Two Transalps to Transalpina

Day 1

A short trip with Srđan, two days with two Transalps towards Transalpina. A quick and simple agreement – 'you want, I want – Wednesday and Thursday, 1,100 km across Transalpina to Sebeș, overnight stay and return trip via Petroșani, off-road to Băile Herculane and Bela Crkva. The focus is on riding with short breaks preferably in nature – the road is long and the scenery beautiful, we would otherwise stop every fifteen minutes to satisfy the photographer in me.

The forecast promises well, we meet at 8:00 at Male Krsne – Srđan from Pančevo, me from Kragujevac – and off we go. We reach the Danube; we left the highway and the monotonous straight road behind us and now we wind along the river towards the morning sun. We wait a full 20 minutes in Donji Milanovac at the gas station, but a quick breakfast restores our confidence that everything will be okay.

At the border, we wait a full minute and a half and we are already in Romania. Before the start of Transalpina, a lot of highway and monotonous roads through settlements await us again. And that passes quickly, and that's it, the ascent begins.

Srki has already visited this area, while I just passed last year, so this is only my second motorcycle trip abroad. Moreover, I have never been to Romania. But we are not here for sightseeing – the road is the goal.

We are slowly climbing the Transalpina without any crowds. The forecasted rain has turned into a light fog that quickly dissipates, and in front of us, a dry and winding road opens up. While my colleague rides the Karoo Street, I am on the Trailmax Raid. I had the opportunity to scrape the curves in Bosnia and Montenegro with these tires, and I happily follow Srki as he chooses nice lines. I follow him to the vendors at the top of the hill where we stock up on cheese, milk, and some homemade salami full of flavor. We manage to explain that we need more bread, and suddenly they bring us the last ingredient for the sandwich.

We stop a few kilometers further on one of the serpentine roads, greeting a stray dog whose intentions we can't quite decipher. We pull out breakfast and enjoy the view and fresh air. We grin like kids who have skipped school. We even fed the dog a little and continue on, as there are still more curves to navigate.

We manage to stop along the way and take pictures of the bikes, since neither of us is particularly photogenic. The Transalp has proven to be good here; comfortable for long rides, aggressive enough to keep up with local riders, and safe and stable for off-road the next day. That's exactly why we both chose it.

While riding, a colleague from Romania on a GS overtakes us. Nothing, we follow him by unanimous decision 🙂 For a good ten minutes, we trail behind him, staying nicely in our lane. The road is excellent, dry, tires stable – we grip the asphalt and enjoy.

Fatigue slowly catches up with us, especially Srki who didn't sleep much the night before the trip. Just as our desire to speed up eases, a flat road opens up, with a forest and a stream. We stop and lay our jackets on the grass by the river. While Srki rests, I take pictures of the machines and the unreal beauty of nature that has opened up right in front of us. I click a bit harder with the camera, hoping to scare away any bears that might be around. It seemed to work, as none approached us.

The further road is relaxed, beautiful, and winding asphalt leads through forests. We enjoy a moderate ride. We stop about fifty kilometers before Sebeșa to book accommodation, have coffee, and finish the remaining salami and cheeses.

The road continues, but with a double espresso, I'm no longer in the mood for a moderate ride. We ride a bit faster, counter steering and sticky tires instill confidence. I feel like I'm scraping the footpegs two or three times – after the last time, a colleague overtakes me and slows down a bit. We don't have communication, so I think he might be tired; we continue to the accommodation relaxed. "Do you know why I overtook you? The footpegs started to spark, I thought you were going down 🙂 " – I apologize, but I'm smiling ear to ear.

I'm not a fan of unnecessary risk, but I like to test the limits. Scraping for me is a controlled limit – over time, I've reduced my fear of leaning the bike and gained confidence in the tires and the bike. That's why I like the Transalp – as a beginner, I never felt in the last year that the machine or tire was to blame. I always know where I messed up.

We arrive at the accommodation, nicely arranged with parking and a few bikers. We are greeted by a not-so-large stuffed bear that I briefly thought wasn't that big and that I could break it with some Jiujitsu move 🙂 Calculated risk my ass, reason says "Don't be stupid, go get beer and chips".

We are resting a bit with cold drinks and getting to know each other better. I mostly rode off-road alone at first – after a query on the forum, Srki responded and "tested" me a bit around Rudnik, Rtanj, and Tara. This is our first tour, and it turned out we have a similar rhythm. Without dinner (chips and peanuts are not dinner), we are going to sleep, but I really wanted pizza.

Tomorrow will be a new day; hopefully, there will be a good breakfast?! Aha, there will be a pee.

Day 2

New day, old road. We wake up earlier to set off around 8:00. Srki gets up early and follows the enduro riders from Poland who pushed their bikes and left at some ungodly hour like young runaways. Just before us, a team from Spain with heavy motorcycles continues their journey through Europe towards Belgrade. We will meet them along the way, I think twice.

We say goodbye to the bears and set off from Sebeș back over the Transalp. The goal is to turn towards Petroșani at Obârșia Lotrului and then continue on 66A to Băile Herculane, then Bela Crkva and Kovin.

We leave the settlements and the hustle of a workday and start enjoying the sun as we slowly climb to about 1700m. Fresh air, sunshine, and a smile on our faces – a recommended awakening. Along the way, we overtake some Spaniards who are following the same route but are avoiding the off-road section and taking the asphalt road to Băile Herculane. We solve our second coffee of the day in Obârşia Lotrului and continue on route 7A towards Petroșani. The road is not as good as 67C, it is partially narrower but not congested. We wind through the forest and open clearings, following a small stream that meanders right next to the road. We stop by a small waterfall that has just appeared around the bend.

We enter Petroșani, refuel, and slowly start looking for a bakery. We pass through Petroșani and a couple of villages and already see that we will be riding the offroad part with critically empty stomachs. The first pizzeria along the way is chosen on the map. We crash a children's birthday party and spend a good two or three hours ordering and waiting for food. We are already in crisis and are glaring at the waiters who skillfully avoid us. I'm starving, hoping they hear me. We see that nothing is coming of this, hopefully, there will be a bakery in cursed Uricani. Grumpy, we go out to show them we are disappointed. Finally, we stumble into a bakery that looks like it's from Soviet times – it only has bread and some sweets. The saleswoman shows us a burger place that is packed at 12 or 1 PM, so that’s out; we end up in a store. Long story short – we eat some suspicious pizza bread from foil – it's neither pizza nor bread, along with Twix and Snickers and some vitamin water next to a trash can on the highway, since the sun has already heated up and this was the first shade. A selfie as proof and we move on.

Here is Srkije's gallery

The further journey to Băile Herculane consists of broken concrete slabs mixed with asphalt and gravel (GPS Track). We pass through that part, reaching beautiful curves and good asphalt where we overtake the team from Spain again. Upon approaching Băile Herculane, the asphalt is being renewed, construction sites, lack of signage; classic.

We finish at the first restaurant where we order mixed meat. "Sale, the guy is just now firing up the grill!". We weren't really in the mood for food, at least it was fresh. We eat while watching the owner's son, a chubby little kid, enjoying playing with a dead fish 🙂 Coca Cola was cold.

From now on, we have asphalt waiting back to Kovin where we part ways. A good road with fast curves changes to a classic monotonous highway and leads us through Bela Crkva, where at the border we wait for about fifteen more minutes for the shift of Romanian customs officers. We resolve that and with the ride at dusk – literally – we enter Kovin. Two days pass quickly and the planning for opening a pizzeria and for a route with more off-road through beautiful parts of Romania begins. We will probably carry our own food, can't trust them.