Day One Sibiu to Sighisoara, The Shakedown, Fortified Church and Castle Dracula
It is a late October afternoon as the Ride Xpower “Dracula Trail” tour group lounges in the autumn sun outside of the café in the Fortified Church in Biertan, Romania. We’ve spent too much time here enjoying cappuccinos and the ambience of this medieval fortress as the sun drifts behind the rounded peaks in front of us. The late start out of Sibiu is going to bite us, I think to myself as I check the GPS for the distance to our destination in Sighisoara. Ugh, 25 miles. It’ll be close if things go well. It’s 3:30 before the group starts to stir and make their way to the haphazardly parked Husqvarnas and KTMs across from the café in this ancient Romanian village. It’s not until 4:00 p.m. that we’ve cleared the meadows outside of the village and push into the forested hills.
The day began in Sibiu (home to Red Bull Romanaics) and has been an eclectic mix of forested single track, rolling hills, cart roads and meadows. Fortunately, this section of trail has been smooth single track and we’re making good time. Things are going well until a downed tree blocks the only easy route to the top of hill we need to clear. In what could be a scene from any C-Class Hare Scramble, bikes scatter, and the forest is abuzz with spinning and smoking two strokes. A portion of the group tries to bushwhack up a gentle slope, but the undergrowth is a tangled web of bittersweet and briars. Others try their luck further down but there’s too many downed trees and bikes are dropping like candle pins. Finally, someone scouts a line to the top, but it’s a steep ascent that doesn’t have much of a run up. It then involves an ~150 yard steep, off-camber traverse over a fresh bed of fallen leaves to get us back to the trail.
The first rider to try the scouted line clicks it into second gear and pins it, his 300 wrung-out for everything it’s got. He closes in on the top and in an instant, plunges into the hillside courtesy of a partially buried and perfectly angled log. Wobbly on his feet, he shakes it off and tries to push it to the top, but the incline is too steep, and he’s forced to the bottom for another go. The next rider has only been riding for a short time and takes a passive approach, trying to finesse his way to top but quickly loses traction and begins paddling. To the group’s delight, his 300 finds some traction and launches a few bike lengths up the hill without him. He claws his way to where it landed and ghosts it to the bottom, unable to throw a leg over it given the steep incline.
BY Kevin Novello