Istra Land 2024

We were just informed by Istra Land organisation that third in the women's category was actually Jolien van Uden, 27 h 37 min. Congratulations!

Istra Land 2024 officially finished at 6 o'clock in the evening. More riders arrived during Monday and the scratch rate was in total rather low.

There are no official times and rankings yet, because everything needs to be confirmed by checking GPS-tracks. Unofficially Geno Villafano reached the finish in exactly 18 hours. The podium was completed by Rares Turtoi in 19 h 8 min and Nicolau Prats Coma only three minutes later. Fastest woman was Mascha Wahlig, riding for 22h 23 min, followed by Nina Eim exactly one hour later, and Katja Stenbacka, who took 28 h 52 min.

So now it's time to relax, have a chat with fellow riders and maybe enjoy beautiful Istria for some more hours or days.

I hope you enjoyed following the dots and the DotWatcher-commentary of Istra Land 2024. Thanks for reading, hope to see you on the bike.

Today was yet another beautiful day in Istria.

While riders were bothered by road closures due to other cyclists yesterday, today nature made itself felt. While some actually spotted wild boars, others were luckily only warned of a bear strolling around and were probably very happy to avoid a personal meeting.

At the moment there are still around 25 riders out there and it looks like most of them will be heartily received at the finish line tomorrow, just like roughly a hundred were today.

Day 2 kept its promise and offered widely great weather on the track. Riders were dripping in at the finish line over the whole day. Among them was around 9 o'clock in the morning Nina Eim, recent Olympian and second fastest woman.

But there are also still a lot of participants out on the trails. The end of the serpent of riders is around Cape Kamenjak at the moment, probably aiming for a 4-day-finish. There's a larger group gathering around km 300, including Sofiane and Adrien, who will most likely arrive in Basovizza in the afternoon of day 3. And some are obviously dedicated to ride on through the night and reach the finish line without any further longer breaks.

We heard some riders had a bit of trouble with road closures due to the Istria300 event, a recreational road race. We all know that's irritating, especially when you're tired and lacking sleep. But in my opinion it's part of the bikepacking game. Speaking for myself, I got hold-up by the Swiss practising shooting several times, collapsed bridges and fenced hotels in the middle of what was supposed to be the track in Italy, the CroRace and some rallye event at Istra Land 2023. In fact I can't remember a single event without any external interference. So to everyone affected today: chin up! You can't be stopped by negligibilities like that.

all photos by Giuliano Kuren/Istra Land organisation

Geno Villafano and Mascha Wahlig are the winners of Istra Land 2024.

Geno finished after 18 hours around 3 o'clock at night, being the fastest overall and very similar to Gregor Lah's time last year. Since the route was not completely the same, one cannot compare times exactly. The last part of the race is supposed to be a little harder, while on the descent of the Vojak riders might be able to safe some time. One thing is for sure: altogether we saw an impressive performance by Geno. Second position didn't change neither since yesterday evening, Rares Turtoi claimed a spot on the podium.

Mascha Wahlig came in around 7 in the morning, winning the women's category. She was about an hour faster than Hannah Ghazi-Idrissi in 2023. We haven't talked about Mascha yet. She has finished the Hellenic Mountain Race this year in 8th overall position, leaving all other women and most men behind. Just three weeks ago, she was fastest woman at Sneak Peaks and she also finished this year's Atlas Mountain Race.

This is Mascha at the finish of the HMR:

We don't have exact finishing times and pictures from Basovizza yet but will hand them in later.

As we heard from the ground, the weather has been better than expected and it seemed that all riders have been spared from rain. The forecast for the night includes no rain neither. It was quite warm and humid and the mountains showed their mystical side.

On the way to the sea, the sun broke through the clouds.

Tomorrow is supposed to be warm and sunny and a great day to ride bikes.

In the morning, the front pack moved at about 20 km/h, but the speed increased significantly after CP 1 on Vojak peak to approximately 24-25 km/h average.

After roughly 15 hours we have a clear leader of the race. Geno Villafano put more than 30 km between himself and his closest persuers. We didn't find any previous results of Geno at bikepacking races, but he's racing shorter gravel races quite regularly and his Strava shows more than 15.000 km in 2024. He just reached the foot of the ascent back into the highlands at km 355.

Rares Turtoi is in second place at the moment, closely followed by Pablo Villar Arribi. Mascha Wahlig seems to be the fastest woman, sitting in 8th place overall.

We don't expect the leaders to have extensive stops. They might slow down a bit, but most likely continue to the finish line throughout the night. Considering his performance so far, Geno should reach the finish line around 3 in the morning.

The midpack is scattered between Most-Rasa and Pula, so between km 150 and 240. Riders planning to ride for three days have their first night typically around Vozilici, and so do Sofiane Sehili and Adrien Liechti. Althoug their moving at party pace, they look like bikepacking is serious business.

We'll be back in the morning to check what happened at night and will most likely already have a winner.

At 9 o'clock today around 300 riders left Basovizza for their journey around the Istrian peninsula.

With 3.5 hours into the race, it is far too early to predict any results, but what we can state is that the front of the race has almost reached CP 1 at Vojak peak, therefore already covered 74 km with more than 2000 m of elevation in an off-road terrain. Around 30 riders already opened some kind of a gap on the main peloton, but as said before, it's too early to draw any conclusions from that.

The first two editions of Istra Land contained completely different weather conditions. The inaugural race in 2022 was heavily impaired not only by rainfall on raceday itself, but ten days in advance. Peanut butter mud made it sometimes even impossible to push your bike (and eventually ended the life of my rear derailleur and ride). In contrast 2023 provided perfect late summer conditions.

This year's weather seems to lay somewhere in between. According to Bea Mezzena Lona, who is not only organising Istra Land, but is also an expert on local weather models, the weather may vary locally. While the mountains are expected to be cloudy and there will probably be some showers passing by, the weather at the sea should be a bit better. The good news for everyone, who is not intending to finish within 24 hours, is, that there'll be a big improvement on Saturday.

Riders took the chance to acclimatise to the local conditions on a social ride today.

Since lime stone, which we have a lot of along the route, is known to be quite slippery when wet, riders should be ready to ride with caution where necessary. But, as Bea is emphasising: it's nothing compared to 2022! As someone who has been there back then I can confirm: nothing is anything compared to 2022.

The line-up for Istra Land 2024 includes some quite well-known names. Those are the folks you should definitely keep an eye on:

First to name is last year's winner Gregor Lah. He rode in an impressive manner in 2023, requiring not more than 17 h 20 min. In 2024 he finished the GranGuanche Audax Gravel in a strong 6th position.

Another Istra Land veteran is Manuel Truccolo, placed 6th in 2024. He's an experienced ride with quite some podium finishes in events like the Hellenic Mountain Race and Italy Divide. In 2024 he won the pairs category at the Atlas Mountain Race.

Sofian Sehili and Adrien Liechti probably don't need any introduction. But on the other hand, their record is far too impressive to spare. Sofiane is a three time winner of the Silk Road Mountain Race, winner of the Tour Divide, the Atlas Mountain Race, Italy Divide and achieved countless more podiums. And he can put a lot of roof tiles on a cargo bike. Adrien won the Hellenic Mountain Race and Ascend Armenia in 2023, Dead Ends & Cake in 2021 plus podiums at the Silk Road Mountain Race and the Tour Divide. As far as we know, they will have a rather relaxed approach, maybe riding together as they did earlier - for example when they finished first pair at the 2021 Two Volcano Sprint.

And let's not forget about Anatole Naimi, who showed impressive speed at the Transcontinental Race in 2023.

Sticking out of the women's field is Nina Eim, participant of the 2024 Olympic Games' triathlon, finishing 12th. In Paris, she rode the 40 km in 58:16 min. It'll be exiting to watch a world class athlete in a considerable different setting, which is - as far as we can see - new to her. But according to her Instagram she seems well prepared.

Some experienced and higher ranked athletes include Jolie van Uden, second fastest woman of GranGuanche Audax Gravel 2024, Cathrin Beubler, sixth woman at Seven Serpents Quick Bite, and Hanna Claesdotter, an Istra Land veteran, coming in as sixth fastest woman in 2023.

And finally, we wish Stevie and Tom Thissen, one of our fellow commentators here at DotWatcher, a most pleasant ride.

From next Friday the third edition of Istraland will be on, probably one of the best ways to say farewell to summer. The event circles the Istrian peninsula in a clockwise direction, covering a good 400 km and about 5000 m difference in altitude. The route is mostly off-road, about 70 %, but virtually completely rideable.

By ultracycling standards, the event is rather a sprint. It took last year‘s winner Gregor Lah only 17 hours and 20 minutes to finish, closely followed by Alexander Kopp. Fellow dotwatcher-commentator Hannah Ghazi-Idrissi crossed the finish line after 22 hours and ten minutes as the fastest woman. However there’s no need to hurry but rather a bunch of reasons to take your time and enjoy what Istria has to offer. Quite a lot of riders didn’t finish before day 4 last year, and rather jumped into the Adriatic sea a couple of times.

The track

The race starts and finishes in Basovizza, an Italian town close to Triest. The track first leads upon a higher, hilly region, which was still covered in fog during the morning hours in 2022 – a quite mystical setting. Last year though, there was sun all around.

The track then leads into Ucka Nature Park, this year - as in 2022 - including Istrias highest peak Vojak at an altitude of 1401 m. Views are breathtaking up there. The organizers decided to spare the riders the 10 km rocky descend, which caused quite some numb fingers during past editions.

After about a 100 km a large part of the climbing is already done and the riders will be approaching the sea. The route follows more or less the eastern Istrian coastline to Cape Kamenjak, the most southern point of the peninsula.

Shortly after passing the cape, riders will be crossing Pula, Istria's largest city and a good opportunity to stock up on food and drinks. Moving up along the west coast the track passes small towns and beautiful beaches. The terrain stays more or less flat until km 350, where a 500 m climb leads back into higher regions and finally - on a slightly more northern route than last year - back to Basovizza.

What gear to bring?

Riders have been lively debating on the question what gear suits the track best. I myself felt the first half to be quite bumpy and was very happy with my full suspension MTB. The second half definitely ran smoother in 2023 and most likely the majority of riders will go for gravel bikes, which in my opinion is perfectly good, but I'd definitely advise to put some wider tires on.

The organizers of Istraland, Bea and Luca, offer the riders a marvelous route, a mixture of mountains and the sea, a bit of tarmac, smooth gravel and some rocky sections. Let's hope for good weather and dry conditions and a great summer farewell ride for everyone taking part.