If someone has already visited Romania, he knows that this country is mostly covered with mountains. Mountain ranges in many places have still preserved their wilderness and inaccessibility, making them an ideal destination for people who want to escape from loud and crowded tourist resorts. Romania is great for those who like to ride full natural trails or paths not designed for a bike. Searching for some interesting places in this country I came across a place that is known as a first Flow Trail built in Romania and also it is serviced by a gondola lift. What’s more, this route was built by a team with an IMBA certificate, which gave the good hopes that this “flow” will not only be coming from the name.
This place is located at the Straja ski resort and is a relatively new initiative that aims to attract tourists to this area also in the summer, so that the resort will function all year long. The project of bike trails is run by an American who has been living in surroundings of Straja for 20 years, and tries to promote whole Jiu Valley as a tourist destination. The most interesting thing about him is that earlier he had not even ridden a bike too much, but 3 years ago he took up this project and decided that if they want to build bike trails, then they must be full professional ones. That is why he and the local builders decided to do a course in the trail building and obtaining an international IMBA certificate, and now he still looks after the entire project and he is testing himself all new trails.
Right now the biggest attraction is the flow trail named Baloo. Its beginning is near a small parking lot next to a cage with a bear with the same name. It is 3.3 km long and is build up in all its length, so that the ride on it is smooth and pleasant.
All curves are shapes, and every obstacles are smoothed out. It mainly runs through the forest, gently sliding down to the bottom station of the gondola lift. Unfortunately, we will not find any jumps on it, but there is really no place to get bored on the way. You can see here really the amount of work put into this trail, and very good use of natural terrain. It takes about 8 minutes, to go down this trail and it is a good example of a route on which both beginners and more experienced cyclists will enjoy the ride. I’ve seen there a lot of people who were training their technique, and even met Bogdan Bondor there, who is currently in the 10th place in the world 4xPro Tour classification. I liked the Baloo Trail very much although some of the berms may need a little maintenance. However, at the moment most of the building crew is working on a completely new trail in the nearby town of Vulcan.
The second trail currently available is Lupilor. It’s beginning is near the main road, a little below the top station of the gondola lift. It is 3.8 km long and is a typical enduro characteristics trail. It uses mostly the natural terrain, so we can find a lot of roots and stones on it. In my opinion, it is technically more difficult than Baloo, but also here we do not find any big jumps or drops.
The biggest impression on me made the length of this trail, because I was going down pretty fast and it still took me more than 10 minutes. On the go, we certainly can’t get bored also. In a few places the trail is like a typical mountain single track, on which we can go a little bit faster, and next we ride into more technical turns between trees, and then ride a narrow rock ledge along the almost vertical slope of the mountain. There is a short section of it leading uphill through the asphalt road, but thanks to this we can go down directly to the bottom gondola station so that we can quickly get back to the top for another run, and it is worth mentioning that this trail we cover almost 550 meters of descent.
Of course, these two trails may seem like a small amount of options, but together they give us more than 7 km of really interesting trails. They are running along the gondola lift, thanks to which we get back to the top easily. If the lift is not working, and such thing happen during my visit in the bike park, there are so many riders that local companies organize shuttle buses very quickly. This year transport for bikers was only available on weekends from 10-18. Whether by gondola or by bus, the cost of going back to the top is as follows: one ride 10 LEI, all day riding 60 LEI.
There is also Straja Extreeme Park, where we can practice jumps or tricks on soft landing, and we can also rent a bicycle there. For rental they have new full suspension bikes from the Romanian company Devron. It is not anything special, but it allows you to have fun on those trails, and the only thing to take care of is to bring your own pedals because these standard mounted are tragic. The cost of rental is 130 LEI. Nearby there is also a Skills Park where we can train our technique on small and safe obstacles. In addition region as a bike destination is constantly evolving and the completely new trail in the neighboring Vulcan center, which also has a gondola lift, will open at any moment. In the next year there are plans to connect both of them with each other with entirely new trails.
Personally, the place made a great impression on me, and I think that the performance of the trails are very good. As this place develops, it can create a very nice alternative to other places typical for enduro riding, but with the use of lifts as transport up. It is also worth adding that if you are going on a holiday to Romania and plan to travel to the Transalpina road, it is definitely worth visiting the nearby valley of Jiu and the resort Straja.
Of course, in the surrounding mountains you will find many other attractions for active tourism, such as other bicycle trails, mountain hiking trails or climbing routes. If someone is interested in the area, it’s worth taking a look at jiuvalley-adventures.ro. More information about the area also on our blog balkanyrudej.pl. Before going there it’s best to get the current information on the fan page: Valea Jiului MTB Trails
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Text & photos: Marek Chabros, Ola Zagórska-Chabros balkanyrudej.pl