Last week we took an late autumn ride in Leaota mountains. I promise Cromo that I will show him the mountains and that I did. Lucky us we catch a superb day, cold but very beautiful with clear sky and and billion dollars sunsetΒ π.
This was my first time in Leaota mountains, and we ware both lucky. Wild mountains with rough technical trails. Loving it!
We leave you some pics and an edit, and you can find the track here. Enjoy!Β π€
This year we visit 2 times this trails because they are just superb. Mellow trails with ups and downs in a beautiful forest near some old historical villages where you can find great accommodation and food. You could not ask for more believe me.
We strongly recommend you to stay at Agrotouristic Guesthouse Elena, in Crit village. Man, the food is fantastic and the hosts too. Friendly people with nothing to care but their guests. We eat so much and so good that we had to roll out of the beds to reach our bikes :))) Seriously!
And what goes well after a good meal? We tell you, a good single track thru the forest that ends up in anΒ orchard of pears and nuts! Perfect combination! After this we stopped at the local pub (birt) to have a beer with the locals. Always an animated experience.
No more words just pictures now. Hope we given you a good idea on how to spend an weekend there. The tracks you could do are these:Β Track 1Β , Track 2.Β Enjoy and ride safe!Β π΅ββπ»π
So we took a last trip to Veliko Tarnovo to attend to the Halloween ride, curtsy of Old Mountain Epic. It was all Nedko’s idea and this I think is the third edition of the event.
The ride itself it’s a night ride on one of the tracks, which is a very fun thing to do, especially if you have some powerful lights to scare off the creatures of the night that Nedko summons up for the event ππ.
But for us was just a pretext to go ride Veliko Tarnovo’s trails and to see the crew from Veliko again, always a pleasure to go shred with these guys. I think next year we will plan some more trips to better discover Bulgaria. Not that we have ridden all the trails we could in Romania, but they are similar and we just want to ride more and more and more π .
The event was fun and as I said, the night ride it’s something that each of us must do at least once. I’m starting to like it more and more.
The trails were harder because of the leaves and the loose terrain but we had fun anyway, just check out the clip :D.
This is an old one, but quite a beautiful one, one of the best bike packing adventure we had this year. Yeah, we could had some less rain, but who are we to complain?! we had an good night sleep in dry cloths… heck we even found slippers in the hut, and we had some good drink to ease our sorrow! This is how trail riding, hunting and enjoying looks like!
These are Cindrel mountains, some beautiful, mellow and sometimes unwelcoming mountains in Romania. For sure we will redo this one just as we planed it, hut included because its just superb right there in the middle of the forest! With some good luck, we will skip the raining days.
The plan was to do a bigger ride and explore the west part of the mountain. But, because of the rain that started sooner then expected, we had to cut short the first day and reach the hut earlier. We ware soaking wet when we reached it. The only luck in that day was the fireplace that we found in the hut where we could dry our clothes… aaaa and the slippers. We had a good night sleep and in the morning a beautiful day awaited… or better said half a day.
We did some serious pushbike back on to the ridge of the mountain and straight on to Cindrel peak. After this we hold the ridge to Frumoasa peak, and then take the rocky road to Canaia Refuge. The single track down to the refuge was beautiful! Just when we reached the refuge, the rain started again. And what a rain, it was poring like crazy. After a while we just didn’t care anymore and started riding in the rain. It was a cold rain, our hands and feet ware freezing. I think I almost prayed for the rain to stop :D. But it didn’t matter we didn’t had an inch of dry clothes on us anymore… the rain didn’t stop until we reached the car, but after a while we blend in. It was rainingΒ so much that all the mud was whipped. The stones ware grippy then before and I for one could ride with full thrust and ease. Until we reached our car, we had some good segmentsΒ of beautiful single track. There was a portion of the trail that looked more like a poolΒ then a trail. It was a flat surface of water on top of some gnarly rooks hidden underneath :))).
Beautiful, brilliant but we didn’t deserve so much rain. Hope next year we will have quite some contrast here, but we shell see.
We leave you some pics and and some movies to better understand our complains. Second movie is all about the rain :))). Beautiful memories, here’s the tracks: DAY 1, DAY 2. Cheers!
This year was new bike year. After riding a pump track on a hard tail of a friend of mine, in my head the idea of owning a hard tail was implemented. So this is how the conceiving of Cromo starts.
This bike is made half with second hand parts, half with new parts. After some time and lots of lets say planning, the bike took shape and its a beautiful one. And rides like no other… its just perfect.
I can say one thing, if there exists the one bike, the most beautiful one of them all, it must be a hard tailΒ π.
DT swiss CSW AM wheels second hand with MagicΒ Mary tires new;
BX components dropper post new;
Guide R brakes second hand;
Race face Turbine crank second hand but in perfect conditions;
GS shifter and rear derailleur second hand but in good condition;
Revers components saddle new;
Fox 34 140mm fork 2016 model new;
Truvativ descendant and steam new;
Even if I went a bit over the budget it is still a good deal and came up way to good for how it looks and handles :D. I’ll be using this bike to have fun in the city, for trail riding where I have more mellow terrain (like Viscri or even Ciocanu rides) and for longer bike packing trips where I know I have bigger climbs that I can do on the bike (if it’s pushbike I rather push my enduro bike). I’ll just leave you some pictures and a movie to see just how good it is :D. Enjoy!Β π΅ββπ€π
Some years back we’ve been to Isverna, an remote village in Mehedinti county. Going there was like a time travel. 2 years back we sow people still wearing “opinci” traditional shoes made from pig skin, and they ware not wearing them because of any touristic purposes.
This year we decided to go back but to explore more of the place.
Wee look up trail forks only to find out that our trail forks ambassador in Romania has his headquarters in Mehedint county. Good!
Our trip took 3 days and we ridden 3 different places.
First day we ride near Isverna, where we also stayed. We go to Beletina meadow and traverse Mehedinti mountains. We followed 3 trails that you can find on trail forks, Starway to Beletina, Beletina – Pigs neck and Springs Face, all tied up and all beautiful trails. We climb on fire road up to Beletina then you follow Pigs neck on animal trails and then descent back to Isverna on an wild raw trail!
We sleep well the first day, dreaming about the awesome track that we did.
Next day we meet up with Pufalot, the trail forks ambassador and did another awesome track in Cerna Valley. We visit the remote villages in Cerna Valley, and the awesome single tracks that unites them. On the descent we did 2 trails that you can find on trail forks, Prislop – Dobraia and Dobraia – Dumbrava.Β The whole secondΒ day track can be found here.
The descent was just awesome, long, over 10k and combines technical terrain with speed and flow. The ground is loose in this period and you must be careful of the offcamber corners :)).
We ware so tired after the second day that we did not dream about anything, just a long deep sleep…
Last day we made it short. We meet Pufalot on his home ground, Sindrilei hill, near Izvorul Barzii just to Blame Canada :)))).
Man, this guy is a crazy trail builder!Β π€ Cant wait for him to finish all the trails. Blame Canada trail its awesome. starting from the top it has 8 jumps one bigger then the other. The last 2 are a gap and a droop with an insane landing !
Next year he will have 3 trails and if the others will be as sick as Blame Canada, then we will spend double the time in Mehedinti county! Maybe a new enduro contest is in sight π.
Until next year we leave you some photos and an edit to better understand the beauty of Mehedint county, form our point of view ;).
Metal Enduro 2018, in our opinion the best enduro contest in RO, and, this year, EWS qualifier!
Its fun, its hard, its long and the trails are just sick!Β π I personally didn’t finish after a crash in the first day but things turned out ok because I had time to take pictures and film some segments in the second day, just enough to put this edit together.
For those who don’t know yet, Metal enduro its an enduro contest in our notional enduro cup, hold in Resita city, old industrial city with bigΒ old factories in steel industry and metal processing…. get it… metal enduro…π€
The contest takes place over 2 days and 8 specials that run between 1.5km and 2.8 km and around 300m elevation and all single track.
If you haven’t ridden Metal enduro trails yet, you must! and in this period, the landscapes are just beautiful.
No more words, if you want to find out more please check thepage of the event or our last article form last year when we put out some more words. Thanks to Bike Attack Resita for organizing this awesome contest! and Straja Enduro too so stay tuned!Β π
We leave you this edit to better get the felling of the contest and some pics π Enjoy!Β π΅βββ°π₯π·π€π
A few weekends back we took a trip to Bulgaria to meet again with the crew from Old Mountain Epic.
They have invited us to do a track in the Central Balkan Mountain Range near Sopot. Being a 5h drive to Sopot, we decided to make this a 2 days trip, and spent 1 day in Veliko Tarnovo and the next day we went to Sopot and checked that trail out, which we heard it would be massive in terms of view, terrain and intensity :D.
In Veliko, you cannot go wrong. You have the trails, the city, the people and each time we’ve been here we had a blast. The trails are in perfect condition and it’s the place to ride till the seasons ends because of the friendly weather. The town is nice and you have great food here. The crew from Turnduro (enduro bike community) and Old Mountain epicare top!
Ok, so we had a great Saturday on the trails doing Ani, Rodopa, 2 Offcambers and the DH trail. You would say next day we should have rested but not us :D. On Sunday we woke up at 6 am, went to Nedko and started from there in 2 cars. After 2.5 h were in Sopot, around 10 am waiting for our chairlift. We took the lift up to 1500m and from there we pushed the bikes until 1800m elevation. From there started our single track. I cannot say too much about the exact location, instead I’ll leave you a link bellow to the track we took, but I can say for sure it was the most demanding trail we’ve done so far. And also very rewarding. We had a beautiful single track, wonderful view and some huts along the way. The bottom part of the trail was just hard enduro but beautiful as in a fairy trail :D.
We leave you bellow some pictures, a movie and soon we will upload on youtube a longer edit with the Sopot Old Mountain Trail.
This year we took part of Harghita Enduro, the seccond stage of Romanian Enduro Cup.
Man what trails they have! tehnical, natural segments, steep, hard! Combine this with some english weather and you get an up grade weekend race :))).
The contest has only 3 specials but they are quite something. In my opinion this is how enduro looks like. I hope in the future another special will appear here but for now we can be glad we have this ones.
The contest is held in Harghita Madaras, mountainΒ group of Transylvanian Carpathians belonging to the Eastern Carpathian Mountain Range. The highest peak is Harghita Madaras Peak, with 1,800 mΒ (source wikipedia).
These mountains are beautiful and wild, if you wander alone on this trails, you have lots of chances to run into a bear or a wolf so be careful πΆπΊπ¦. Or into an awesome single track for that matter :))).
For accommodation you can choseΒ Sugo Pensionbecause is very clean and cozy and has great food! We enjoyed staying here a lot!
Also once here, you must take a hike or a bike up to Madarasi peak, the sacred mountain ;0, the peak it’self is one of the most beautiful ones in RO and the view is breathtaking because you are right in the middle of our Carpathians :D. Here’s an album to show you just how beautiful it is on the peak and trails π
But, mainly if you are into enduro, you must come ride here, even in contest weekend. Here you find the track of the 3 specials and bellow we leave you some pics and a movie to get you fired up! Enjoy!Β π€π΅βββ°
Magura Codlei, nice gem of a trail on small mountain!
This is the track MAGURA CODLEIbut don’t take our route up. You can barely call it a trail! Just climb on the descent, you can cycle half of it ;). Enjoy!
This weekend we remade a track from last year, the one from Suru mountain hut and rocky ridge in Fagaras Mountains. It’s a must do for each year, really is one of the most beautiful and epic ride we took lately.
It’s a 2 days experience and you get to ride 2 awesome trails, one of 7km with 1000m descent and the next of 12km with over 1500m descent, and you get to stay at one cool mountain hut (Suru mountain hut) in the Romanian Carpathians, Fagaras Mountains. It’s just epic, you don’t have to take our word for granted, just watch the videos and the pics bellow and you will convince yourselves :D.
Cozia it’s one little, mean, but beautiful mountain that holds one of the gnarliest descent we’ve encountered. The trail it’s just superb, it starts with a narrow and technical singletrack, then it becomes loose and steep, then you have to carry you’re bike, then you have another technical section with some climbing and at the end you have a speed section with lots of flow.
In total you have another over 1000m descent that we for ones are willing to work our asses around 3-4h to climb the mountain and then send it :))). It’s an nice epic descent that I think we will do each year because its just to good! We don’t try to convince you but we leave you some pictures and also this movie that we’ve made :D.
A small slice of Cozia, a trail that deserves it’s place in the calendar of bike season. Enjoy and ride safe! ππ΅βββ°π₯ Soon an longer video and an article. Soundtrack: Strung Out – The Animal and the Machine.
Vertical Riding Romania 