Tag: single track

This is mountain biking!

Santa came early this year for mtbtours.ro. It was mid-October when we had the joy and the privilege to organize a tour for a select group of French bikers. A fair deal: I showed them the wonderful trails around Brașov, they showed me what one can do with a bike. All in all a cross-country, all-mountain and enduro experience in the very pleasant company of five joyful mountain bikers. I saw what Pierre Geo Plantet was able to do during some XC competition during the summer, when he finished second…

The epic part in mtb is the mountain

No matter how you look at it, a maximal altitude of 300 m makes Lithuania a flat country. A type of terrain that is suitable for cross-country mountain biking, with relatively short and frequent ups and downs. No place for long, consistent, technical uphills or downhills. Nothing "epic", speaking in mountain biking terms. Was Tadas, from Vilnius, aware of what he was asking when inquring about an expert level mtb tour in the Carpathian mountains surrounding Brașov city? Most likely not. But the group seemed quite determined, a bunch of…

MTB in Romania, the French connection

It doesn't happen very often to have French guests in Romania, be it for hiking or mountain biking. We might share a common cultural background (the Latin heritage, the strong French cultural influences in last two centuries) but France seems to be a little too far away from Romania when travelling is the issue. We get significantly more calls from Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, UK, Sweden than from France. Therefor we were pleasantly surprised when Jean sent us an email from Toulouse, inquiring about an advanced level mtb tour in…

Searching for the perfect trails

You know you've been blessed when... you live in a place like Brașov, a mountain biking paradise with great scenery, great mountains and plenty of trails, you have the chance to go biking with a group of Swedes which are both great company and a source of inspiration, you get ideal photo opportunities with bikers showing (off) their amazing skills, you are called to organize a seven-days mtb trip for these guys for the third year in a row. For all these reasons (and more) we do feel blessed. The…

Mtb in Saxon villages area, Transylvania

The blessing of being a mountain biker living in the city of Brașov comes with a price. Mind you, it’s a small one. With so many options of single trail riding in the neighbouring mountains (Postăvaru, Bucegi, Piatra Mare, Piatra Craiului, etc.) you don’t get too many incentives to travel further way looking for new mountain biking territories. Fortunately we still do that – you can read on this site stories about our mountain biking experiences in some Greek islands, on the Bulgarian seaside, but also in Romania, around Sibiu…

SuperMTB in Romania/Carpathians

It took more than ten years for the "Superski in the Carpathians" delusion to run its natural course, from a "tourism development strategic master-plan" bullet point in official government papers and all the way to the dust bin. It is hard to imagine a sustainable big skiing area in relatively small mountains, with small quantities of snowfall and average temperatures too high for producing and maintaining artificial snow for more than two months. Giving credit where credit is due, there is a decent skiing area now in Poiana Brașov, big…

Single trails of Postăvaru – Brașov XCM 2013

There's a more than one hundred years old tradition of hiking in Postavaru Mountains, on the outskirts of Brasov city. The mountain bikers are a recent addition but they are growing in numbers every year. The profile of the slopes is quite inviting for downhillers, but hard tailers are also popular on the rocky tracks: Postavaru Mountain can accommodate easily different types of bikers and different types of competitions, Mountain running, duathlon, downhill/freeride, cross-country marathon contests are organised every year and their popularity is constantly growing. As is the case…

The Sweeds biking in Romania, the video story

Some video footage from the six days all-mountain biking trip we organized for our Swedish friends in back in July 2013. Micke did extensive filming with his GoPro camera, and because of the chesty strap and the full-suspension bike he was using the footage is pleasantly stable. The sound is natural, and that goes nicely with our style on this website, we appreciate it! Especially the heart beats, it really makes you feel the intensity of the whole experience. Enjoy! Day one in Postavaru: Day two in Ciucaș: Day three…

The Swedes riding the Transylvanian Alps

Sigge and his Swedish friends are old friends now, we've been riding together the trails around Braşov for two summers now, as you can see in these older stories (here, here and here). For the summer of 2013 we designed an all-mountain six-days tour with some enduro flavorings. The basic frame of the program was the Transylvanian Alps tour (details here). The (in)famous Postavaru trails were on the menu, together with less popular but equally exciting trails in Ciucas Mountains, or in Grohotis-Baiului. Bucegi mountains were the icing on the…

Bucegi Circuit, July 2013

[singlepic id=970 w=500 h=333 float=left]A late report of a tour we organized this summer, with Mihai C. as a guide. He took a group of bikers from The Nederlands and Germany to a seven days tour around Bucegi Mountains. They rocked the trails of Postavaru, they passed by mountain huts (Poiana Secuilor, Poiana Izvoarelor, Padina, Omu), they photographed the Sfinx up the Bucegi mountains and downhill-ed on the West side to finish the tour in style with a day of riding in Piatra Craiului National Park. Here is the photo…