Romanistan Day 0 and a Half, Monday: Two-stroke Taster, a Shake Up, Not a Shake Down.

What better way to start the day than a run up and down the gravel roads in Romania... How about breakfast in bed?... Or watching sunrise over the gently lapping tropical waves and a swim? But a run it was, 3km or so, the last km up the hill to the farmhouse, which was hard work. 

Introduced myself to Mama Bobo with my best Romanian and then coffee and breakfast of eggs and freshly cut vegetables. Very healthy.  Apparently, Danny enjoyed the mushrooms again at the hotel this morning, despite Steve stealing all of them from Danny's plate before he had a chance to eat them or even noticed that they were missing! 🤷🏻

We meet up with the rest of the crew in Sibiu and head off to the KTM shop to have a look at the biking gear. The rain has become more persistent so a new pair of waterproof gloves was had for my delicate pinkies. 

Then back to the farmhouse for some lunch of soup and babaganoush after which Charlie suggests we go out for a familiarisation ride on the bikes. It was still raining at this point.

Bobo our guide and bike maintenance guy gives us a briefing on the characteristics of a two stroke engined bike as we have mostly ridden four-strokes. Two stroke bikes are much lighter but have little or no engine braking, so you have to use the brakes more.  They are noisy, very responsive and, just like Charlie described, flighty and just a little bit scary.

Then out with the bikes on road, still raining (I left Belgium for this?), and rather than being familiarisation it was more a baptism of fire. A brief blast along the aspalt road and then straight up on to a gravel trail which soon turned into a clay mudfest. I was the first casualty as unbelievably for me, I was too gentle on the throttle so didn't have enough momentum to get through the ruts, I kept feeling the front wheel washing out so slowed right down - a recipe for disaster and over I went!  Sticky clay mud everywhere and it was hard work getting going again. I felt like a complete novice. Not a good start.

I finally made it through the last of the test circuit but rather than giving us familiarisation we're now all even more apprehensive about riding two strokes, none of us enjoyed that. Bobo apologised and said he hadn't expected so much mud. 

The bikes are sprayed clean and become  the source of a river of mud that flows across the yard. 

Dinner and a hot tub awaits us.