Cycle Shorts: 1 Day of Your Trip: Jess Thomas - Romania

Ever dreamt of what it would be like to cycle across the Transfǎgǎrǎșan Pass in Romania on a bike adventure? Well listen to Jess Thomas share her experience of doing just that as she recalls what it was like for one day of her trip.

Want to be featured for your own episode of Cycle Shorts? Get in touch and send me a direct message on instagram - @SeekTravelRide - and I will let you know how to get involved.

Follow Jess and her adventures on Instagram via - @jess_revolveyourself 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:25

Hello everyone, Bella Malloy here, host of Seek Travel Ride, welcoming you to another midweek mini episode of our Cycle Shorts series. Each week I feature a listener of the show recounting their experiences of one day of their trip on a bicycle adventure that they have taken. Now, if you want to get involved in these episodes yourself and share your own story, the easiest way to do so is to send me an email to podcast at seektravelride.com. Send me an email and I can let you know how you can share your story and be featured. Now this week's episode features Jess Thomas from Australia, and she's going to take us to the Carpathian Mountains in Romania for a day of her trip. Take it away, Jess.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Hi Bella. Okay, so a day in the life of a cyclist. You're in the Transylvania region, and any prospective cycle tourist of Transylvania and the Carpathian Mountains probably wants to try the Trans Alpina or the Transfagaration. Two Alpine roads, lots of hairpin bends, very famous for any type of vehicle, including a bike. So we decided to do the Trans Alpina because there were less chances of seeing bears on the road, and we were quite petrified because as a cyclist, you don't have much protection if you see a brown bear as much as we wanted to see one. But as fate goes, all of a sudden we decided to cycle the Transfagration because it was close to proximity to us. We woke up in this small town and it was raining. And in some ways that makes you want to sleep in, but you also know you've got a huge stair ahead of you that won't be changing. But it was nice to start with clouds covering the Carpathian Mountains in Romania where we were about to cycle. And we knew we were in for a big ride. The night before we'd organized with a person at the basic hotel or lodge where we were staying to take our bags for us, which is an absolute dream for a cyclist. I've only done it once or twice in my life. And this guy, we filled his whole car up with all of our bags so that we just had the bare basics, like two back panners with not much at all. And we set off into cycling the Transfaguration Road, and we knew we had 30 kilometres ahead of us to ride one and a half thousand meters in elevation. And it's got classic hairpin bends and pine tree kind of all around you. But the thing about this ride on this day is that Romania is very well known for bears. In fact, the week before we arrived, a 19-year-old girl was killed by a bear on a walking track, which is really sad for the bears because then they go and cull lots of bears. And so for us, we knew that if we cycled this route, we were likely to see bears. And so it was a matter of sticking together. There were four of us. Even going to the toilet wasn't really something we wanted to do. So it really put us on high alert. Plus cycling uphill, plus there'd been rain in the morning, so everything was a bit wet on the road. We saw a salamander after about 10Ks, which was fantastic. And the first 15 kilometers or so we were in the pine forest. It was fantastic. There was a kind of stop along the way where we were able to eat some hot steaming kirtosh, which we paid $10 for, and looked at a huge waterfall above us that we were going to be cycling well above. And then we kept on cycling a mountain together. Starting at 7 a.m., we got up the top at midday. And you go through so many highs and lows on a big cycling uphill route. I love it. I love getting into the grand. I'm not necessarily the fastest, but I really enjoy that endurance aspect of riding up a big mountain. It's satisfying. You're with your friends. And in this case, we had to stick together because if we saw a bear, there was all this planning of what we would do. And then we got to this sort of famous area of hairpin bends. And not only were the bends pretty intense, it was actually a bit easier than we expected. We didn't see any other cyclo-tourists, but we did see road cyclists on a Saturday morning out. Kind of like the bean pole type that just goes up so fast you hardly even see them for more than a few minutes in front of you and they're gone. And it was just a dream having no bags on our bikes, and we got up to the top. I felt elated, honestly. My dad and I are on this trip together. So my dad's 63 and I'm 32. And the morning riding up a huge mountain is no mean feat. And to do it with your dad is like such a cool experience. The views were sensational. It's really famous for a reason. Just really rich greens glistening and rock faces. Then looking down over pine forest and below that, just the lowlands of Transylvania, which means beyond the woods in Romanian. Then we got to the top and we'd organized with the man who'd so kindly taken our bags to the top to meet him for lunch. So met him for lunch and had a celebratory beer. And then we realized we needed to hightail it down the hill because a storm was coming in and it was settling in for the next day or two. And so riding down was a dream. Oh, we're so blessed. Cars were piling up on the other side to come up to the top because there's a spectacular lake when you get up to the top of the Transfiguration. And we just get to breeze past all the cars and go as fast as we want down the mountain. And those are the moments when I wish that all of my family and friends could just see through my eyes and we could share the experience. But it makes me feel so joyful. There's not much more in life that you need when you're cycling down a massive mountain in a country that you barely know anything about. It's just the dream. And then we got down. The road doesn't stop meandering through the pine forest. It was getting a bit late in the day because we just we'd pushed it and there were no hotels or anything like that. And we were starting to get a bit tired. That like kind of high gets converted to a bit of a low. Then it started raining, and it was about five o'clock, and we were alone, and all of a sudden, a bear is on the side of the road. It was a big bear, a big brown bear. It looked like it had been walking through the forest and had stopped for a rest on the side of the road. But there were no cars there. It was just us. And we all stopped about 200, no, 100 meters from it, and just looked at it, got a little bit closer. Your emotions are just running pretty high. My adrenaline spiked immediately. And there weren't any cars there for maybe a minute and a half. And so we really just got to enjoy seeing a bear in Romanian wilderness. The good thing about being on the bike is that you feel quite safe and you have this speedy getaway vehicle. Maybe not everyone agrees with that, but that's how it felt. And then the Romanian vehicles started to arrive. Cars formed a little line and even turned themselves wedged so that we were completely protected from going near the bear. And we moved pretty quickly past, but not so fast that we didn't get to look in the bear's eye. And it kind of put its paw up to say, what's that? That's something different to a car. And it felt really harmless and just a really cool moment. And we were all buzzed. The energy that had been low for that moment, it comes back with a vengeance, and all of a sudden I was just riding so fast up the little hills again. And I love that. I love the way that at the end of the day you think that you're at your limit for endurance and energy. But then something can happen and you just tap into another sort of energy level that you didn't even know that you had. I feel like that's a bit of a gift. You don't get to have all the time on cycle tours. Yeah. And then we were aiming to get through to the end of the Transfagoration to camp out of the woods where there were no bears. But it was just getting a bit dark. And so I saw a sign for camping after having gone into another place and asking if we could maybe just camp in their vicinity because they have a bear fence. But they said no. And so went a little further. And it's always that question of is this day going to go well or is this day going to become really challenging? Can we relax now or should we just keep our guard up? I saw a sign for camping and it said 800 meters off to the left. So we got into the campsite, and as we were riding that 800 meter road, it was quite rocky. It felt like we were in the forest. Crystal's phone started going off with an alarm that said, bear, bear present, bear present in your area. And I thought it meant that there was a bear quite literally within 100 meters, and it had, I don't know, maybe they had a GPS on it and it pings your phone. And I was like, just keep riding, Crystal. She had skinnier ties and it was really hard for her to ride on the gravel. And I didn't want to leave her behind to get attacked by the bear. But then we saw the campsite and we rolled in. As soon as we rolled in, it just started pouring with rain. And it makes you feel like you've made the right decision to go inside and stop, and it's much safer, and it's like confirmation bias. Love it. And we got up there to the camping spot and it was open, but classic. You're not actually able to camp there because it's not safe because they don't have a bare fence. So we booked a little cabin, went into the restaurant at the campsite in the woods, which was sort of like steaming because there'd just been rain and there were clouds in the pines. We just felt like it was the cherry on the cake for this day cycling the Transfagrassi. I think we cycled 90 kilometers with a one and a half thousand meter mountain. Fortunately, not with panniers. Really grateful about that. Our legs would be too. And we had planned to maybe go and um cycle the Transalpina, which is the equivalent about 40 kilometers to the west of the Transfagrassian. And my dad said, guys, that was so good, but I don't want to do that again. I think that just about sums up one of our favourite days so far, cycling across Eastern Europe on the Eurovelo 6, a trip that I'm on right now.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Thank you so much, Jess, for sharing that day of your trip with us there. Wow, so many things to take away from it. Those dreamy mountain landscapes in Romania, those Carpathian mountains, those famous mountain passes with all their twists and turns on the snake road. I mean just imagine what it would have been like that day to be free of your loaded panniers as well. You would have felt like you were flying. Well, maybe not quite flying, but as you said, you definitely appreciated being able to take the passes on without the heavy loads as well. And then to actually see the bears, I love that anecdote that you had that you went past being shielded by the cars, but the bear sort of had a bit of a look at you going, ooh, I wonder what you're about. And then also just the way that you describe the emotions of a day of touring when it's hard like that, with the ups and the downs, you have the high of being energized by just what you've been able to achieve, but then also the low that comes because your energy is so sapped, and then just how quickly all of that can change around, almost seemingly in the blink of an eye. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed listening to Jess share that day of her trip. And you can look forward to listening to Jess in a few weeks' time on a long feature guest interview where I get into the details of her cycle touring backstory and into more of her adventures, which have taken her all over the world. Once again, I have a massive thank you to give to all of you super fans who have bought me virtual coffees to help support the show. You've clicked the link in the podcast show notes and bought me a virtual coffee. It all goes to funding the show and helping me get these episodes out to you each and every week. I want to give a shout out to Johnny G who says, Enjoyed my first listen, and I'm looking forward to hearing your previous pods as well. I liked your style and interesting guests. Keep it up. Well, thank you, Johnny G. I'm glad that you have discovered the show. Make sure you trawl through that back catalogue because there are so many episodes with so many guests, and everyone has a varied story and experience to share, which I hope will be inspiration for your own trips as well. And Sandra Katz says, Great interview with my favorite biker, Jacob Ashton. Thank you so much for what you do. Thank you, Sandra, for supporting the show. I really love digging into Jacob's backstory, and I've been following him on his Instagram account to see where he and his partner Carolyn are headed to each and every day. They're currently in the high mountains of Kyrgyzstan, and it is amazing to see their progress. Thank you once again for supporting the show. Now, listeners, if you would also like to show your support and appreciation for what I'm putting together here at Seek Travel Ride, it's pretty simple. All you have to do is click the link for Buy Me a Coffee, which I have included in the show notes. Click that link, buy me a coffee, and help me continue to produce this show for you. Until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.