Italian and Croatian cycle roads

Italian and Croatian cycle roads

Italian and Croatian roads have been constructed without thought about cyclists (similar to New Zealand and the UK).
There are differences between Italy and Croatia though – generally Croatian roads are maintained and Italian roads are not maintained. Both Italy and Croatia control traffic speeds in designated urban areas. Croatia have ribs across the road that are noisy when you drive across them or alternatively chatter the teeth of cyclists. Italy uses the cost efficient method of potholes to slow traffic. The cost-effective Italian method would, of course, gain top marks under the New Zealand number eight wire methodology. The other difference is that Italian drivers are more used to cyclists than the drivers in Croatia. So there are normalised behavior patterns around cyclists in Italy. In Croatia drivers would either give you a very wide berth, or they would hoot at you and try to nick you with their side mirrors.

So it is no surprise that everybody in Croatia tells you how wonderful the road ahead will be for cyclists. Of course the Croatian roads have good views and the road surfaces are well maintained. The trouble is the roads are designed for at most two trucks traveling in opposing directions. Always when there are two cars on the road with us, the car behind us pushes between us and the oncoming driver, forcing the oncoming driver to the edge of his side of the road. So if there is one or more trucks involved it becomes Russian roulette on who is doing what.
Cyclists are forced on these roads for large sections along the Croatian coast road.
So don’t take any cycling tips from the Croatian public.

So we have decided to do some island hopping to avoid these roads. It will slow our progress a bit, some days will have less cycling, but it may be more interesting.

We have decided to enter Pag via Zadar, ferrying off Pag onto the road of death for a couple of hours, then using the ferryman for passage onto Rab, from where we obtain passage to Krk.

The above paragraph is a short extraction from the the Star Wars prequel.

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