A packed day.
Fueling, then a lovely cross country jaunt to Bran Castle to once again make fun of the Instgrammers and scare the school kids with fake vampire teeth - or are they fake?...
We buy tickets for Bran Castle entry but get stuck behind a party of school kids that seem to take ages to shuffle through the castle. Queuing is hard work and we're in gear so getting very hot and bothered. Let it go!.. A little light relief is that I'm wearing vampire teeth for the entire tour and get puzzled looks and occasional smiles. One German kid asks if my teeth are real, yes, I say. His teacher smiles too.
Then it's jolly frolics on the lawn with our fake teeth as we all pose Insta style. What must the locals and visitors thought of our antics. Kids at heart and hopefully forever!
Then on to the Rucor-Bran pass, which is not as high as the famous ones, but is still a nice ride with lots of picture taking opportunities of the views and interesting buildings.
We are taking our time today as it's not a huge distance that we have to cover, 190km or so, and we arrive at the hotel by 17h15.
Tomorrow we plan to ride the Transfargarasan Highway, but as its closed at the top, we need to ride almost back to Sibiu and ride it from the other side where the best views are.
But I have a plan. Tonight I'm going to see how far up the highway I can go before having to turn back. At least then I'll have ridden the maximum I can and not missed the curves on this side of the pass.
I set off at 17h30, refuel (only 7litres added for 200km done today, which seems too little to me, but we have been riding slower than yesterday) and head for the hills.
The road is mostly good quality and I enjoy the curves making good time. En route I see a bear sitting on the corner almost like it's waiting to be fed. Later I see a female with her two cubs - very cute but very dangerous, I'm not tempted to stop.
The road winds past a dam and a big lake plus a few hotels an tourist facilities. It's really curvy even lower down and the asphalt allows you to enjoy it.
At km 104, the road is barred and signposted it's closed. A few bikers ride through and the following text is a description from one of them....
The road climbs higher quite quickly, you leave the tree line behind and find there's still quite a lot of snow left at the sides of the road. You pass under concrete avalanche covers and the road quality is definitely poorer higher up. There are still a few people in cars, groups of motorcyclists and even cyclists! Yet the road is supposed to be closed.
At the very top there's a 1km tunnel, which is also supposed to be closed but it's lit and you can ride through.
On the other side you find more snow, a few buildings and the top of the cable car that ends here. Riding further on you are treated to an aerial view of the famous set of curves made famous by the Top Gear team.
Keep going and you get to ride down them too! But be careful of the loose gravel on some of the corners, that can catch even the most experienced riders and they might lose the end of their clutch lever...
Keep going down and you soon reach a barrier that you can't ride past. So what do you do? You ride back up and enjoy it all again in reverse!
Those bikers that did that must really have had a great time! I know the biker that rode to the barrier and back, did 175km and was on the road for three and a half hours. I know he had fun, such a shame you can only officially ride to km 104 and no further.
Tomorrow we get to ride up to the other side of the barrier from Sibiu.
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