It was the second half of October. Summer was over, yet I didn’t want to let it go. Not without one more adventure.

I was lucky to catch some sunny weather and I boarded a train to Mizil. From Mizil, it didn’t take a lot and I went off the paved road and, soon after, I found the point where civilization ends and wilderness begins.

I intentionally left some empty spaces in my tracks. I wanted to see new places, but without taking paved roads. So I just presumed I’d find roads in the middle of nowhere, to get me where I wanted to go. For this first day, I managed (using some backtracking) to find a way though a valley. It was a fun way to explore the area 🙂

The second day started out with a warm-up climb in autumn forests, basking in the warm sun. I soon woke up from my reverie. A descent got increasingly steep. I noticed it was out of my league, but my tires didn’t have grip anymore, so I decided to stop the hard way. I fell ok, picked myself up and continued my ride.

And then I got to today’s challenge: I had to get to the other side of a mountain. And I didn’t know of any road. At first, there were some wagon tracks. But it got harder and harder to distinguish them. Until I lost them. Try to find the path I took in the following pictures:

In all of the above pictures, I went forward. I even intersected with an enduro course, but it was too much of a challenge to follow it.

Overall, it wasn’t the hardest climb I had. But it was my (second) most mentally demanding. I had to overcome my uncertainty, I had to completely trust my GPS, I had to be extremely careful to avoid injuries. I was alone, spending a few hours in complete isolation. I knew which direction to go in, but that was easier said than done. There were a few places where climbing on foot was hard. I was carrying a bike.

That climb pushed me to my limits. I’m glad, because my limits are now higher. And, in the end, I got to downhill in a magic place. I call it… Mountainbikesland: