Reli had been talking to us about going mountainbiking in Romania for some time now. I guess it must have been a few years back since he first brought up the subject. Then this year we finally went to Romania, “we” that’s Bart, Erik, and Reli. The travel arrangements were a bit of a puzzle in the beginning. But we had a good plan. As Reli intended to stay a bit longer in Romania, Bart and Erik had to travel separately. Comparing all the options, going by plane was the easiest (and cheapest) for us. As for the bikes, Reli borrowed Erik’s bike stand for the car so then all was settled. Romania here we come!

Day 1

In the morning we drove to Dortmund Airport to fly to Romania with our bikes packed in big bags.

Van with our bags at Dortmund Airport

We flew with the cheapest airline of all times (WiZZ) and it was actually a good flight and, most remarkably, also a brand new Airbus A320 aircraft.

wizzair

After a trip of about 6 hours we finally reached Romania and landed at Cluj Napoca airport where we met our Mountain Hopper Reli and Andy, a local friend of Reli, who was going to guide us for the MTB trips around Cluj Napoca.

The first thing we had to do was to put our bikes back together after the flight, with 4 people this was quickly done.

Erik assembling his bike

We went to the apartment of Reli in a suburb of Cluj and left our stuff there.

Left to right, Andy, Bart, and Reli.

In the evening we went for a diner in Cluj at the “irish pub” not real Romania food, but we will have enough of romania food in the rest of the holiday 🙂