Category: short trips

September Transylvanian bliss

Four days of superb weather and blissful mountain biking on our Transylvanian mountain trails with Sean and Dave. Postăvaru, Viscri, Bucegi and Piatra Craiului offered some amazing memories. Or, as Sean put it in a typical British manner, "I've had worse days than this"... :-) Letting the images do the talking: [ngg src="galleries" ids="171" display="basic_thumbnail" thumbnail_crop="0"]

Yearning for the high trails

We had a busy year in 2021 with Tom, biking on some jaw dropping Carpathian Peaks in the mountains surrounding Brasov city. For most of the 2022 Tom spent his biking days on easier cross-country rides on the flat lands, plus a good number of days abusing the cable cars while stacking bike-park runs under his belt in Sinaia, Azuga and Poiana Brașov. One of these days, while waiting for the uplift, he realized he missed a good pedaling day up in the mountains. So he gave me a call.…

Living, working and mountain biking in Brașov

Living and working abroad is something more and more usual for the EU citizens. When you can combine the advantages of a higher paycheck with smaller costs of living, and with a relatively high standard of living, then you can say you hit the jackpot. If you are into mountain biking, and more general into mountain sports, the city of Brașov, in central Romania, is one of these magical places. Jan works for a software company. His work routine requires regular visits to a local subcontractor. He is also a…

Three days mtb tour in Transylvania

Helmut works for a car components manufacturer, and in his free time he collects, restores and then drives old cars. He came to Brasov for a short holiday, driving all the way from Germany to Romania. There is no better way to put it than saying he is a motorhead, eager to see what the electric revolution will bring to the table. But not with his mountain biking. Here he likes things done the old way, earning the thrills of the descents with the hard work of pedaling up. And…

Born on Sunday

Like most of our guests, Willi and Francesco started planning their mtb trip to Romania with many months in advance, in October 2021. They were hoping, like we all did, that things will come back to some sort of normality after a couple of years totally messed up by the COVID pandemic. Then the war in Ukraine started. Planning for weeks or months ahead became, again, pointless. Still, Willi and Francesco were decided to come to Romania for a mountain biking trip, even if that meant making a last minute…

Tom’s progression

We started to ride with Tom in September 2020. He brought then with him a newly bought capable XC hardtail and a basic set of skills, the kind most of us get while simply riding a bike while playing as kids, and later on commuting in the urban jungle. But, most importantly, the will to push the limits on the uphills, and plenty of interest in tackling trickier descents. A few walk-the-trails sessions in Păltiniș, but also Piatra Craiului, Bucegi and Poiana Brașov made him realise heavier tools are required…

The weird summer of 2020

With our classic, week-long tours put on hold by the global COVID pandemic, the summer of 2021 was mainly about short, custom made tours. We had a bunch of mountain bikers eager to have a taste of what mtb in the mountains looks like. And a taste they had, realising that mountain biking is (much) more than biking. Physically, technically, mentally. But also a lot of fun, especially for those who accept that enjoyment comes also with plenty of perspiration. We are looking forward to see them up the mountains…

We’d rather be out

Autumn offers the most dramatic landscapes, and the October 2019 three days tour with Ofir was no different. If you add the white of the winter's first snow to the myriad of shades of falling trees you get the ingredients of a beautiful, majestic, but also quite eerie world. No better time to relive those days but during the 2020 Covid-19 epidemic - and lock-down. Here's a gallery of images that, in the present-day context, seem terrifyingly close to an end-of-the-world scenario. One thing's for sure: if the end of…

The trails at Barcaciu

A tour that was in the planning for quite some time now finally happened on a perfect weather weekend of October 2019: the trails around Cabana Bârcaciu in Făgăraș, The Carpathian Mountains. We are usual guests at Cabana Bârcaciu, we go there often for our hiking, trekking, ski touring trips (more at www.mountainguide.ro). With bikes it is more difficult, as it is located at some distance from our home trails around Brasov city - which are pretty abundant. And it is strategically located at the end of a 5 km…

Three days in a MTB trail paradise

Alex is a student in Cluj, just about to finish his medical studies. A keen mountain biker, he thought of a short bike trip in the Romanian mountains for him, his dad Martin and his cousin Christian, trying to discover what gems lay hidden in this corner of Europe. For the first day of their adventure they went to the Sinaia bike park, concentrating on clearing various jumps and gaps. For the next three days they wanted some wild, natural trails, so they called us to design a suitable program.…