN DIRECTION OF TRIEST. IZOLA USED TO BE ISLAND. 2) COFFE PREPARED IN TRADITIONAL STYLE AND SERVED WITH CUBE OF TURKISH JELLY RATLUK (RAHAT LOKUM). MOSTAR LANDMARK, OLD BRIDGE OVER RIVER NERETVA AND OLD TOWN STREET AND MINARET. ON 100 KILOMETERS FROM JABLANICA RIVER NERETVA KISSES INTERESTING CANYONS FULLY DOWN TO MOSTAR. 3) DALMACIA BRIDGE MASLENICKI. THE ROAD IS RUNNING 28 METER HIGH OVER SEA. COMBINING FERRY AND ROAD GIVES SCENT OF ADVENTURE. FROM LATE SPRING TO EARLY SUMMER THE ROADS AND FERRY BOATS ARE DESERTED.A BEAUTIFUL VIEW OF PRAGUE BRIDGES TC MOTO SHOP AND GIVI GP road races in seventies), then heading west for some 30 kilometres to catch short ferry trip to island of Cres. Crossing Cres and visit to island of Losinj is must. When in Mali Lošinj, take a walk around the coast, under pine trees and breathe deep. Lišinj in for century known as place to treate respiratory problems. From Lošinj-Cres we take short ferry trip again, now to island of Krk. And from Krk to island of Rab. And after visit to Rab we take ferry to main land where the most beautiful part of coastal road begins. This is scenic and riding road so motorcyclist usually forget about stopping for coffe until they reach Paklenica (nature park). Here you need to take final decision: to turn right and visit island of Pag crossing the bridge, or devoting left and visit cities od Zadar, Split and following down the road to river Neretva and Dubrovnik. But, what about dirt roads? When in area of Paklenica, stop for a coffe and look uphill! This is mount Velebit. And there exists old gravell road connecting coast to mainland. Have a good look at map and find pass Mali Alan, it is at around 1000 meters about sea level. Spent one hour of riding. It is allowed and free of charge. You will enjoy white rocks, best view to the sea and smell of herbs. You will stop on the mountain, for certain. Please accept advice. Prepare some drink and sandwiches. BOSNIAAND HERZEGOVINA, touch of Islam. While cruising down the coastal road Jadranska magistrala take care when the road meets delta of river Neretva! Do not think twice to turn left. We are going to cross the border to Bosnia in the direction of Mostar. If you are there in late spring then the Neretva river area will be covered with scent of citrus trees. Valley of river Neretva is worth of visit by itself. So follow the valley of river Neretva at least up to Jablanac village. Half the way plan long stop and visit city of Mostar. View on Ottoman stone bridge will come like cream on top of cake. While in Mostar, park somewhere close to the old bridge, better on right side looking in the direction of river flow. Then make a walk in this old city, pay attention when “mujezin” (muezzin) will call from minaret for prayer. Listen. Bosnia and Hercegovina is country with important Ottoman, Islamic sign. Close to the bridge take a seat in one of scenic coffe shops and, please, do not order common espresso, but traditional coffe served with cube of sweet jelly, ratluk. CZECH, architecture and beer Country is pleasant to travel at any time, but maybe the best is to plan your trip in August when MotoGP event visit Brno circuit and when Czech people leave cities for holidays on Adriatic coast. Czech cities and villages are colourful, full of history and culture. City architecture carry strong sign of Austro-Hungarian times, villages can show what communist period left in time. After Brno you should definitely stop at Prague, city on river Vltava, today capital, once capital of Roman Empire. 2000 years in between left many things to see. And taste, of course. Prague is vibrant, full of tourists and artists. But the rest of Czech cities are not, are just calm cities. The country gives you calm feeling while riding between large fields of wheat, forests, and fields … and rivers. Czech love water sports so you can see many of them canoeing. And camping. If we say that Czech people are clever, is not enough. They came out of 1993 political changes with almost no damage to the country. Well, they almost lost motorcycle industry (Jawa and ČZ, in 1960 – 1970 capable to be decent competition to MV Agusta in GP races and in strong in off road), but today car factories are doing well. Half of Czech people work SLOVENIA AND MOTORCYCLES 35.000 registered and circulating motorcycles (over 250 ccm) is today size. Somewhere in 1985 and in later years Italian brands Laverda and Piaggio were the first of western made bikes to be regularly sold and serviced on jugoslav teritory. Kawasaki bikes arrived few years later and Yamaha followed in 1991. On first sight people fell in love with big sporty motorcycles, then custom bikes became popular and market growth was significant until 2010 when economic crisis boomerang arrived promptly and heavily like in other EU countries did. But here we are talking about small country and weak economy so downfall was heavy. Today market is worth half of the before crisis size, about two thousands new bikes per year. Yamaha and Honda are best represented and best sold motorcycles. But BMW R 1200 GS is market leader. But in general we can say that circulating motorcycle park is modern, few years old only. Average car in Slovenia is 8 years old or even older. The same happened in Croatia and Serbia, too. Croatia was heavily beaten by crisis. Motorcycle market reached its peak with 4.000 big bikes in 2008 and fell down to 570 bikes in 2013! Serbia is even more suffering, motorcycle magazines totally collapsed and disappeared. But Serbian motorcyclist know how to run and repair old bikes, so do not be worry about servicing. TC Moto shop is oldest and one of today biggest motorcycle shops in Slovenia, based in Ljubljana suburb, close to most important shopping centre and city ring, so is easy to reach by car or motorcycle. Friendly staff is well experienced. They represent and sell Givi products from 2000, but they starting to sell first pieces in 1996 already. Rado Kerlatec is head of the company: “Givi is showing nice and steady grow adding new products to the list. At our the beginning, so we are talking more than 16 years back, there were only few models of side & top cases but more colours to chose. Today we have one basic colour and many styles. Preferences of motorcyclist are more focused on shape and style of cases, sharp lines are very popular.” As we can see on the roads Givi is motorcyclist first choice today regardless of competition coming from motorcycle brands parts catalogues. “Delivery times and products quality are excellent,” Kerlatec explains. “And this is important. As a result 80% of our Givi business comes from cases. We strongly recommend to our customers that mounting should be done by professional. We have our service partner and we do not have customer complains at all.” in industry today. And one can see on roads too that people live better life. Sales of motorcycles are in consistent grow and the level is at around 13.000 new registration per year which is fine for country of 10,5 milion citizens. But however the life improved, the drivers behavior and road conditions did not. Road fatalities are close to 700 per year, one third more than in Austria and six time more than in Slovenia. So be in control all the time. Aggressive driving / riding is common fact in all east European countries. Givi Magazine Novembre 2016 - Dossier Est Europa  39