Eastern European Tour 2008 - 7500km in 15days

Our story began in Fall 2007, when we were discussing plans for next summer. As we hade quite limited time for vacation and also we were looking for not so civilized places, our choice was to go to Romania and Ukraine. Summer came and suddenly it was time to go.
But where is the Adventure, when your plans will not change during your ride? So final route was not exactly the same we planned...

Our team and bikes:
Raul

and his Kawasaki KLE500


Juho

and his BMW R1200GS


me

and my Tiger 955i


Our fourth member Erik had some bad luck and we don't have many pictures from him :) This picture shows the outcome


But from the beginning. Our first destinations was Constanta, Romania. 2500km from our hometown Tallinn, Estonia. How to get there fast and not loose valuable time? You can ride a Saddlesore1500 of course!
Me and Erik decided it's too fast for us. We started one day earlier than Juho and Raul, so we had 3 full days to get there.

We started in´Saturday morning and our goal for this day was to ride past Warszawa in Poland, which is 1000km away. Weather was perfect, we were happy to be on the road and despite we were few hours behind our schedule, everything seems perfect.
First stop in Salacsgriva, Latvia. One latvian biker came to us to ask where we are going

before entering Poland, weather changed and it started to rain. It was time to put rainsuits on.

It continued raining all the way through Poland. I didn't feel comfortable to drive in darkness in crowded roads with so poor visibility, so I suggest to find a motel. Just before Lomza we found one. 850km for this day.


Next morning we got up quite early, because we were few hundred km's behind our plans.
But you can't plan such bad luck. Just after Lomza, maybe 15km from motel, Erik bike just stopped without any warnings.

and of course we divide our tools so that multimeter and spare wires were on other bikes. And it was Sunday, even birds doesn't fly in Poland this day, you can be sure that all workshops are closed. Murphy's law :) In the same time Juho and Raul started from Tallinn for his non-stop ride to Constanta.



As my experience says, doesn't matter where you stop, you will find some friendly locals who want to help you. So was it also this time. And despite he was talking only polish (at least he didn't speak english, german, russian or estonian), he found a multimeter and some wires from somewhere.

As the spark was as strong as it could be, we suspect fuel pump failure. While we could'nt fix fuel pump on the road, we start looking for a trailer to get Erik's bike to service. Warszawa was 150km away. What's more natural than to call BMW service car if you are in trouble with BMW?

But would you expect, that the bill for this 150km could be something like 600 Euros? At least we didn't :eek1 Add fuel pump costs to this and it was like 1000 Euros all together, so Erik decide not to follow us, but turn back to home.
I continued alone towards Romania, but while it was already 2.00pm when trailer arrived, it was certain I will not make Romania this day.
When riding 2500km in 36hours, your butt makes you creative, how to change your seating position:

Quick lunch somewhere


When you are not riding a Saddlesore1500, you have time to make some pictures from beautiful places. Somewhere in Zakopane area before entering Slovakia. When I was taking picture, some locals stopped with car next to me and asked, do I need some help? Well, everything was OK this time :)

I stopped in Slovakia, 650km this day, 1200km to go by GPS.


Quick nap during saddlesore ride, 5am:


Because of Erik's misfortune, I was some hours back from my friends. I woke up with the sun with plans to reach Constanta this day. Sunrise in Tatra mountains


Well, there are better places to ride Saddlesore than through Poland and Romania. Traffic jams, bad road conditions, countless number of villages and so on. Juho and Raul were really pushing, but still behind theyr schedule. Closing Constanta and Black Sea at sunset, they were just some minutes behind it.

Can you expect to be 3minutes late after 1500miles and 36hours? But that's the outcome, so better luck next time.

I arrived approximately 10pm, after riding 1200km through Slovakia, Hungary and Romaina, and we were all together again in our Hostel as planned before.


to be continued...

Next day was planned for resting, some swimming in Black Sea, having good meal and just do nothing.
But for the beginning we had to adjust Kawa's steering head bearings

No, it wasn't a result of a crash, we just find out, that our GS needs new bulb for standlight


When looking for the place where we can read e-mails for checking our Tchernobyl bookings, we met this 97-years old guy, who gave us total overview about local elections and how we should vote :)


Some weird things happened in darkness.


Next day was time to start with real adventure. Transilvania was waiting for us.
To get there, we had to cross Danube river with barge.

Unfortunately we had an accident also, when a small bird hits BMW's telelever. We found him probably 100km later than it happened.

For the evening we were already in Karpathian mountains.

First campsite

You can see dogs everywhere in Romania, actually this dog found us.


Next day, and we continued toward mountains. If you're in Transilvania, you have to visit Dracula's castle in Brad.



Of course in the real life Dracula (or count Vlad) even didn't live there in the past, he was only visiting this castle.
After visiting this castle we thought that it's enough with culture and now we are focusing on the nature.
Heading towards Transfagasaran road, which probably was closed because of red signs in the side of the road. But we couldn't read romanian and hoped for the best and of course continued.


A dam, where you can make 166m bungee jump - you can see the platform in the left side of picture.

Going higher and higher, we met clouds at 1500m .
A local shepherd and his sheeps were even higher.

Half of the road was still under the snow

Snowclimbing in June

Road gets more and more narrower until we couldn't go any further

300kg Tiger in the snow

Yep, the road was really closed

What you can't do you can't do

Great stuff

This is a wonderful report! Please keep going!!!

Great trip!

Perfect trip. Keep the report going.

And now in estonian: Hästi panite. Rõõm on näha sellel saidil ka tuttavate meeste sõitu.

Wow, thats a lot of snow :eek1

Nice pics...thanks for sharing.

Shoulda got shovelin'.....Great report.

OK, let's go on.

While we had to turn back, we decided to take a motel for this night. What to do, when your motel doesn't offer breakfast? Well, you have to do it by yourselves on the balcony.


We were back on the road again, and roads are not only for cars and bikes in Romania

We start to look for smaller roads to see real Romania. Actually Juho fall over when trying to climb this small ascent, but he was to proud to let us take a picture from him.

Our GPS were useless in those small roads, so we had to look at the map and just guess where we should go.

Typical village, typical road

When we really get lost in some village, we met one romanian guy with his ATV. He promised to show us direct way to our destination.

Going uphill, Tiger decided to take a break for a while. No we have fallover score as follows: Tiger 2 : GS 2 : KLE 0

Now things started to get interesting, at least for some of us (me )

But of course we managed it without problems

more action shots

Time to say goodbye to our guide, now we have to continue straight for 2km to get on the proper road.

We decide to take a lunch break before we continue.

It was really hot

After lunch we continued our way to west

Our guide sayd we must turn left at next intersection. But asking from one old woman we decided to continue straight.

We were almost there, by GPS it was like 2kms from the main road

But unfortunately the road just ended, it was washed away lately

We had to turn around and head back to this mentioned intersection. Following our guides suggestions, we got back to the main road.
Look at this guy, he really had too much stuff - or too small car!

Direction south

When refuelling at the petrol station, Kawasakis sidestand suddenly break. Raul barely managed to hold his bike upright.

Friendly staff guided us to the workshop nearby. Those guys were really rebuilding cars from nothing.

As usual, we described our problem, using every language we knew, and everybody understood without problems of course.

Welding sidestand, current rebuilding project as a workbench

After 30minutes we were back on the road.
Unfortunately now we got final information, that our Tcernobyl trip is cancelled and decision was to be made, what should we do now.
As we got some warnings about that already in Constanta, we already had some ideas. Now its clear: we are going to see Mediterranean Sea, through Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia to Croatia. Final destination: Dubrovnik!

Very nice RR, waiting for the pics from my Croatia and Dubrovnik where I used to live for 2 years

Looks like you had too much fun

Nice trip report, thanks for sharing.

When evening came, we were already entering Serbia.
Bridge over Danube

While Juho's dream was to find a campsite where we can see many kilometers over wavy landscape, we started looking for such place :)

We're almost there!

Time to take some pictures

Shepherd's hut

Yes, we found right place!

Next morning:


It's time to try some water crossings

Exploring Serbia

Back on asphalt

It's time to get some lunch

Domestic kitchen

When we continued towards south, hills were getting steeper

Beautiful roads, beautiful landscape:

But somewhat boring, isn't it? It's time to turn away from paved roads again

Roads were getting steeper and narrower and I couldn't keep my Tiger upright 3rd (an last) time

Discovering local fauna

Place for todays camp



Life is beautiful!

Sunset

Its a great trip!!! You should travel a little bit more to the south..........

Next morning one serbian shepherd came to look us. He said only "dobro" and looked quietly for awhile while we were packing our stuff. Then shaked his head and walked away.

It was probably his summerhut, it was few hundred meters from our campsite.

mountain roads in Serbia

Looking for bigger roads now

Small lesson also - do not forgot tighten your rubber packing straps, brake caliper will catch them! Descent without working rear brakes may surprise you

While Raul was removing rubber straps from rear caliper, local cowtransport arrived. Serbians looked very friendly, but reserved people. They smiled at us, but didn't say a word



Back on asphalt, we hurried up toward Montenegro

Leaving Serbia, passport control

Already in Montenegro, we stopped for quick lunch. Raul found another vehicle for traveling and we suspect he had thoughts to change this with his KLE500.

In the meantime we were preparing lunch.

Lunch, Montenegro-way

Roads were getting better and wider, mountains higher.

There were massive roadworks going on and soon travelling there should be fast and easy and... boring

We couldn't wait for green lights and hoped to get through. Hopefully these workers weren't very mad for us!

And despite you can travel fast on these new roads, we turn to smaller one, which should bring us to the pass 1600m ASL.

We were barely able to hold 30km/h average speed, while taking pictures and just looking at those amazing mountains.



photo-stop

We started descending towards Bosnia



Already in Bosnia, we were approaching our today's target Dubrovnik.

And finally - Mediterranean Sea!

I really enjoy this one. Now, as far as I can remember, Dubrovnik (and the whole coast of former Yougoslavia) sits on the Adriatic sea...

Have fun !

Maniac

The Adriatic Sea is a part of the Mediterranean Sea, so it is technically correct.

Very nice RR.

Keep it comin' chaps.