The first Dracula Rally of Transylvania |
|
|
|
| Friday, 25 May 2007 | |
 Transylvania and the Carpathian mountains are the very best parts of Romania . We crossed into Romania at a tiny border point where we had to wake up the single Romanian guard and headed north to the Ukrainian border and the remote Maramuresh region. I love this region and in a lot of Transylvania it is charming and has the feel of Britain as I remember it in the 60's. We stayed 2 nights in a farmhouse and when we left on the second morning our hosts apologised for having to ask us to pay for the beer we had drunk. Their own excellent spirits and wine were free but they had had to buy the beer. Apart from the beer I do not think we consumed anything that was not grown or reared or distilled in that village. The merry cemetery was not far away. It has large paintings on each grave of how the people lived or how they died and there was a wicked touch to the humour. The town obviously has no qualms about the dead or being haunted. The picture of the farmer and the sheep left nothing to the imagination. Feeling relaxed and ready for a party we rolled into Turda on the Thursday before the rally. There were already 20 vintage and classics bikes that had made the long journey. There was a Healey Square 4, A Comet, an Enfield Twin, Matchlesses and Ariels and a Rocket 3, a Slippery Sam and some pre 69 BMW's and later classics. Most had travelled close to 1700 miles and all had thoroughly enjoyed the journey. Far enough and interesting enough to be an adventure but not so long you needed sponsorship. Turda is a large market town south of Cluj Napoca with a lot of beautiful old architecture. The buildings are a bit run down but the quality shines through and this was the place where the mayor had the power to close all the main streets for racing all day Saturday because some nice motorcyclists asked him. I was at the meeting in 2005 when this was agreed and was impressed at the time. We as a Nation could learn things from these people! When we met up with our fellow adventurers we were pleased to see that a lot of folk had taken the opportunity to see a lot of different bits of Europe on the away. Some had enjoyed the mountains of Austria, others had seen Auschwitz and ridden over the Tatra Mountains, other variations were Prague and Budapest. It is one of the great things about going to a rally a long way away that the travelling to get there is not stressful and is a real pleasure. On arrival everyone got a fabulous T shirt of the Transylvania Riders club, the design was fabulous and they were free. The rally and the feature road races were a huge tradition with an international attendance all prior to WW2. The club and the mayor could hardly contain their glee that at last they were back on track and as nearly 100 of us poured into the town it was obviously still international. The welcome was spontaneous and heartfelt and it was great to see all the eastern European bikes, most of which arrived on the Friday. I spent quite a bit of time with one of the competitors from the last race, Mr Pop who had a wonderful attitude of looking forward and also had some great pictures of the old rallies and races. Some of you know how bad the Romanian communism was and if you ever want an example of how to live for today and look forward and not carry your baggage with you then you will find many living examples in Turda. The club members are interested in classic machinery and the racing is for classics only but the rally wisely welcomes all bikes of any year, make or size. The street races were fantastic and to avoid accidents the competitors all got a safety briefing that reminded them to wear helmets. Provided the bike was over 20 years old you got a Romanian day license and then you could get ready for the fray. My favourite races were watching those sensible people on old Triumphs and BM's move from the responsible attitude of its just a day out and the crowd want to see the bikes, to lets see if I can win. There were plenty of races and most had 4 or 5 bikes so were actually safer than they looked. Philip Phoenix and Richard Mack riding the Slippery Sam and the Mk1 Rocket 3 on open ray guns took the best noise to echo of the streets award and the most wanted bikes by most of the crowd which was about 5000. They won their races and then they rode home, respect. There was a beautiful R51 circa 1948 ridden by David Lobb that was not only were very competitive but clearly won the please leave it behind award. If all you could get for 40 years were Russian 2 strokes and maybe a Russian copy of a Beemer then here was the real deal and it had come all the way from England and its owner was thrashing it. The whole thing was on National TV. I hope they threw the tape away because I was doing the announcing in English. In the late afternoon we moved to the temporary drag strip hastily pressed into action for bikes of any age including modern sports bikes because the salt flats got too wet in the winter and were not flat enough. My son Philip surprised everyone by winning his class, but also beating everything in the open class except the guy on the enduro bike. On the Saturday night there was a very good rock concert in the Gorge with the best band in Romania playing Eagles type blues/rock. There was a good warm up with local bands the night before. About the only mistake you could make was to not attend or not drink. As you can imagine Saturday was a blast and Sunday got off to a slow start, but for those of us brave enough to ride our enthusiastic friends were ready to take us on a 7 hour exploration of some of the best canyons and mountain roads anywhere with surprisingly good surfaces. The photo of the rope bridge gives you an idea of the scenery. The numbers riding were down to about 25 because on the Friday the club had led about 100 bikes on a superb exploration of the local roads during which after a linguistic discussion we realised that in Romanian, off road means no road and a road is any legal path. They had said there was no off road involved and for some guys on new bikes they found that they had had to try hard but in fairness they all excelled. It is interesting that the old bikes are far more capable of doing everything than most modern bikes. For 2007 we have sorted out the road definitions so it will be all on surfaces that do not move unless you request a personal off road experience in which case the club will oblige. I am sorry if I have missed out a lot because it was a great event as a whole and quite a few just went site seeing during the day to places like Sighisoara and met up in the evening. I cannot thank our hosts enough and typically on the Monday they were already writing down what they could do to make next year better. Thanks especially to Alex the president and Alin, Andras, Beata, Spartacus, Nicu, Claudia Alex and to Transylvania Live who stopped work for a month to prepare everything and finally to those I have omitted. Thank you to all of you who went last year for leaving such a good impression. Thank you also to Wayne who fell of a bridge had umpteen stitches in his head and explored the local hospital but just kept smiling and it did impress a lot of people and rather put any minor complaints into perspective. Thank you especially if you went on a classic or vintage bike as they did so much to enrich the event. The TV crew was fascinated to find the oldest bike and rider and were surprised when they did not match. The weather was hot and this year it should be even better with it moving to July. The rally starts with us arriving on Thursday the 19 th and leaving on Monday the 23rd of July. Again there are good hotels at good prices including the Dracula hotel. After the rally I went south to Bulgaria and this year if anyone wants to cross the Transfagarasan with me they are welcome to come along. It is so high it is closed for 3 parts of the year and in July it will be hot at the bottom and with still a bit of snow at the pass. If you want to go in 2007 remember it is a long way about 1700 miles and it is an adventure. You need to e mail or send me an sae for the details and a booking form. It is This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or AJ TRIM PO BOX 167 EAST WINCH KINGS LYNN NORFOLK PE32 1NF. More details will be posted this weekend! |
