More flashbacks - Road Racing Romania

Tunes: New Order, Lacuna Coil

Place: Curtea de Arges

The locals helped us pack in Satu Mare.

We started off after not very much sleep but in surprisingly good spirits. Are we going to do the same again today as yesterday? Nope. It was much more reckless than that.

After a bit of city driving, we hit these really good big roads through the hills with not light traffic. Good visibility, no stray animals, no horses, horse shit or carriages... Just very nice scenery and very very good riding - some of the best bits so far. It was a fantastic start for the day. At certain points the scenery looked just like Tuscany.

This song came on precisely on the right time as well:

I don't want the world to change
I like the way it is
Just give me one more wish
I can't get enough of this
When it gets to be alive
And not just still survive
To hit and not to miss
I can't get enough of this

- New Order, Slow Jam

You could just keep on going and going like that, but all good things come to an end and the roads changed (or maybe we hit the small roads again). We had some lunch.

A police motorcycle. This guy has been chasing us for some time now.

Random cows as there was nothing else to put in here.

The main destination for the day was however the Transfagarasan road. This 90km bit of tarmac should be one of the best driving roads on the planet. Hundreds of corners through the woods and mountains with spectacular scenery. There's a lake in there somewhere as well. Top Gear did a piece about this some time ago and they were sufficiently impressed. I was looking forward to this very much.

We went through it footpegs scraping the ground. In the dark.

But why in the dark? It seems that some little countryside road around Sibiu covered in dead stray dogs and horse shit was more important to drive through than the Transfagarasan when the sun was still up. That’s where we spent the afternoon. On these roads two bikes also ran out of fuel adding to the delay.

We did go through it. The dotted line is the GPS tracking line.

Magnificient scenery on the Transfăgărăşan road.

Before today, I had two near-death experiences in my entire life. Now I have four. With my experience it is impossible to keep up with the fastest riders of the group on this road, but if you fall back too much, you can find the hotel on your own, so you'd better man up and try pretty damn hard.

As you cannot see the properly around corner you are riding in, you cannot really pick the optimal speed for it. It could be a 45 degree turn, or a 180 degree turn. In the latter case, you need to slow down quite a bit and this had to be done while going around the corner. The front break is the more effective of the two that you have but if you use that hard in a corner, the bike wants to go straight, which is not helping if there is nothing between the road and the cliff going down two meters from the road. The rear break is not as effective and you really do not want to lock it. 

As you may imagine, I learned these things the hard way as there has been no need so far to push really hard. After a couple of very near misses with a rock wall and a cliff I decided that I am a sissy and slowed down to a healthier pace.

The bike worked like a dream through it all. Except the lights, which are really not up to the job in this BMW. In my bike they are not even aligned properly it would appear. You cannot see anything past 20 meters in the dark. And of course not I could not stop and adjust them!

One thing that you would not see if you ride through this at daytime. It was the "worm of light". Some of the guys were behind me maybe a kilometer or so and while I stopped to take a picture of the beautiful scenery (see above), I could see the others riding through the corners further down the mountain. It looked like they were spaced pretty evenly and their headlights shone out through the forest and mist like there was some fantastic creature prowling the woods. I will not forget that in a while. One would have needed some proper kit to get a picture of that though.

The last thirty kilometers were quite bad with lots of big potholes, but still I really recommend driving through this road if you can. But don't go through, only stay on the north side of the mountain and take a sports bike or a sports car.

The worse traffic police in the world are in Romania. We must have driven past 20 traffic police cars today, driving like our hair was on fire, and did not get a single ticket. These guys are not doing their job right.

In Romania there are a lot of stray dogs on the roads. In Lapland it's reindeer. In Sweden it's social democrats on bicycles. In Eastern Europe it's dogs, what'll be the next suicidal thing trying to take you with them I wonder... Horses and carriages are a common sight also and of course travel without lights reflective surfaces – also after dark.

I also got shat on by a bird during the day. Twice!