Boga – Munții Apuseni, Romania

In the northwest of Romania you’ll find the Apuseni Mountains with peaks around 1800 meters. The area is a natural park and has hundreds of caves. We stay in a small village named Boga. Here it is:

I’m together with Sebi and Mutzi from Oradea. We brought two bikes each in case there would be time left for some DH

Energized to get going… Sebi:

It’s Friday and hard to leave Oradea in time, but there is still some light. We take one of the cars from Boga at 600 meters to a plateau at 1200 meters. The sun is warm but it has rained a lot lately. I’m sure you’ve read about the floodings on in the Balkan states, and we got our share of it too. But now: sun.

But the rain is not far away

After some downhill we start a climb through a forest that reminds me very much of Swedish West coast – very nice combo of feeling at home and the high level of oxygen in the air.

These mountains are so different to the Carpathians. Here there are hills with vegetation like in a jungle, and then suddenly canyons, gullies, caves and other strange surprises. Some push bikes for the guys mostly doing Enduro and DH. Mutzi’s plan is by the way to participate in the DH world championships in Hafjell in September.

Such a nice landscape

We made it back before complete darkness after 2 hours and 900 in climb and 1500 descent. After having picked up the car, dining with some good wine we start planning tomorrows ride

It’s raining all night. We repeat the set-up from yesterday and gain some elevation.

The Swedish forest

I so fun riding with guys that can enjoy riding in the wet and cold – so many people in these Latino countries wont ride unless it’s 25-30 degrees and still they always over dress. Mutzi is even of the opinion that this is in fact THE best weather to ride in. We make it up to a ridge, but unfortunately we cannot enjoy the views. Some horses are roaming around without fences or any other limitations. I wonder how they prevent them from running away…

Fog

But some light now and then and you get an idea of the mountains surrounding us

By now we are wet and cold but Sebi knows the guy having a hotel in the ski resort where we end up. We park the bikes in the garage, get our stuff dried in the boiler room and dine like kings. As we leave the garage we are more than ready for more riding in the wet

And yes, it starts raining even more as we start a climb with bikes on the back

Salamanders are active in the wet

After an opening we reach a steep edge and the ”Rusty hole” – a cool feature totally created by nature even though it looks man made. No sand pit in other words.

We continue the climb and get totally lost. Where are we?

Should we go that way?

Or that way?

After half an hour we finally find the way

We go down a dangerous downhill with giant round rocks rolling all over but we make it down to the asphalt road. Some kilometers on asphalt in the dusk and we are back to celebrate with a beer. 40km, 1300 meters of climb and 1900 meters of descent.

By now it’s Sunday and I have 8 hours in the car in front of me so we go for some shuttling to enjoy the DH trail that they have been building the last weekends. Mutzi is a bit tired and volunteers as driver. It’s wet like hell and the mud is not mud, it’s clay