our 4islands story

Mitja and Grega have been training and racing for more than ten years together. They started as a coach and client at the Energija Domžale Club when Gregor started with mountain biking. At that time Mitja was already an old trouper in the sport as a racer and a coach. They trained a lot together and Gregor grew in to a great athlete. With time Gregor became a coach and worked as Mitja`s right hand with the team. Chemistry, which was in this team of mountebankeries led to the first performance at the 4 Islands stage race in 2016.

Due to their common lifestyle Mitja and Gregor have been training together already in the past. Soon the idea was born to join as a team for the stage race »4 islands«.  It was a natural fit they just work perfect together, and it sounded as a great challenge for bought because of race’s uniqueness – it’s the only race in the world which takes place for four consecutive days at four different Croatian islands.

At first, everything seemed to be really just an idea, but they soon started working on the plan systematically. A good training plan was needed since primarily the end results depends on both physical and psychological readiness.
In addition, they had to take care of logistics, support team, equipment and finances. They got enough support from the sponsors, and in return they decided to provide video reports of the entire race. Besides Mitja and Gregor, the crew consisted of Mitja’s father Marjan, masseuse Vida and cameraman Lenart. They prepared their biking equipment, as well as food, and they were ready to go. On 12^th of April 2016 the tam Energijateam.com left to the island Krk, where the whole city was breathing in the spirit of the race.

Even though they knew what to expect, they were both surprised about the technical difficulty of some parts of the track. Nevertheless, they turned out to be a good team – with his youth and strength, Grega was pulling both of them forward and Mitja’s technical skills compensated for all the issues they faced during the race. They coped with all the issues of technical trail, demanding up-hills, descents, traveling, packing, sailing with the boat to other Islands for stages. And all went perfect they finished 4^th.

Video legacy the team left behind on YouTube from that year was legendary and people loved it. It became a guide for next years participants to check on what it takes to get to the finish line of 4 islands race.

Mitja and Gregor fell in love with stage racing and it became a main occupation in their next goal. They raced as a team on Transdinara stage race and on all 4Islands editions held in later years as well as many other marathon and stage races in a region. They made video reports on most of their turnouts. you can watch videos in our video galery.

After first year they were sure you need a full suspension bike for this kind of racing, but unfortunately in the following year, they didn’t get their new bikes til the date of race and had to race again on their hard-tail bikes. Additionally, Mitja got sick shortly before the race but he felt better every day, which resulted in the great 13. place. The third year they raced, level of teams got even stronger since the competition was part of UCI system. Amateur and UCI teams were racing in same race with amateurs starting 5minutes behind UCI team. Mitja & Gregor had to race as an amateur team as Mitja is over 40 and holding masters licence. They race good and fast fighting for 1 & 2^nd place in this 2^nd amateur start every stage. At the end results were put together with UCI teams and they finished 16^th in a general classification of the last edition of a 4Islands race.

As said they love this race. Organisers are great, locals are fabulous hosts, it’s fun to be a part of it and we all look forward to next year to see what this team has prepared for us.
Mitja & Gregor said it’s going to be a bit different as we are used to from them, they plan to mentor some younger riders in the race and let’s see how will this turn out for them.