Two wheels · revised 2 June 2026
The interesting roads are the ones the motorway skipped.
Published . Updated . Written for riders, not as a route you can buy. No tour is arranged from this desk.
Category A
Your limit is not the car’s limit
Category A motorcycles, in the public speed table, default to 50 km/h in town, 80 outside town, 100 on a motorway and 90 on an express road. A car beside you may be legal at 140 on the same motorway. The sign still wins over both numbers.
The full comparison is in the speed and signs guide.
The charge
The vignette question
Public explanations of the toll rules place vehicles with fewer than four wheels, motorcycles and tricycles among them, outside the vignette fee. There is nothing to buy for a straightforward solo motorcycle, and nothing for tolbg to sell. A sidecar outfit or an unusual registration can fall into another category. Before a long trip, read the exemption language on the toll administration’s own site and match it to the registration document, rather than to a forum post.
Every other rule still applies: speed, alcohol, lights, winter tread, and the prohibition on behaving in a way that endangers other people. Exemption from a fee is not exemption from the Road Traffic Act.
The Balkan range
Shipka, Troyan, Petrohan
Shipka is the classic crossing of the Balkan Mountains between the rose valleys to the south and Gabrovo to the north. The road climbs in hairpins to a monument on the ridge. It is a national road, not a motorway. The surface can be good and the sightlines short. A group that bunches on the way up leaves no room for a coach coming down.
Troyan Pass, also called Beklemeto, is higher and more exposed. Petrohan, on I-1 between Sofia and Montana, is the western crossing people use when they are not on Hemus. All three can be closed or restricted for snow, sometimes before the 15 November tyre date and sometimes after 1 March. The winter page is the companion to this one. Carry a layer you can put on at the top even if the city you left was hot. Mountain weather does not negotiate.
Gravel at the edge of a freshly swept bend, diesel spilled on a hairpin, and livestock on a minor road in the foothills are ordinary hazards. They do not appear on a motorway diagram.
South and the coast
Struma, Rila, the sea
The Struma motorway is a quick way south until Kresna gorge, where the road narrows and the trucks remain. For a rider the gorge demands a cool pace and a visible position, not a pass. Roads toward Rila monastery and the Borovets side of the mountain leave the motorway and become valley roads with tourist traffic in summer.
The Black Sea between Varna and Burgas is road I-9, not a finished motorway. Resorts mean 50 km/h, pedestrians, and a lot of rented cars in July. It is a pleasant ride in May or late September and a slow one in the school holidays. South of Burgas toward Sozopol and the Turkish border at Malko Tarnovo the road is quieter and more twisted. Fuel stops thin out. Start the stretch with a full tank.
A motorway is rest for the wrists. The pass is the reason most riders came.
Use the motorway to connect the days. Read the national road for the day itself.
Riding notes that survive a change in the law
- Assume filtering between lanes is not a permitted manoeuvre. Nothing on this site invites it.
- A helmet and protective clothing are the difference between a slide and a hospital stay. The legal minimum and your own standard are not the same sentence.
- At night, a dark jacket on an unlit I-road disappears. Use the lights you have, and a reflective layer when you stop.
- Park off the carriageway. A hairpin viewpoint is not a lay-by just because the view is good.
- If you ride in a group, agree the regrouping points before the pass, not on the radio in the middle of it.
Alcohol, phone use and the duty to ride at a speed you can stop from are the same ideas as for cars, with less metal around you. The general limit of 0.5 per mille is described on the car page. Stricter limits can apply to newer licence holders.
Sources
Speed categories follow the published table of permissible limits. The vignette treatment of vehicles with fewer than four wheels follows public toll guidance and should be re-read on bgtoll.bg if your machine is not a standard solo motorcycle. Road character is geographical description, not a condition report.