Romaniacs 2014: I want to race it thread

We have a group of 4 guys doing the Red Bull Romaniacs race this year and wanted to post up here on the forum to get some info.

Sign up and bike rental are pretty straightforward.

We are just looking to see how folks have done the trip in regard to actually getting to Sibiu. Flying into there is wicked expensive, as well as exhaustively long (layovers).

Plan is to fly to Bucharest and shuttle it from there....

Any thoughts about that etc?

Gnarly! Way to go Matt ! Check with Lyndon P.. I believe he is racing it this year. Maybe you can fly to the UK and fly to Romainia as an unofficial ADV team !!!

That's crazy. I can't imagine traveling that far to do that race. I've watched a good chunk of it from last year. Are you going to document the trip and the race here? If so, consider me subscribed!

I´ve got an good friend whome could be helpful if needed. He organize rides and are part of the track manager for ReD Bull Romaniacs and Red Bull Sea to Sky.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=567054359&fref=ts

That is one race to try.

Wow - Talk about going "ALL-IN"...

What kind of bikes are you looking to rent - 2 stroke or 4 stroke?

Best of luck with all the prep! That looks like a race you gotta be in shape for!! Physical prep is going to be just as important, if not more, than riding prep.

The plan is to come in a week or so early and ride dirt bikes around Sibiu Romania to get acclimated.

We are getting set up with KTM 250 2 strokes. They come prepped pretty well. I'm counting on using the week pre-riding to get the bike sorted out.

We are all on a pretty solid regimen of riding and workout. I'm not concerned about that part of it- everyone in the group is (or will be back to being) solid.

We have commitments from the same film crew to come do another documentary on it.

After we do the race, head over to the Croatian coast for 2 weeks with the family to chill out and have a vacation.

Hey I think I have relatives out there

Just out of curiosity, if you don't mind my asking, what do you think the whole package will end up costing? It's on my bucket list to sign up, travel over there, rent a bike, and then see what happens.

That's right! Let's party....

LOL, I think their all Bald ( inside Joke ) Good luck, Matt keep us in tune, I'll be Cheering you all on
Dave

If you get to Bucharest it's rather simple afterwards.
Easiest thing to do is go to Autogara Militari and then get on a bus to Sibiu. The buses usually takes about 4-5 hours to get to Sibiu. They leave every hour or half an hour, not exactly sure right now. Price was about 30 lei if I remember correctly (7 Euros ).
Another option is to take the train, but this is a considerrably longer journey, and last year they had atleast another hour of delay.
When you are at the airport easiest thing to do would be to get a taxi to take u guys there, a few things to remember is that usually taxis cost around 1.40 lei/km. The ones at ther airport are 3 times more expensive and they sometimes try to rip off foreigners....(this still ain't crazy expensive at around 1 euro/km). Anyway, best thing to do is to go to Departures (small ariport, not a long walk) and wait there for a taxi coming from the city (shouldn't take longer then 4-5 minutes).

Dragos

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/86168233@N08/11299349205/" title="image by maineroot, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5506/11299349205_ae4b4af689_c.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="image"></a>

I raced this year in Expert class ended up 34th after starting last.

I would try land in Sibui, we also did the Buckarest thing and rented a car.

Its a long drive to Sibui 250km takes about 4 hours, its quite scenic drive but alot of traffic on that road.

We rented from TCX , the guys really looked after us well and was good value.
Try go a few days early and go on an outride, The tcx guys (TEO) will help you , there is great riding there.

My only downside was i rented a Husaberg 350, i would have prefered a 2 stroke cause thats wat i ride at home.
I also knocked myself out in the prologue and had a long trip to the hospital (CT scan, ecg, ultra-spound, they really wasted my time)

Practice you down hills in the slippery mud, there are alot of those really steep. There was one downhill (highway to Hell) i walked my bike downhill for almost an hour in the rain

Does Andrew need a beer assistant? Thong washer? Key Grip? Or any of that other movie mumbo jumbo?

This sounds awesome. My inlaws live in Oradea, Romania and I have always wanted to try to set up our trip so I can cruise down to Sibiu and at least watch the Prologue. It is beautiful over there.

I know it is not the same to go to Oradea as Sibiu but we generally fly into Budapest, Hungary and then take a train over to Oradea. Once when we were over there, we got some round trip tickets from Timisora to Frankfurt and back and only used one half of them to get to Frankfurt and then flew home from there. Those tickets were only 99 Euros per person.

Last summer when we were visiting, I drove around a bit to go out for some river rafting and other tourist stuff and it was crazy! I thought I was going to die on the road. :eek1 There is not a very good concept of defensive driving there. It is more like offensive driving! And then there is the differences in speeds. Most people pay absolutely no attention to the speed limit so they are pretty much driving as fast as their Dacia can go. Contrast that to the horse drawn carts rolling down the highway. It is nuts!

I am not sure how long the train ride is from Bucharest to Sibiu but I do know that it was a painful 12 hour ride from Oradea to Bucharest.

Keep an eye on your stuff. I always try to keep my hand on my bag. Most people there are awesome but some are not.

Scott- We are still working on that part of it! Should be hilarious......

Registered and paid up.

We have the option of riding some of the new KTM 250R FreeRide bikes for the race.

I'm not sure I'd want to do that without getting some seat time on one before the race week. Trying to figure a way out to get our hands on a few here in the USA.

Play with the flights and booking this early for the flights into Sibiu may not be the best on price. And from the traffic and seeing the shuttles, I'd fly in there.

Also connecting with Euro riders from bigger cities may present the opportunity to hitch a ride in with them. Especially if you bring them gear that we can get way cheaper over here!

Good luck, practice hills and ruts.

JIMMY

Matt I can hook you guys up with plenty of muddy hills and ruts here in Indiana come spring

We flew Calgary, London, Frankfurt to Sibiu on flight reward points($600 cdn). The airport in Sibiu is fast and small which could save some precious time.