When Ali Ford told her friends that she was planning to travel to Albania to go on a bikepacking adventure she received a variety of negative responses, but it didn’t put her off going. Fear of the unknown can be quite a big hurdle to setting out on a gravel bike adventure but based on her über-positive write-up of her trip, we suspect that Ali will definitely be heading back there in the future. If you’d like to get some great insight into this relatively unknown destination, read on.

I knew next to nothing about Albania before setting off there for a bikepacking trip in September 2023. I’d read wild camping was legal and that seemed a good enough reason to go. A friend pointed out that Scotland would have also ticked that box - and he had a point - but by then the flights were booked and three of us were going. 

“Haven’t you seen ‘Taken’?” someone asked in a WhatsApp chat. “Best not to” came the immediate reply, followed by the sinister scream emoji and a couple of rolling heads pissing themselves laughing. Friends who’d never been to this Balkan state seemed to have a view on how safe, or unsafe, it might be and what sort of reception we could expect when we got there. 

True, Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe and still seems raw from years of hardship inflicted by an oppressive regime. As we pedalled through it, we saw stark reminders of its troubled past: hundreds of semi-derelict bunkers; the toxic remains of a superphosphate factory; and everywhere the bold red flag with its black double-headed eagle looking aggressively in two directions… its warning to neighbouring countries is clear - we’re watching you; don’t even think about it.

With baggage like this I half expected to be met with hostility and mistrust, but instead found just the opposite. We must have shown up as oddballs, three foreign women on heavily-laden bicycles, and yet we were consistently welcomed with curiosity, interest and friendliness. It’s true, someone pulled a knife on us at a roadside fountain - but that was simply because it had a homegrown cucumber speared on it and the guy was offering to share. He gruffly gestured for us to take it, carefully cutting it so we all received a piece. A beef tomato followed and then a lump of goat’s cheese. He offered it without fanfare or expectation, as if behaving this generously to outsiders was the most normal thing in the whole world. If only.

There were other encounters as we made our way through the north of the country on roads which varied, often without warning, between tarmac, gravel and dirt. Sometimes we pulled to one side to give way to a herd of sheep or goats, other times we shared the road with horses and carts or slowed down to avoid cows grazing by the verge. Our biggest day of riding was the most sociable. We left Valbonë National Park near the border with Montenegro and descended into Bajram Curri with a German cyclist travelling in the same direction. We swapped bikepackers’ stories of our night in the Accursed Mountains. 

We’d had a decent breakfast and the sun was shining again so it was easy to be swaggy about the ricocheting thunder and torrential rain of the previous evening. We parted company with our new friend in Fierzë, slightly envious that he was going to experience the jaw-dropping trip along the River Drin back to Koman. We’d taken that fjord-like ferry route in the opposite direction 24 hours earlier – hands down the best way of spending 2200 Leke (it sounds a small fortune but if you knock off two noughts you’ve got a rough conversion to Euros). Instead, we headed away from the tiny port and spent the rest of the day climbing towards Dardhë, rewarded by expansive views of the Albanian Alps and lakes created by the giant dam. 

Image courtesy of @Firebirdbex69

Along the way we were joined by a French bikepacker who injected extra joie de vivre into our trio and we rolled on together until we reached the only place for 50km which offered food, beer and a much-needed shower. It felt as though we were in the middle of nowhere, but after a short while a minivan pulled up and we were joined by a small group of local guides who we discovered were in the process of developing the Trans-Dinarica. This is a 4,000km cycle route, several years in the making and launched successfully in July 2024, linking eight countries and promoting sustainable tourism in the Balkans. Emboldened by beers and still sweaty and enthusiastic after a full-on day in the saddle, we agreed to speak on camera about our trip and then shared rakia and orahovac as a half-moon rose over the darkening mountains.

When we flew out of Tirana a week later, I took away much more than I’d arrived with. Memories of spectacular rivers, lakes and mountains; churches and mosques existing comfortably side-by-side; the early morning call to prayer drifting across the River Bunë; the daily search for the tastiest burek; overhead thunder and forked lightning witnessed from my bivvy bag; stray dogs looking for love and scraps of food; children and adults calling out greetings as we passed through their towns and villages and almost every driver raising their hand to acknowledge us. Albania is a country chock-full of surprises and contrasts, rough round the edges and ready with so much warmth to welcome visitors. I’ll definitely return… there’s at least 3,500km of the Trans-Dinarica route still to explore and after all, the quest for the best burek is ongoing.

My kit for this trip

Anyone who rides small-framed bikes knows the struggle is real when it comes to bikepacking. Lack of rear-wheel clearance means I’m limited to an 11-litre seatpack, and while I’m a big fan of the Salsa Anything Cradle which I have bolted on my bars, it does mean I’m more likely to front-load the bike which can play havoc with the handling. On this trip though, I had the opportunity to trial a Tailfin Aeropack. Conventional wisdom says it’s a bad idea to try a new set-up for the first time on an ambitious trip, but luckily this went like an absolute dream and the Aeropack enabled me to spread the weight evenly between front and back. I kept my sleeping gear (sleeping bag, bivvy bag and sleep mat) on the front of the bike, tools in the centre triangle and everything else went into the Aeropack. 

Image courtesy of @Firebirdbex69

‘Bike faff’ was kept to a minimum because unpacking and re-packing a top-opening bag is so much simpler and my kit stayed 100% dry despite being subjected to several alpine downpours. By the end of the trip, I could have sold the Aeropack set-up several times over to curious bikepackers I met along the way, but I wouldn’t have parted with it. As an added bonus, it was super-easy to morph the bike back into a race machine the following weekend for the Wessex CX League. I’m an absolute convert and I genuinely think it’s the case that once you’ve “Tailfinned” you don’t go back. Or rather you do go back – time and time again.

Additional images provided courtesy of @Firebirdbex69