Through Transfagarasan to the MTB Orienteering World Cup in Bulgaria

As usual we left a week early to enjoy the place, meet locals, get to know the terrains and maps there and share it all with you who are interested. We went from Czechia over Slovakia, Hungary and Romania to Bulgaria. At the end of the video there’s a short interview with Ivan Sirakov, the event director of the last 2022 World Cup round and World MTBO Championships for Masters and U23.

you can follow our next adventures also on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/orienteering_van/

#orienteering #mtb

0:00 Into
1:45 Transfagarasan
5:55 Map training – Shtraklevo
7:58 Map training – Zavetno
9:22 Kovachevsko kale
9:47 MTB Ride with Bulgarian MTBO riders
11:37 Boaza waterfall
12:27 Embargoed area 2024
13:17 Interview with Ivan Sirakov

This is the journey through the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania to Bulgaria, where the last round of the MTBO World Cup takes place this year. We started to roll our wheels towards Targovishte a week earlier so we can enjoy the road a bit,

Do some trainings in similar terrains and show you the beauties, sights and terrain before the start of the competition. 

Wait.. Now it seems like it’s much more expensive that it shows on the stand before the shop.

Ok, so it’s true. The prices on the stands are just for Hungarians and these ones which are like double are for us. 
 We’re not buying the diesel here, we’re going to the other side of the borders, which will be in half an hour.. To Romania.

 Good? OK, thanks.

So we’re through! Finally in Romania. She didn’t even check the IDs, she just put in a table, started doing something on her phone and then she just gave them back to us and was like: OK, you can go. Bears.
 Bears!
 Cool. You’ve achieved it! Yes! You guys wanna have picnic…

?

It wasn’t the original plan but we saw a video about a mountain road called Transfăgărășan. Then we realised they call it one of the most beautiful roads in the world and the new plan was set. An hour before the Transfăgărășan two hitchhikers hopped in and after a short conversation we realised

They want to go on one of the peaks around Făgăraș. So they joined us for the climb and they also suggested that we can go swimming in the lake on the top. Of course we joined them. The brakes are a bit overheated.. 😬

What a day! The Transfăgărășan really is an amazing road and we were stopping in every another turn to see a new view, new waterfall or a new bear. At the top of the hill we said goodbye to our new hitchhiking friends.



Right now we are parked a few kilometres under the Vidraru dam. I would say at the very edge of the bear area so we are hoping for a quiet night here. And for tomorrow we’ve planned already some training or two in Bulgaria.

So in the morning we are going to hit the road and hopefully get as fast as possible to Bulgaria. The night here next to the Transfăgărășan road was pretty calm, there wasn’t any traffic nor any bears or any other disturbers. From here it’s 4 hours drive to Bulgaria.

If you some day happen to go through Romania, definitely take the Transfăgărășan road. It’s very beautiful in both directions and it’s only 40kms longer than the highway You will probably need some more time to ride through it because I think it’s not possible to ride through

Without any stopping for the views or for the bears, so it’s few hours longer then. The only sad thing is there’s trash everywhere along the Transfăgărășan road And it’s usually opened only for two months in the year (*4 months, July – October)

And it’s better to go there on the work days. Ready for the first training here. So how did you like it? The hot is real! I miss the autumn so much. It’s 5 o’clock and for lunch we have today Carnati Oltenesti, some Romanian sausages.

We have an hour to go for another training so we have lunch on the road. Ok, the training is not happening today, it’s quite late, the roads were slow and in bad conditions, so we got here quite late. And also storm is coming from this way.

This is our spot for tonight. We hope in calm night.. Oh, it’s starting to rain so we are going to make some dinner and go to sleep or watch some movie maybe. And the training is postponed for tomorrow morning

And also in the afternoon we should meet guy from Bulgarian national team and go for a ride with him. Training #2 – Zavetno. Map training for today is map from this year’s Bulgarian championships in relay.

One of the first thing we found out – power line, at least this one, is not on the map. In Bulgaria, or at least in the next competition, off track riding will be allowed. So if there are parallel tracks, you can ride in between them. Ok, this is a path too.

Beware of cutting. Cutting is allowed! Now we’re on the 3rd control and I think that some of the little paths, like the dotted ones, are already closed by the bushes. So, it was pretty nice. I liked it.

From the training we moved to Kovachevsko Kale, the late roman city according to this board. And we’ll take a look and have some lunch here before the second training today in the afternoon.

One of the training maps – the one for the sprint – is in Kovachevets, which is the village 1-2 kms far from here. From there we went to nearby Veliko Tarnovo, where we met with Gencho and Teodora, two Bulgarian U23 riders. .

They showed us pretty nice 30km MTB loop with 900m of climbing. We got 2 valuable outcomes from this ride. 1) Bulgarian hills are really steep. 2) If it rains, the mud will be really slippery and extremely hard to ride. Does anyone still recall the European MTBO Championships in Hungary in 2018?



We got back from the bikes and we found out that we have flat tire. But it’s the first time it happened so I guess it’s quite all right. What’s the plan? The plan is to take out the screw and maybe put this inside..

I have no idea if it will work or not because it seems too big for that little screw but we’ll see. 

At the moment we’re nearby Boaza waterfall and this is really nice place to visit nearby Targovishte. It’s like 5km far from there.

Now there are people doing BBQ next to the car and when we were coming from the waterfall to the car, they approached us and gave us meat. And it was really delicious, so we grab 4 cans of Czech beer Krušovice and gave it to them.

And just few minutes later they approached us again with two fish. When we arrived, Needy was like: Hmm, I don’t know if I can stay here with the smell of the BBQ… I guess you can. In 2024 the World MTBO Championships will be here in Bulgaria.

The embargoed areas are not published yet, but one of the terrains should be the mountains west of Shumen, so please, do not enter this area. I talked to the IOF advisor for the 2024 competition and sightseeing sites like Shumen fortress or the monument of Founders of the Bulgarian State

Are OK to visit as long as you keep on stairs and asphalt roads. Entering the forest and forest paths is forbidden 🙂 That’s all from us for now. We go ride another training map and you can watch a short interview with the event director Ivan Sirakov.

Enjoy it and see you in Bulgaria or somewhere else! Chao I’m here with Ivan Sirakov. He’s event director as well as the course setter for sprint and long distance. He’s also really good orienteer – foot orienteer – he was 3rd on the JWOC in 2007 in Australia.

So now I got few questions on him. 
In the last years, I don’t think that anybody was on MTBO competition in Bulgaria. So how is the MTBO in Bulgaria?

 Hello to all of you. Actually I don’t think many foreigners have been here for MTBO competitions.

Usually at the national championships we gather about 400 people so it’s quite popular in the national championships but in other races – regular races – it’s more like 100. So it’s not really developed, not that many riders who are training particularly for MTBO.

That’s something we are trying to improve in the last few years and now there’s a national team with some training camps and a bit more interesting preparing especially for MTBO. So I hope we’ll improve MTBO community in Bulgaria. 

Perfect! That’s nice to hear.

Is there something the riders who are coming for the World Cup, is there something we all should get ready for? Usually in Bulgaria there’s not so many tourists around there forests where we usually have the races

So maybe the tracks and the path network is not like it’s usually in Scandinavia and some other countries where there’re hundreds of tourists every day going on these paths so we actually have to do a lot of cleaning even now of course and before every competition in MTBO

Because there are usually fallen trees and so on and lot of them and lot of bushes and paths are not really perfect for riding but we try to clean most of them and prepare them for the races so this is something special I think about the terrains in Bulgaria for MTBO.

Maybe all riders should experience the training courses and model events and see by themselves.

 Ok, thanks. There is one speciality which we don’t have in the Czech Republic and those are the stray dogs.

Is there any good advice on how to deal with them and what to do if they run after you? Or what to do to avoid them running after you? If you know something? Yeah, that’s possible situation in Bulgaria but we will try to clean out the area,

The competition area of such dogs so I hope we don’t have such situations but usually… It doesn’t happen that much. Did it happen to you? 

No actually, I haven’t been in such a situation. 

 Ok, so it’s fine. We should be safe. 



Which of the competition will be the most challenging? What do you think? Of course I’m a course setter for sprint and long distance so I can say that I’ve done my best to have a really challenging courses in these races.

Usually in foot-o I like the sprint, so I hope everybody will enjoy the sprint, because it will be really dynamic and fast course and challenging orienteering actually. And the long distance also will be quite tough and challenging.

And maybe the mass start for the masters will be really enjoyable race with really nice tracks and area, which is not so steep like for examplethe long distance and middle distance and relay for the elite.

And we have some nice areas for the middle and relay as well which will be really challenge for the riders. I think all of the distance will have something special and challenging. 

 Perfect, I look forward to it. And the last question is there some Bulgarian food you like?

Is there some food Bulgarian which we definitely should taste before leaving the Bulgaria?

 Actually the vegetables are really good right now so tomatoes and cucumbers and you should probably taste the Shopska salata (Шопска салата), Shopska salad

Which is made of cucumbers, tomatoes, a lot of tomatoes, some pepper and onion and some white cheese so it’s a really good salad and especially in this season when you have good tomatoes it’s very delicious. So this is one of the advices. Ok, thank you very much!



Thank you very much too and good luck in the races.

 Thank you! And see you on Thursday? Friday? Thursday / Friday.

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