Beats me. The weather… It is supposed to be winter and snow by now. But ok… let’s pretend it’s spring. The family is enjoying 17 degrees in the garden while I go to the mountains. Fair enough, we had frost during the nights, men 11 degrees at 300 meters elevation in January???

Today’s ride is based on the short version (35km, 1000m climb) in the yearly Pucioasa competition organized by my friend Catalin. The longer version is around 90km and 3000m of climbing. 17 happy dudes ready to get going – another three guys joined in after the picture was taken

Some practicalities before take off

Cruising through a village

We start the first climb

And then it gets brutally steep

We reach a plateau

After some hangout in the sun we continue uphill

Some others were doing the climb as well

Nice beech forest section

More climbing and more horses

Just a bit more

And then downhill (and no pictures)

After having yelling in the garden at least ten times finally a guy who apparently just woke up appears with a cigarette in his mouth and open up the local store.

Today’s second big climb in wet and dry

Such a nice view before enjoying the downhill

A farmer is burning off the grass and it feels like passing through “Ragnarök”

So, 20 people in one group. Nice but also impossible to keep together for such a long ride. I’ve got guests for the evening back in the city and can’t delay any more and have to leave the group. I get to do the whole awesome downhill alone. At least I get myself a selfie

I wonder what the weather will be the coming weeks. Two years ago we had no snow in the city, and two weeks later one meter of snow!

---