Dear riders, me and my husband would like to travel for 3 weeks this summer in Romenia. We have also found a house to exchange in pestera (near Bran) for few days. our kind host told us that cycling in Romania in completely unsafe because of the trafic and the cars behaviours. we are use to ride in Rome and we have travelled in many different country (Turkey, Siria, Sardegna, Corsica, Ceck republic. irland, slovenia, ..) and we think that cycling in Romania cannot be so terrible if we choose small secondary roads. we were thinking about flight to Craiova and then coming back from Timisoara. therefore we will remain in the south west part of the country. we love mountains, woods and we love to sleep with our tent in the nature. If you have any advise .. thank you very much giulia and francesco
Cycling in Romania
Sat, 2017-06-10 15:49
#1
WS Member
Cycling in Romania
Romania is completely safe to cycle in if you choose minor roads. (You should generally avoid any road marked DN, those are the country’s major highways). On minor roads there is fairly little traffic, and in rural places, drivers will treat cyclists well because they are already very used to sharing the road with horsecarts. However, a lot of the best minor roads are not paved, so I would recommend thick tires (the size 2.00 is already thick enough).
The southwestern part of the country is not so interesting: Oltenia is an agricultural region that is often mocked by other Romanians for being boring. My advice would be that you start in Craiova, then visit Targu Jiu. If you like mountains, you could cross the Carpathians over the Transalpina, Romania's highest road and very popular among cyclists, and then head west to Timisoara from the northern side of the Carpathians.