Bikeri olandezi in vizita ...

De curand am primit un mail de la un grup de bikeri din Olanda cum ca ar vrea sa vina in Romanica si in Brasov sa se dea cu bike-urile pe la noi, din una in alta le-am dat cateva sfaturi si iote-te ca au venit ... din pacate nu am avut timp absolut deloc sa ma dau si eu cu ei dar i-am indrumat spre cateva locuri frumoase de pe la noi .
Mai jos sunt povestile lor , de pe blogul lor : Mountain Hoppers

Day 3 (primele 2 zile le-au petrecut in Cluj)
It is again a nice day the sun is shining and after we woke up we had a beautiful view over the mountains from the cabin of Reli’s parents.

The morning view at the cabin of Reli's parents

Today is the day we are going to have our first encounter with the Carpathian mountains and Brasov. We have to travel to Brasov by car. First we stop at Turda to meet Reli’s parents and see his kids (they are staying with grandfather and mother for the weeks they hava holiday in the Netherlands) In Turda also Reli’s nephew Adi got in the car because he had to go back to Brasov where his father and mother (Reli’s sister Lily) live.
Turda -- Brasov is about 350 km but because of the condition of the road and the many villages we will pass we cannot drive on a constant speed of 120 km/ph. The speed will be more like 60-70 km/ph. It was also a bit more problematic as there are quite some holes in the roads and we were traveling with 3 bikes on the back of the car.

Halfway we stopped ad sighisoara, a city with an old citadel, where Vlad Dracul (the one and only mister Dracula was born, so we also did some real tourist activities.

Casa Vlad Dracul. Did he really live here? I'm scared!! The entrance to the citadel of Sighisoara.
The tower of the citadel

A view from the citadel.
Around 16:00 we reached the city of Brasov where we were taken to our hotel. We will stay in Brasov until saturday. After check-in we called a cab and went to the center of Brasov. We were surprised by the town of Brasov, renovated houses nice terasses everywhere and of course the BRASOV sign up in the mountains, just like Hollywood.

The letters of Brasov! We have to go there. herwise our holiday will be incomplete.

The Brasov sign
Nice to see a city with such big ambitions. Also funny was to see all the terrace parasols saying “Probably the best city in the world !”.

Probably the best city in the world

No comment

This evening we will meet our guide for the trails in Brasov Mihai Siman a local mountainbiker who was bloging about the trails in Brasov and surroundings (see blog link on the sidebar). Reli found that blog and contacted Mihai to ask for information about nice trails. We had a nice dinner together with Mihai and the sister of Reli with her family. Mihai cannot come with us to do the trail himself (some people also need to work) but he gave us a lot of tips about nice roads and where to go. We cannot wait for our first trip in the mountains !!

Dinner on the first night in Brasov

Day 4
Today we go into the mountains, we prepared our bikes got enough water (it is again 30 degrees with a clear blue sky). We started at the foot of mountain Postavarul. and took a not so steep path to reach the ski village Poiana Brasov half way the path it seems the path stops, but because the tip of Mihai we knew that we could go further in the woods and find a path that will bring us towards the ski village. This was quite an adventurous path. Anyway, not the place to try out new techniques (because a potential big fall if it goes wrong).

A picture of the three of us do you see a path here ?

The first climb is now finished but we are not yet done for today, we went to reach the cabin at the top of the mountain following some hiking tracks that are also possible to bike. wow what a nice view from up here.
We didn’t reach the highest point of the mountain but stopped at 1750m altitude. The next part is the fun part going down again on a really beautifull track for going downhill again because Mihai told us how to go.

The view half way Postavarul Tree roots on the way down

Small single tracks, with steep sides, a lot of rocks and roots of trees and some fast paths winding down.
The first part of the track was quite difficult at times. Then we reached the last part, which can also be seen on the video Mihai made with his friends . Finally we reached Brasov again and went to have a drink and a small snack. In the evening we went back to the terrace and met Mihai again to share our stories with him.

One of the steep sides next to singletrack

One of the nice terraces in Brasov
The GPS track is here.

Day 5
After the breakfast

Breakfast

(by the way Erik you need to eat better in the morning Another day of biking. This day we planned to go to Rasnov and if possible to Bran to see the dracula castle. The first climb of the day is a hard one really steep and difficult because of the many rocks and cracks in the road.

hmm nice road

Erik on the way down again
After this climb we are back again in the ski resort Poiana Brasov. From here we go by road to Rasnov, another climb but now on asfalt much better climbing but less fun ofcourse. In the decent of this asfalt road we see a small path going down between the trees and we decide to take it, wow it was steep and difficult and in the end it led us to a small river. So we just had to climb up again (pfff) to reach the road and go down via the road to Rasnov.
We visited the old citadel in Rasnov after yet another climb towards this citadel.

The citadel in Rasnov

After the visit we decided not to go to Bran too dangerous going over the road where also a lot of cars are driving. We returned the same way we came and went to the hotel to take a nice long shower. In the evening back to Brasov center. We had a real romanian dish for dinner (RELI PLEASE HELP WITH THE NAME Sarmala _ ?)
After the dinner we went to a terrace to drink a beer and there we met two dutch guys playing cards, Reli asked them if we could join and so we ended up playing the real dutch game “Toepen” together with the two other guys, and of course drinking beer and wine. This was really tough as we finished biking already quite early and had our first beers already at 4 in the afternoon.

toupen !

And drinking wine

The GPS track is here.

Day 8
After getting back to Reli’s appartment at around 23:00 and having a drink, it was almost time to catch the plane. Our flight was at 6:20 and we had to be there early. So what to do, play cards, talk, or try to get a few hours of sleep. Well we did the last thing hoping it would help and set our alarm clocks at 4:00.

Erik at 4:00 in the morning

We all got some rest although it was difficult for all of us (Bart and Reli sleeping on a very small couch and Erik on an airbed with auto-deflation feature). Nevertheless, 4:00, shower, get dressed, leave. Luckily Reli’s car was really big so the backs easily fit together with Bart on the back seat (the trunk was already full with our other bags and the bikes wouldn’t fit in there anyway).

Bart sitting comfortably in the back of the car with two bikes on top of him.

(Bart, do your legs still hurt?)
After a 30 minute ride, we arrive at the airport. Reli is going back towards home to go back to bed and Bart and Erik wait until our flight with WizzAir leaves for Dortmund. All went well we had a nice holiday and we want to thank Reli and his family for the warm welcome in Romania. I also want to thanks Andy and Mihai because with their help we had a mountainbike holiday we will never forget.
It was a unique experience. We saw trails that not many other people from outside Romania have seen, we drank home made Romanian liquor, had a Romanian Barbeque (including the Mici) and had some real Romanian food in a Romanian home. The Romanian hospitality made us feel at home.

Back in Dortmund with the bikes

The way back to Breda (rain, thats a long time no see