{"id":22675,"date":"2023-06-22T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T07:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=22675"},"modified":"2023-06-08T10:13:31","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T17:13:31","slug":"the-wayback-machine-romanias-transfagarasan-highway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/06\/22\/the-wayback-machine-romanias-transfagarasan-highway\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wayback Machine: Romania’s Transfagarasan Highway"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Mike Huber<\/h6>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Throughout my adult life (although, many will argue I have yet to reach mature adulthood) one of my greatest passions is motorcycling.\u00a0 Like many of you, I seek out the most beautiful and exciting roads to experience on two wheels.\u00a0 Whenever possible I try to achieve this on a global level and not limit this quest to just my state, or even my country. This isn\u2019t always the easiest objective to reach. Many roads that are the pinnacle of any rider\u2019s dreams are usually quite far off the beaten path. \u00a0This can seem like a deterrent to many, but my mindset is to use the distance to reach these places only adds more depth to the adventure and in doing so adds not only miles, but new friends and stories to each road.<\/p>\n

Transfagarasan Highway<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you perform a Google search on \u201cbest motorcycle roads on Earth\u201d or any similar phrase, what will appear before you in the top images will be a photo of the Transfagarasan Highway. This mind-blowing highway is nestled deep in the Transylvania Mountains of Romania, and for us it was a four-day ride from Krakow, Poland.\u00a0 This is where my girlfriend Bobbie and I rented our Honda motorcycles (she had a CBX500 and I had the CB600F).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We began the day waking up in a yurt at an amazing moto camp in Sibiu, Romania that is hosted by Doru Dobrota.\u00a0 Doru has been running this camp out of his family\u2019s old mountain cabin for years and over that time has meticulously grown the camp to a perfect launching point to the many beautifully challenging roads of Romania. Once we finished breakfast, confirmed the weather would cooperate with us, performed routine maintenance checks on the bikes, and a had chat with some other riders staying at the camp, we were ready to set out for one of the greatest days possible on a motorcycle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was a two-hour ride through some remote Romanian villages that we had to remain alert for deer, cattle, horses, and the usual obstacles to dodge around as we traveled from Sibiu to the base of the mountain pass where the roads started really becoming fun.\u00a0 Once the switchbacks began in the lower parts of the pine forests, we quickly twisted the throttle and leaned into the perfectly paved corners as we begin to ascend the highway to where you eventually are at the bottom of what would be like in skiing terms a giant bowl.\u00a0 Looking up I am instantly in awe of what looks like a gigantic matchbox car racetrack thrown recklessly together by a 6-year-old.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After regaining our emotions of what lies before us, we jump on the Hondas and hit the throttles hard. The road has nonstop switchbacks but since its so open it allows you the ability to constantly overtake any vehicle in front of you easily. This enables us to really lean in deep to each corner pushing the red line of these little Hondas, as well as challenging our own riding abilities. \u00a0We continue to traverse the switchbacks for what seemed like forever and just as we summit the pass, we stop for a quick breather at a waterfall to absorb what we have just completed and imagine what was ahead of us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We now begin our decent down the south side of the pass.\u00a0 The southern side is less dramatic but nonetheless has spectacular views for miles until we are well below the tree line and back into another tight pine forest with switchbacks. This seemed less dramatic until out of the corner of my left eye I spotted something crawling onto the road.\u00a0 At this point the road has some sand on it, so we were only traveling at about 25 miles per hour.\u00a0 My first thought was a deer, but when I was able to decipher what it was, I had to stop and shake my head.\u00a0 It was a grizzly bear eating a bagel.\u00a0 Now THAT is worth stopping for a photo of.\u00a0 As I am taking the picture, I hear a loud shout through my headset \u201cGo! Go! Go!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I looked in front of me and there were three more grizzlies.\u00a0 What was so concerning at this point was they consisted of a mother bear and two cubs, fully blocking the road. So, I have one next to me eating a bagel and three in front of me. I hang my head down and reply over the headset with my usual response to when I am in a bad situation \u201cSo this is how it ends\u2026\u201d\u00a0 We sat extremely still on the bikes for a few minutes until the bears dispersed in front of us, retreating into the thick pine forest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As the sunlight retreated into the dense forests, we still were admiring the beauty of the road and what Romania had shined upon us this day.\u00a0 After a fresh fish dinner and the semi comfort of a hostel bed we were able to fully absorb and appreciate the experience for having ridden one of the greatest roads on Earth: The Tranfagarasan Highway.<\/p>\n

\n

Keep us in clover…click on those popup ads!<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

Never miss an ExNotes blog:<\/p>\n

\n

We stayed at Motocamp<\/a> in Romania.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We rented our motorcycles from Motonasezon<\/a> in Poland.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike Huber Throughout my adult life (although, many will argue I have yet to reach mature adulthood) one of my greatest passions is motorcycling.\u00a0 Like many of you, I seek out the most beautiful and exciting roads to experience on two wheels.\u00a0 Whenever possible I try to achieve this on a global level and … Continue reading “The Wayback Machine: Romania’s Transfagarasan Highway”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[654,89],"tags":[3607,3049,3606],"class_list":["post-22675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure-motorcycle-books","category-motorcycle-adventure-ride","tag-motorcycle-rental-in-europe","tag-romania","tag-transfagarasan-highway"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0-3-900.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22675"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22681,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22675\/revisions\/22681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}