by Peter Weiss

There are many races that focus on the race ONLY and then there’s a few races that adds some focus on the event experience. Piatra Craiului is one of them – and I’m very happy to have participated at this outstanding race in 2021!

I didn’t have too much excess time between racing, eating, sleeping, prepping bike, editing, exporting and uploading videos, but I did find a few minutes to fly my drone a bit. Shows the area a little bit:

I’ve been many different places around Romania by now and I’d have to say that the area around Piatra Craiului (the more times you say this word, the easier it becomes, trust me!) is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen. More info on Piatra Craiului Mountains.

What I particularly liked about this race was the following:

1. The attention to the experience. Organising a big stage with DJ every night and a big bonfire is not common. Also there were plenty of places to sit and enjoy food and drinks and the pension on location actually had a proper espresso machine = great coffee!
2. The tracks were in my case (expert) at the highest level I think an organiser can get away with, while still cataloging them as B/Expert tracks. But what I particularly enjoyed about these tracks were that they were easy to find and they were 99% of the time proper cleaned.
3. The area is outstanding, but I already mentioned that.
4. The organisers were helpful and super motivated.

Here’s what I think could be improved on the event.

1. More pressure washers. It’s such a waste of time to wait in line to wash your bike when you could be done with your bike quicker and maybe spend some more money in the restaurant..?
2. Not using any kind of tracking device. The organisers fell victim to some local sabotage and had parts of the day3 tracks demarked, causing great headaches and frustrations for everyone, but the organisation solved the trouble in the most efficient manner possible, and even though we had to wait an additional 4 hours for the results, it was worth it.
3. Day1 was only 10km and from a riders perspective, it was maybe too short.

In general, this was one of the best racing experiences I’ve had in a long time. For me, the tracks were very challenging at times but never at the stupid level that the A tracks generally have become. I enjoyed the riding very much, the scenery forced me to slow down at times and I made a lot of new friends. I generally try to ride as many different races/areas as possible but some races will for sure have me coming back in the future, and Piatra Craiului is one of them.

Below is one of my many videos from the race and if you’d want to ask me something about the race, I’m more than happy to help in any way possible.