Cycling – Timasoara – Plains – Hills – Cluj Napoca

So. My Garmin has given up, although not permanently. The charger adapter didn’t make it’s way to me. That means my journeys and their relative stats aren’t being tracked.

In a way, it’s made it less important to update the blog on a daily basis.

There’s no record of the rides. I’ve not really been bothered to update the blog accordingly.

Timasoara onto the plains

Coming out of the city the first day and 1/2 was on the plains. These gave way to hills. A group of which I decided to take a short-cut across, as it cut about 20 miles or so off the ride.

Turns out it wasn’t a road, more of a track for loggers and the odd householder who lived up there.

Approaching from the South, as it took on the houses that decided to live out in the woods, it was all fine and dandy. As the incline became steeper, the nicely graveled byway became rocky, puddly and nasty. I ended up spending most of the day standing of the pedals avoiding rocks and puddles.

I think it climbed for about 20km. Eventually, I reached the peak and it started to come back down.

It was quite pretty in parts. And the ride was much easier on the way down.

There wasn’t really anywhere to stop, which meant I didn’t really have a proper lunch break. Just the snacks I had in my bag. No real sit down and rest.

It took from about 12 miles or so when I came down the other side before I managed to get to a supermarket and bought some chocolate and other supplies. It was much too late to call it lunch. I didn’t really hang around to relax.

The day didn’t end there though, I had to make it to my accomodation. I’d chosen to stay in the national park. In the hills and on the way through what would be a two night trip through these set of mountains and national park.

Getting up into the national park was really quiet hot and sweaty. By the time I reached my accommodation, I was tired.

Of course, with no Garmin, there’s no chance of knowing how much my relative effort was. It was a long day. From 9am until about 7pm or so. If I could guess at the elevation, I’d say around 5,000ft.

High in the hills

That night I stayed in a Chalet, next to a stream high up in the hills. An Romanian couple who had been foraging kindly provided me with a range of produce they’d picked themselves or bought locally. This was lucky because when I went to the local restaurant, it had closed and I had to come home and knock myself up some pasta. I left some of my Romanian red wine I’d bought in Timasoara. I figured they could use it for cooking, carrying around open wine ain’t that great an idea, especially not with these new fangled screw on tops.

The next day I had a much slower start. The route was on relatively main routes. I was able to stop and get supplies along the way. I had a ham cheese and salami sandwich with additional ham, then some sweet croissants and a sweet fizzy drink.

All very calorific and I felt set up for the day.

Morning was downhill, afternoon was uphill. Kamoot, my route planning app tells me it was 3,400ft downhill and 3,600ft uphill. A total of 38 miles.

At 37 miles, that represents the bottom end of what I might hope to achieve in a day. Bearing in mind the day I’d had before and the hilly conditions, I was fairly happy that this was far enough.

That night, I stayed at a hotel on the side of a lake in somewhere called Belis. It was a bit overpriced. The location was on the side of a lake. The view from the window in the morning and the fresh mountain air were particularly nice. Breakfast was a buffet, with a selection of cooked breakfast, cheese and cooked meats and cereal, croissants, bread and jam. A fair bit to choose from.

I had cereal with honey and yoghurt, followed by a fried breakfast and some bread and jam.

Felt better for it.

To Cluj-Napoca

My good old bike has developed some mechanical issues.

The bearings on the gear side are grinding badly. I’m able to move the wheel about 2cm from side to side.

As I’m cycling along it makes a crunching and squeaking sound. If started about 5 days ago in Timasoara. It’s got worse ever since.

I feared it wouldn’t get me here to Cluj, but now I’m here I’m going to have to call it a day. I’ve got no Garmin and the bike is unsafe to ride too.

For this reason, I’ll be taking a bus back to Bucharest tomorrow.

The last few days, I’ll be spending around there. Just relaxing me thinks, maybe seeing the sights I didn’t on my first visit.

Until then.