Tag Archives: romania

Făgăraș from peak to creek #barcaciu

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Fagaras from peak to creek, a weekend to remember @barcaciu mountain hut. The plan was on for this year, we wanted so bad to visit Barcaciu hut and ride some fresh trails in Fagaras mountains. The trigger was some post on NUFO BIKE TRIP YouTube channel and we were certain we wanted to ride those trails as soon as possible.
We made a quick plan and booked some places @Barcaciu even though the weather was not looking friendly. But as I say (ain’t always true) gods favor the strong ones and this weekend was so true. We had some small showers on Saturday, just enough to keep us cool, and on Sunday we had the perfect weather, chill, a bit cloudy for good pictures and no rain.
And the trails, let me tell you about the trails, they were in perfect conditions. You recognize a good mountain hut by the trail that accesses it, and this one was clean as a bike park trail.
On Saturday we send it down from the hut on the same trail we push-biked on and it was amazing. It’s a 4km trail in perfect conditions with some technical bits in the first half, roots and stones and lots of lines, and at the end some nice flow with some tight switchbacks just to keep you on your toes ;). Then pushbike back at the hut for some drinks and a good meal. We had a nice evening, even built up a ramp and jumped it in the sunset light for some cool pictures, thanks Mihai for the good idea, and keeping us in shape for them trails.
Next day we woke up in the morning for a beautiful breakfast in front of the hut. Mrs Mariana cooks up some great food and we left the hut with our energy levels restored. The target was Scara peak and some epic descent on an unmarked trail. We had 3h of pushbike up to the peak and after that over 90% descent, and a long one, around 12km of descent on an epic trail with an unique view over the west part of the country with Olt river sneaking in the horizon. Once we entered the forest, we passed the trail that links Barcaciu to Negoiu hut and stayed on an unmarked trail that was in rather good conditions.
The trail is incredibly beautiful on a loamy terrain. It’s good to have a GPS track with you. We put it on trail forks so check it out if you’re in search of new trails to shred.
Overall it was one of those epic rides that will remain pinned in our memories for a long time. Check out the pictures and the clips bellow for a clear verdict ;). Enjoy and ride safe!

Bucegi enduro mtb tour

This ride has become a season opener for us. It seems we always take on this ride at the beginning of the seasons when the snow melts and the trails become accessible.

It is an epic and beautiful ride that goes around Bucegi massif. We usually take the cabin from Sinaia, up to 2000 m and from there we begin our ride with a descent to Padina, then a climb to Strunga refuge where we stop for a quick lunch break. From there a beautiful trail awaits us and takes us down to Simon village. After Simon, we start a 3 h climb to Diham mountain hut. From this point we can take several trails down to Busteni, like Izvoare descent, Muchia Lunga or the fire road that takes you to Gura Diham. All of them are easy to ride and fun.

It is one of the rides we will take each year because of the easy access and the beautiful views along the way. You can find the track of our ride at this link on garmin connect. The trails are also on trail forks. Enjoy and ride safe!

Bacau MTB trails, new place to #shred

This year was supposed to be the first edition of Bacau Enduro, a stage in CNE (Romanian enduro cup) but, due to Covid problems the whole cup was canceled after first stage, Semenic Enduor.
This does not mean that we cannot shred the CNE stops so we headed to Bacau to check out the trails. Cristian Totu, the main shaper here was kind enough to greet us and show us the trails. The community is a small one but very friendly and the trails are fun and kind of tricky, just like Ciocanu Enduro trails. They seem easy but they bite you when you least expect it. From a competitive point of view, the fit racers will have an advantage here because of the pedaling sections but you also have some technical sections that surprise you after some full speed ones. It was very dry and hot so is better to ride the trails in spring or autumn conditions, but we managed them in the August heat too. The access for the peak of the trails is quite easy, you can pedal it all the way up. They have 3 trails ready, all similar but with different features. You will find berm, rock gardens and jumps, all in a progressive way and all fun. Overall they are quite fun trails and if you ride with the locals you will have a 100% authentic experience ;).
Thanks Cristi, Andrei, Ana and Danut for the great time and the beers we had. Can’t wait to ride with you guys again! Cheers mates and we owe you one for setting up these places.
You can look up the trails on trail forks! Enjoy and ride safe!

SEMENIC ENDURO 2020 AKA MUDFEST

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SEMENIC ENDURO 2020 AKA MUDFEST

Sorry to say this, but it was a veritable mudfest this year. We made jokes about the forecast but the weather was way worse than the forecast so we ended up riding 3 days on soaking wet trails.

Too bad for this beautiful place that got to experience such weather in a contest weekend and the trails got to suffer quite a lot ….

This is a shame because here are some of the greatest trails in Ro and I wanted to ride them so bad, just as I remember them.

It was a bit harsh on the organizers too. They found the courage to hold the event, even though the times are not the nicest (Covid and all) and the weather kicked their moral as well.

It was fun the first day in training but being in contest on this kind of a weather, man, it’s too harsh I tell you.

I had to do it just to learn that next time when the forecast comes true and looks like this, I’ll turn myself in an action sports photographer for the time of the contest 😆, it’s safer for me and for my bike, and I still do something more useful than racing 😅🤷‍♂

Otherwise, the place is great for riding trails, just beautiful. Some nice trails with good dirt, all on a beautiful Mountain with a beautiful lake at the bottom just in the perfect place for you to cool down after a gnarly descent 🌬💪.

Hope next year we get rid of all the troubles and have a perfect enduro season, fingers crossed.

Until next time, cheers to the guys from Bike Attack Resita for holding the contest and check out the trails on trail forks. And don’t forget that the trails are there the whole year, so go visit them, you’ll have a blast riding there 🤗😉. Congratulations to the winners for pulling hard and hope their bikes are ok! Ride safe and enjoy!

Also, check out this great article on EWS web page with the race report! Things happen here too and it’s all due to the implication of some great people from Resita, cheers mates! 🍻

P.S. For accommodation in the area, if you don’t look for something fancy, you can check out Haus Hubertus place, it’s a very nice hut with a great garden where you can even camp 😉 Great food also!

Valea Jiului MTB trails

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Don’t stay home, it’s a trap. After this pandemic period, the weather went crazy, lots of rain, If we were to listen to the forecast, we should have stayed in home for the last couple of weekends.  But as I say, if you snooze, you lose so to avoid this, we headed to Straja for 3 days ride in the area. We heard some rumors that the trails are in perfect conditions and that we would have shuttle there so we seized the opportunity.

We were quite right and the guys from Straja Extrem Park hooked us up with a shuttle for 2 days. It’s a blast to ride the 2 long trails from Straja. Baloo trail is nice and flowy and Wolves trail it’s a bit more technical but with loads of natural flow. Both are very long and you can feel your whole body worked up by the end of the trail. You don’t need more than 5-6 descents to declare yourself pleased for the day.

But this ain’t all, there is more in the area for you to ride. Don’t miss Valcan trail, this one is without a doubt the funniest of them. Again a berm jem and longer than the other 2. You really feel you’re alive. We hit it like 8 times and didn’t get bored :D.

What we want to tell you is that the combinations of the 3 long trails are for sure the recipe for a terrific weekend ;).

For accommodation we went to Allma mountain hut as usual. Nice cosy place where you feel directly @ home. You can cook yourself anything in the kitchen and hang out in the living or on the great view balcony. We always stay here once in Straja, you can see the place in the picture bellow.

Ok, so this article is just a hint for how and where to spend a nice weekend riding with your buddies. All trails are on trailforks. More ideas are to follow so just stay tuned 😉 Enjoy and ride safe!

Star Wars on Bahna trails

I had some unfinished businesses in the south, one free weekend and decided to go back again. The weather was very unpredictable, lot of rain all over the country, but as I always say, any weekend away from Bucharest riding my bike is a great weekend.

With this in mind, I loaded my stuff and my battle horse in the car again and headed south. First day I rode the usual trails of Mehedinti Enduro and meet Pufi on the trails. He was on a shovel day as his bike was in service. After a couple of rides, Eugen Kable came and we took another two rides and then call it a day.

In the evening and the next day in the morning I got to explore more the city center of Drobeta Turnu Severin. Man, this city has some good to great concrete, just perfect for some street sessions. I had my roller blades with me but I was just too tired. I have to come back another time to explore more the streets of Turnu Severin.

Second day I headed of with Eugen to Bahna trails, you can look them up on trail forks. What a pleasant surprise! The trails here are so different, so diverse and these ones are just a MTB gem. Technical stuff with some insane view over Bahna village. You have to look up the trails on trail forks, you have a description there, but let me ensure you they are freaking awesome. There are 4 trails, 3 with some black sections and one more of a blue one but don’t underestimate her because she has some nice curves that will make you howl like a wolf 😆😍. You can combine the trails in the area for a couple of days ride and you will have a great vacation. Have in mind that the access is by pushbike or pedal so don’t except any shortcuts… earn your turns!

Here is the link to Bahna trails and bellow you can find some movies with each trail. Enjoy and ride safe!

Post lockdown ride in Leaota Mountains

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FREEEEDOOOM!

Yes, we really deserved this ride. Please don’t be scared of the number of people in the picture, yes, we did know that we will meet but we were separated groups of 3 persons or less that met there and happened to take the same ride in Leaota mountains, so don’t judge.

It was a well deserved ride, hard, but we enjoyed it very much. Leaota mountains are quite underestimated. They hold a bunch of awesome trails, hard to access because you have to pedal your way up but, let me confirm that you will not regret the climb of a few hours.

The terrain is wild, natural, technical and offers a great view over the horizon and the other mountains in proximity like Bucegi, Iezer or Piatra Craiului.

Only the view is enough for rewording the climb, but if you consider the trails, clearly you are the winner.

Not long after the start we kind of forgot the harsh past 2 months and we gave ourselves to the ride, enjoyed it and made laughs of our rusty bodies …. this is truly a medicine for the heart, mountains are beautiful and bikes are awesome

Until next time, enjoy and ride safe, we sure will!

Link to garmin connect for the ride track here!

LESPEZI PEAK SPRING SKIING, FAGARAS MOUNTAINS

Probably the last ski day of this season, but we shell see. Not much options left, no lift access, not allowed to ride in larger groups, this kind of post apocaliptic atmosphere its nice but I don’t want to get used to it…

We put a nice patch to a rather bad season, with this last ski touring day. Looking bad, yes, we had bad snow, yes, we had less ski days and almost no powder but it was nice, I for one have good memories and got to ski some new places this year so i m pretty much satisfied. Now ill wait for the next one and hope that bike season will not be to much affected by these uncertain times… Thanks and ride safe y’all!

BALEA LAKE POWDER DAYS

An experience of some weekends ago, probably the only powdered days of the year.
Balea Lac and Fagaras mountains remain one of the coolest back country and freeride areas in RO and probably the only mountains with serious lines. Easy to admire but dangerous to approach 😆😅💪… I m glad we chose to go there. In the first day we skin our way up from Capra cottage to Balea Lac, then ski down to Doamnei valley, skin up again and made a final descent on Balea Valley, just under the cable car. We had fresh snow and was nice to remember how that feels. Then we took the cable car up and parked out skis at Balea Lac.
We sincerely liked to stay at Balea Lac or Balea Lac 2 cottage, clean rooms, clean bathrooms, hot water and good food, we clearly recommend it.
The second day spent at Balea we skin our way up vaiuga , near Vanatoarea lui Buteanu peak, made a descent to Capra lake, skin up again and then chose to go down the south part, in the sun and at a later hour, following a group of austrian skiers that had a guide. I would honestly  recomand to avoid this area on clearer days and with temperatures over 5-6C degrees, especially when there is fresh snow accumulations. I found the snow quite heavy…
Ofcourse, we had to go down anyway because we had our car at Capra and we would either go down now or later…The transfer to the south part during the heating periods is very debatable.
Until next time, ride safe!

VALEA CERBULUI DRIFTING ON AN ICY DAY

SKITOURING TO VALEA CERBULUI ON AN ICY DAY

One of the latest ski touring days and this season gets closer to its end. Hope to get a couple of this days down until the end of this quite shitty winter. Maybe next one will be better and I manage to ski the fat animals next year 🙄.
It was so ice that my dental fillings almost fell down 😅.
But it was nice, a good mission a beautiful adventure in these uncertain times…
Until next time, enjoy and ride safe! 👊

Fagaras mountains on a blizzard weekend

FAGARAS MOUNTAINS BACKCOUNTRY SKIING ON A BLIZZARD WEEKEND 22.02.2020

This is from 2 weeks ago when we did some back country skiing in Fagaras mountains. It was not the perfect conditions but no regrets. Any day on the mountain its a good day, if nothing bad happens…. It was fun, riding in winter conditions on flat light and a blizzard, ingredients for a good adventure 🙂

We skied on the south side of Fagaras mountains, around Transfagarasan mountain road, just above Capra hut and bellow Transfagarasan tunnel. Enjoy!

Metal Enduro Resita, the last for now

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We could not pass the final edition of Metal Enduro without some gratitude words… yes you heard it right, they said it was the last edition… for now, but I for one don’t bite this at all :))). Yes, maybe next year will not be held, just for us to miss it so much and to taste it better when it’s coming back.

We said it before, it’s the greatest enduro competition in Romania, the trails, the crew, the city, the time, its perfect. I love it so much because this contest transformed me and showed me why I want to ride my bike so much and made me a better rider each year… hope it comes back soon.

This edition was not second to others, it was in the same format as last year but it felt better. Somehow I think I got more mature as a rider and start treating it better, carefully and looking to have more fun. I like this in a contest, and I m glad I changed my approach to them. I am really looking forward for next year to see if I can keep this state of mind :D.

The trails don’t need no introduction, you’ve seen it in previous post like this one so bellow we leave you some row segments from the contest, some pictures and a trailer from last year cause we liked it so much.

We didn’t make an edit yet but we have the material for it. Maybe we will make it when the contest comes back to life 😆😅.

We wold like to send our many thanks tot the crew from Bike Attack Resita for holding this beautiful contest and the hole Romanian Enduro Cup! I bet it was a great journey and we loved being a small part of it! Cheers mates and cant wait to see you guys again on the trails or on the race office 🤣👊💪.

As a reminder, the effects of this year Enduro Cup ware:

  • New riding spots and all trails uploaded to trailforks;
  • Lots of young guns on the trails. The future looks great!
  • New teams;
  • Know how exchange between organizers;
  • many others…

The calendar for next year Romanian Enduro Cup it’s already up and we have 2 new stages at Sinaia and Bacau. Cant wait for this season, my hands and feet are aching already! 🤩

Piatra Craiului backcountry ski day first attempt

Probably the worst ski day so far, ever.
20 km ride, 19km ski carry, 1km of effective “ski” …
However, the mountain goats and the ridge of the mountain have somehow repaired the mistake.
This valley is very nice to ski and we plan to return. Eventually we sleep in the Grind refuge and at the first glimpse of light we climb La Om peak and descend. I think that would be great.
I hope to return this year and ski it in a more elegant way, or at least ski it from the top of La Om peak, that would be super awesome!
Until then, ride safe!

CIUCAS MOUNTAINS BACKCOUNTRY SKIING DAY

Make Heaven from what you have … or as they say …
If you want to ski you can, quite a lot. Maybe from a quality point of view it is more sad, but we will certainly ski until April at least…
You just have to know where to go skiing, not to expect much out of it and to know how to avoid traffic 😀 these are some key factors for a satisfying ski day.
I predict that we will have a few more days like this and declare ourselves satisfied. This does not mean that we must remain blind to the things that change around us and we must be passive.
Probably the governments must take the problem of global warming and climate change more seriously, and probably technology will play a key role in solving this, but our ways of leaving must change and that is soon…
Until then, ride safe!

Throwback Saturday, Harghita Enduro

Throwback Saturday, Harghita Enduro. Hope this one will be revived in the future, the trails are just great. I know for sure my rims will miss PS3 😅👊🍻. Enjoy!