Last Sunday I got back from mountainbiking and made the most stupid mistake in the world. Continue reading →

This is the Zugspitz, highest peak of Germany, one of many in Austria.

The hotel I stayed in was also very good, really all you need during a week of biking: breakfast, afternoon snacks and dinner included; bike garage, bike wash, heated swimming pool, sauna, good atmosphere, friendly people, etc.

Sporthotel Loisach in Lermoos.

Village view with mountainy backdrop.

Oh, and before I forget: yes, it is a beautiful area for mountain biking. Steep, technical climbs, flowy forest trails, fast rocky downhill tracks, hairpin turns, tight switchbacks with rocks and roots, gravel roads, you name, they have it.

Really good fun, I’ll let the photos do the talking.

View from Grubigstein.	Climbing from 800m up to 2200m.
Riding switchbacks.	Group photo on Grubigstein.
Down to the lake we go...	...via a gravel track with little room for error.
Heating up the brakes.	Lovely, flowy trail by the lake.
Tight hairpin turns in the Lermoos bikepark.	Short but steep descent near Sunwalm.
Along a rocky, rooty track...	... with hairpins.

After lunch group photo at Enninger Alm.

/Ernst.

As recovery for my knee operation, I’m slowly starting up some road biking (as mtb is not yet possible).  As I’m really bad in orientation, I’ve bought a Garmin Edge 705 GPS (from my oprotpremie :).  Although there’s plenty of opportunity for improvement to the device, I find that a GPS tremendously increases bike possibilities. I’ve “acquired” (I leave it up to you to determine what I mean) the Onroute NL bike map, which is currently the only map available that has auto-routing, specific for biking. So you type in your destination and it will navigate you to it over very beautiful bike roads. Like this, you can, without any risk of getting lost, discover unknown routes. And also no need any more to stop at each crossing, as the GPS will notify you before each crossing where to go.

Specifically for Erik, the GPS has a special feature to navigate you to the closest “cold beer” when you’re in desperate need.

I’ve tried it with a trip from Berkel-Enschot to Nijmegen and I was really astonished about the great route it took me over. I can all GPS owners recommend to get this Onroute NL bike map as well. It’s only about 100 MB, so it doesn’t take too much space on your GPS.

Cheers, Erco

Today I was enjoying myself in the Reichswald just across the border from Nijmegen where I usually ride. I knew a nice route through the Reichswald because of a GPS track I saved from a previous event. The Reichswald is a really nice forest and it is much more quiet than the Dutch part.

Picture from Groesbeek.

Entry to the Reichswald.

When I was almost done, all of a sudden I heard a noise. Just like some branch getting in the wheel. Well, nothing special, so I stopped but to my great surprise the derailleur hanger was broken. This was really remarkable as I exerted very little force as it happened. Probably something (rock or branch) was the cause of it. Continue reading →

I thought it would be nice to visit the fixed mountainbike route of Rheden again. O, someone also made a nice film about this route.

Landscape.

The beautiful forest.

Continue reading →

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.

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 🙂

Day 7

What a pity, we already need to go sunday we are flying back and today it is saturday, we drive back from Brasov to Cluj (via Turda where Reli can see his parents and kids again). The drive is really good, not that much traffic, so we arrive early in Turda so Reli can spend some time with his kids.

Reli and his kids

A church in the neighborhood.

We were given a nice soup at his parents house and had lunch together with Reli’s kids and his parents. We went on to Reli’s appartment in Cluj. At Reli’s appartment we disassembled our bikes again and put them back in their traveling bags, 4 days of fun mountainbiking are finished now.

The bikes are packed

This evening we still had a special event on our program, we went to a football match of CFR Cluj.

Before the match we want for a nice dinner together with Andy our guide of the first bike day, we showed him our pictures and shared our stories of Brasov.

Sitting on a bench in Cluj.

Erik, Reli and Andy sitting in the restaurant

After the dinner Andy dropped us of at the stadion where we met Reli’s brother and nephew to go to the match. A nice atmosphere and a beautifull view towards the mountains from the stadion and we won with 2-0 !!! Already the last evening. Time flies when you’re having fun !

A nice view over the mountains from the stadion	Sunset over the stadium.
2-0 for CFR Cluj !!

Day 6

Ahhh wat a headache. We drank a little to much beer and wine. Happily we just want to go for a small bike ride today. On the day we arrive we so the letters of Brasov in the mountains and really wanted to go there. So today it is ‘only’ cycling to the letters and back. There is a lot on the agenda today. Since we missed Bran yesterday and a visit to Transylvania is incomplete without visiting this tourist trap :-), we decided to go to Bran by car in the afternoon.

The trip to the letters of Brasov was not easy since the climb was quite steep and also had a lot of gravel and stones (and of course not forgetting the kilometers and liters of the previous day).

The climb towards the letters	Yes behind the letters ! we made it !
The three of us behind the letters	The view on Brasov from behind the letters

Then we drove to Bran by car in the afternoon. And, indeed, it was a tourist trap and a bit worse then we expected.

The castle of Dracula	Inside the castle
The secret stairs in Dracula's castle

We have seen the castle and all the touristic crap they are selling there. In the evening we had an appointment with the sister of Reli to come to their house outside Brasov for a real romanian BBQ and some home made cherry liquor. We had a really good evening thanks!!

The nice house of the sister of Reli	Fire up the BBQ
Making the salad

GPS Track

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 🙂

GPS track

The GPS track is here.

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

GPS track

The GPS track is here.