by Peter Weiss

Pictures in this review is sponsored by and copyright of Sebastian Popescu (www.sebapopescu.com)

Preword

If there’s something you’re bad at, then you need to practice it and Ditrocks made it clear that I need to train more in creeks. And guess what the trackmanagers of Ditrocks loved for us to ride? Yup. You guessed it. Creeks. Never in my life have I had to deal with that many creeks going up and down, up and down, up and down. So if you’re a creek-master and if you dominate maintaining momentum and traction on slippery rocks, you’ll most likely punch in a great result at Ditrocks.

What is Ditrocks basically?

Ditrocks Hard Enduro 2021 was the 4th stop of the Romanian National Hard Enduro Series and aside from all the national talent led by last years champion Norbert Jozsa, Ditrocks also attracted heavy hitters like the ever-so talented young Graham Jarvis protégé from Bulgaria, Teodor Kabakchiev, the even younger hard enduro star Suff Sella from Israel, retired national Enduro Pro rider from the United States of America Nick Fahringer , the very experienced and seasoned business owner, James from Inside Enduro and of course my young 14 year old friend Nicolai Thybring from Denmark and my friend Rigor Rico – the far and beyond best Hard Enduro rider out of Brazil. The line up for this race was STRONG and this race attracted to much talent mainly due to the timing of the race. No disrespect to the race or organisation – but it’s clear that all these guys came for one primary reason: prepare for Red Bull Romaniacs 2 weeks later.

Ditrocks is a 3 day race, organised in the beautiful landscape of northeast of Romania, more specifically right next to the village of Ditrau – hence the name Ditrocks. In 2021, Ditrocks consisted of three very different race days, so it’s fair to say that it would require a fairly versatile rider to take the win in any given category. Here’s what each day offered the riders.

Day1

Day 1 consisted of a mixture of Endurocross Track with a bumpy single track going through field and forest. I personally enjoyed the Endurocross part (but had no idea it was part of the race as the website www.ditrocks.ro did nowhere mention that this was part of the fun) but as far as the rest of the track went, I wasn’t a big fan. The starttrack was very dangerous with riders going flat out through high grass with hidden rocks and it was hard to pass each other on a single track. Maybe it would be possible to clean up the grass next year and design a fresh track – and while I certainly don’t mind tanning a bit, I prefer to do it at a beach and in shorts, preferably with a cold beer in my hand. Not fully geared up on a field next to a bunch of sweaty men.

Here’s my video from day1 of the race, which I won by a small margin over Bartlomiej Klimek:

Day2

Day2 was supposedly an 85km Hard Enduro track (but my GPS said 71km) and it was a proper hard day with many many many many many creeks with wet water, wet rocks and wet logs. Not a fan of these sections, but I had to deal with it like everybody else and I survived to see the finish line after some hours. I finished 2nd to my nearest and dearest competitor from Poland, mr. hotel-owner Bartolomiej Klimek. ‘Bart’ is a motivated young father and such a character and I truly enjoy riding & racing with him every time I have the chance.

I filmed the race and so did Bart and I made a splitscreen video with our combined footage. Admittedly, it turned out rather confusing with 2 videos running simultaneously with separate audios, so I probably won’t do that again. But we (Bart and I) were both excited to see his footage as I came down a forest trail, with him behind me, and all of sudden a big hole on the trail came out of nowhere and send me aaaaaalmost flying off the bike. I hung on to it by the skin of my teeth and he was right there to witness it – but unfortunately, he was a little too far away to get a proper video of it. Anyhow – here’s my footage from day2 of the race:

Towards the end of the race I started feeling some cramps sneaking in on me but I somehow managed to keep them at the door and let me ride to the finish line. Maybe due to the many rivers, in which I struggled, or due to the fact that my camelback broke early on and I had little to no water for a great portion of the race.

Day3

Day3 was a shorter 50km day that went by fairly fast as big parts of the race tracks were on gravel roads. Not sure why this was necessary but a lot of people were unhappy with the amount of fast sections. The hard sections were perfect though. After the race, tired and dirty, everybody wanted to go home and waiting more than 5 hours for results and ceremony, was for everybody (except the pension who sold food and beverages) a bad deal. You want to leave and get home and for me, this resulted in postponing my plans on monday by half a day.

My experience?

So would I recommend this race? Absolutely.. Riding in Romania is always good and the terrain is outstanding. The organisation did an overall great job and with a few tweaks and changes here and there, it’ll be even better for 2022. I certainly hope to be back some day and redeem myself to all the creeks who got the better of me 🙂