2020 RomaniaDualSport Adventure Ride Day 2

Day 2

     We reached Valea Stanii in department of Prahova late in the evening, wet, tired and hungry.  We couldn't go to any bar as we were still in a state of emergency in Romania but we managed to take some food and beer in the hotel and ....

     We woke up after a looooong as night 😅 took some cofee and began the preparation for today's ride.

      

    There is this off road heaven road called Valea Stinii, more than 15 km of straight off road where anybody can ride. There we let the horses run and we openend the gas on the motorcycle. It is super fun and makes you fell a teenager again.

   The wheather was super fine and we stopped a couple of times to take some pictures and just enjoy the view.

My Mosko Moto setup

This is Gabriel 

The Kamikaze guy, Emi

The Ktm 790, brand new but.....

Selfie time

 You will see later on why I wrote "but"
next to the 790....

Love my Mavic Pro

    Boy oh boy, the vistas are incredible, the speed you can reach on those roads are high and overall we felt alive, this is the reason why we do this

   We then found a local bar who was serving food and drinks. We stopped for lunch. We were in this small town called Intorsura Buzaului

   The local food is great, a little spicy but sooo tasty. Please remember not to eat too much and ride again, you might have some....discomfort.
   Some tarmac, back country roads, small hills and river crossing, it was a small treat after the hard day before.

  Then it happened. The brand new KTM 790 stopped working. At first Gabriel complained about the clutch not working so well. But after one hour his clutch did not work at all.
  We stopped, we towed him to a small cabin and we called the dealer. We had to leave him behind, with his motorcycle as the dealer told us he will be there the next day.
   We reached our destination, a small town called Comandau in the department of Covasna. We looked for a camping spot near the river Basca and we found one, outside the town, in a place where they are organising summer events. There was even a small wooden stage for the bands to play and we used it for setting up camp.
   Normally we took out everything and we prepared for the night. When we made the camp fire our brother Nic Filoti, used a small axe to cut the wood. Well, he cut his hand really bad.....
  He is a plastic surgeon and he said that he will live 😆

 Surrounded by big trees, by birds singing, we went to bed at the end of one relaxing day.

      

2020 RomaniaDualSport Adventure Ride

What is all about 

          Every year, usually arround July, me and my closest moto friends, we make a 10 days trip in Romania. We use mainly off road tracks and mountain passes, we sleep in tents but not only, and we ride in the wonderfull Carpathians.
         This year of course was no exception and we had a blast. I am creating a series of blogs to write about each day and show you why we love to do what we do.
         In my youtube channel  I organised the videos like this: every day will start with a trailer, a sneak peak of the day. Then I will upload extended episodes from that day. In the blog we will do the same but with the difference that here I will tell you exactly what we did, show you the track with the posibillity to download it and show you pictures from that day. SO let's start !!!

Day 1

  Let me start with the trailer

   Grohotis Mountains. They are fabulos !!!. It is not dificult to ride them but reaching the top trails is a chalenge.
   We started our journey from Nic Filoti's house from  Calinesti Prahova, a small town next to the montains. We came to his house on Friday and like any motorcycle rider we started with a barbecue and beer and whisky.

  You can't imagine the way Nic's wife is cooking .... mmmm mmmm

    After a looooong night, in the morning, durring the breakfast we felt it, the emotion, that little itch in the palm of the hand, the small fear in the heart that we have before every departure with each unique circumstance. As soon as I start I feel in control of my fate and my life and imediately have a huge smile on my face.

 
   We took off arround 10 o'clock and we went straight to the gas station. After fueling up our bikes we went towoards the entrance in the track. We all use the GPS, some use Garmin's some the phone. For this year I decided to use my Iphone as the primary source for navigation. It is not bad...but I will not use it anymore as the primary source. I will use may GPS Map 62 and the phone as a backup or to have a better view of the track. I use the Gaia GPS app with a subscription to navigate and it is the best app I have ever used. It has a ton of layers and give's you endless posibilities to customize your track, route or gpx file.
  Going back to the ride... The day was sunny, there were 27 degrees (celsius) outside and we felt great, until it started to rain...  from 1 o'clock till the evening. But we were ok, it was only the first day, we felt enthuziastic about it and really, a little rain never killed anybody. But when it is wet on the mountain and 10 shepperd dogs surround you with the intention to have dinner it is not funny anymore. Please check minute 6:08 😅

   Spectacular landscapes, drone shots, you can see in the video why I said that Grohotis mountains are fabulos.
  They are not very high, they arround 2000 meters, and our motorcycles felt great. We had 3 Yamaha TT600R, one DR350, one KTM990, one KTM 790 and one Yamaha T700. Lot's of different displacements with different characters and all did the job easy.
   Ok now, what comes up, must go down as well, and at some point we started the descent. Usually in the Charpathians, on the low altitudes, there are forests. In the forest if it is raining there is this clay, this horibble mud that you have to navigate through. Well, we reached the forest and it was not raining anymore, it was pouring....

   Finally after almoust 2 hours in the forest we reached the other side of the mountain, we reached the tarmac, and we were headding towords a city called Cheia from the department of Prahova. Wet, cold, hungry and exhausted I searched for a hotel to rest and get our chlothes dry. I found one, called Hotel Cheia, a big one, we cheked in for the night.

   The next day, the hotel washed and dryed out gear and we headed out for what it was one of the best days of the Adventure Ride but we will write about it in another vlog.

    Ride hard, ride safe, and enjoy life! See you in the next blog

How to keep you children off the tablets

Nowadays this is a real issue !

      I have a neighbor who has a 9 year old boy. I live in my house for a little over a year now and in the first 6 months I did not even knew he had a child. He was staying in the house, on the tablet and the telephone for hours.
      Now, I know that giving a child a tablet or a telephone is a real escape for the parents but is wrong! It will make your child antisocial, scared, with real dificulties in comunication.
      I have a close friend who has a child, a 5 year old boy, who couldn't speak correctly anymore because of the tablet and internet. He went to the doctor and started therapy but at some point the progress stopped. Then the doctor said "You need to take your child into the nature. To return to the simple things, cooking, fire making, sleeping outside, route discovery. Involve him in all of that"

     After 4 summer months his child was perfect, strong, confident and no issues with the speaking.

    Well I have a 5 year old son, he has no comunication issues but he is very atracted by the Youtube, tablets and phones. So I decided to take him camping. We went to the closest camping area and camped for the weekend. Boy it was nice !
    We started a fire, we cooked, we walked into the woods, but something was missing ...

    We live in 2020, it is very hard to separate childs from technology. We camped for one weekend but he will return to school, to other childs that have phones, and tablets. You can't keep your child forever from technology and you shouldn't either. But what I figured I could do is to mix it toghether.

    So I thought "Let's make a vlog toghether" I took the phone and started to film him. My god, he was so natural explaining, he felt so comfortable in front of the camera and he had a lot of fun doing it. Next we took the gps and I started to explain what it was, how to use it and again he was hooked.
    In the future I will give him a camera too. Who knows, maybe I have a great future youtuber with me 😀

   I know the below video is in Romanian but please take a look how natural he is and you can see he is enjoing it and I know now what I will do with my small 1 year old child a litter later on.

How to keep them away from tablets !!!

 Stay safe, enjoy life and ride safe !

My First Blog

 Why blog?
    Yes, I deceided today to start to blog. It is fun, it is something that I always wanted to do and now I think it is time to do it.
    I will learn the misteries of blogging and how to create a great blog, in time, for the moment I just go with it and see where it takes me.
    Although I live in Romania and my native language is romanian, I will do it in english because I have a purpose. My purpose for the blog is to show to the world what's like to ride in Romania, to show all the beautifull places here and really try to make you feel what I feel when I see them.
    I spoke about riding, I am taking about riding a motorcycle because this is my passion, it has been for the last 16 years and it will never stop.....
    I started with a sport touring bike, a Kawasaki GPZ500S was my first bike ever. Then I had an R6, what a rocket. But I felt it was not quite the right bike for my, neither the style. The other passion that I have is nature. So naturally I crossed over to enduro. Boy it had me...Small bike at first, a Kawa KLX250 then a Ktm 450 EXC... and that was it. I was foreved in love with KTM. From here I swaped through a lot of enduro bikes, Yamaha, Aprilia, Suzuki, but I was always returning to KTM. Finally I found one used 2007 KTM 990 Adventure.

    To this day I ride this awsome bike and it is a beast wich I love
    Naturally, because I had the desire to show as much as possible, places from my country, I found it easy to attach a camera to my helmet and press the record button. So the Youtube channel was born:
http://www.youtube.com/c/ROMANIADUALSPORT
    Again, I knew nothing about the filming, just out of passion I kept filming and I found out it is a great way to save my memories
    You know very well that the motorcycle comunity is a special one. I made a lot of friends and met a lot of people, but as you all did I'm sure I have a special relationship to a few of them. You will know them all in my future blogs, but also on my YT channel.
    At first it was local forest trails, then the closest mountains. Today we ride epic Adventure Rides in all the country.
    On my blog, I will write about those rides, the places I go, feelings I have, but also I will be making reviews on the gear I whear, equipments, parts etc. Sometimes I will be making DIY blogs or varios works I do in my garrage, why not?
    Please excuse my very likely grammar  mistakes. I will not use any grammar correction, it is what it is 😁
    In the end I would like to show you the trailer of the second day of the 2020 RDS (RomaniaDualSport) Adventure ride
    Thank you for taking the time to read my very first blog ✋✌ ride safe

    Oh yes, I do not want to always hide behind a helmet so this is me: