The CRO Race is Croatia’s leading international stage race, carrying the professional peloton across a country where Mediterranean coastline, limestone mountains and the continental interior lie remarkably close together. Its changing routes connect Adriatic islands and historic ports with inland towns, steep karst terrain and major cities, creating six days of racing shaped by Croatia’s unusually varied geography.
Around the Peloton follows the CRO Race stage by stage, exploring Roman and Venetian heritage, medieval settlements, national parks and communities shaped by the Adriatic and the Dinaric landscape. Beyond the racing, the route provides a journey through Croatia’s complex position between Mediterranean, Central European and Balkan worlds.
The final stage of the CRO Race begins in a town visited only a day earlier, but almost immediately takes the race into a different Croatia. Stage 5 approached Samobor through vineyards and wooded hills after a long journey from…
After four stages dominated by the Adriatic, Stage 5 moves inland and introduces a Croatia built around rivers, forests, castles, vineyards and the old approaches to Zagreb. The change is immediate. There are no islands, no Venetian ports and no…
The fourth stage of the CRO Race crosses the Istrian peninsula from south to north-east, beginning beside one of the greatest surviving buildings of the Roman Adriatic and finishing in a city whose modern identity was created by ships, factories…
Stage 3 begins on an island and ends on a hilltop, but between those two points the CRO Race crosses a much larger geographical boundary. The opening kilometres wander through the interior of Krk, where villages, dry-stone fields and sheltered…
Stage 2 is short, but the landscape changes quickly enough to make the distance feel larger than it is. From Biograd na Moru, the race heads north along the coast towards Zadar, then turns towards the rougher country beneath Velebit before…
The CRO Race opens on the Dalmatian coast, but Stage 1 does not stay there for long. From Split, the route turns inland through Stobreč and the country east of the city, crosses the old territory of Poljica, reaches the…
