Hey there! This will be my first ride report on here, and it´s my first in english, so be kind to me Who´s taking the trip? - My brother Jonas - And me, Tobias 27 years old, living in Germany and crazy about bikes! What bikes are you riding? Jonas: 2001 KTM LC4 Adventure - farkled quite a bit. Tobias: 1989 KLR 600 - pretty much stock. Big Tank for trips, doohickey done Why did you trailer your bikes to Hungary? Well - basically cause we could. Plus that we both dread riding motorways/autobahn. Ah that and, my KLR does like a good sip of oil going at steady 60-70mph. Yeah, we were pussies, but 14hrs with a loaded trailer on a 100hp BMW isn´t that much fun either. Anyways. As we have good friends over in Hungary we decided to start the bike trip at their house near Lake Balaton. Very beautiful there, too. It´s a natural resort and you could still ride offroad in it - at least we did. Our friends house at the left. The resort panorama. After staying in Hungary for a day, that we spent with riding offroad, having a delicious lunch and basically relaxing we started for Romania! Luch! Got the old girl dirty already! Bikes loaded up - let´s go! I´ll continue tonight!
This looks like its going to be some fun. Nice looking bikes. Digging the stare into the unknown in the last pic.
Thanks for the comments... So off to Romania we went. It´s a ride of about 400km´s from our "base" in Hungary an we decided to try to get to a village called Lipova. The ride there was quite boring, we only paused once and when we finally reached Lipova we tried to find some place to stay, off the main road. We failed... but found some cattle beeing lead by a truck. After retracking a little we found a small Hotel that offered a room and safe parking for the bikes for around 30. We checked in, as the sun had set already. Driving in the night in Romania isn´t a fun thing. The Hotel. In the next morning we started after a meager breakfast and found ourselves on the very foggy and desertet main road. Soon we left the beaten track and turned away into the hills. What was a tiny gravel road in the beginning turned into a small road leading into the forest. Of course we didn´t have proper maps and the GPS only listed the main roads! Offroad for breakfast - that´s what we came for! My brother, being on the faster bike and always feeling keen to go fast offroad, passed me and so I was cruising along on the wet meadows when the front wheel lost grip and I crashed. After getting up and turning off the bike I checked myself, found out I had banged my head on the grass and was generally shaken up a little. My brother returned when I had the bike back up and we discovered that the front end didn´t quite look normal. The bars and the fork were twisted a little. When we set to work a shephard came along to check on us. We "talked" a little and after having the bike back in shape we left. The slippery meadow Some k´s later I recognised that my bike was dripping continuously. On top of a hill I unbolted the engine guard and saw that the water came out of the pressure hole of the water pump. As that couldn´t be fixed we took of again. With a lot of guessing and a couple of hints from the locals we found a way out of the forest and were back to civilisation. We had some romanian sausages and bread at a damn. We continued to a city called Brad, on the way there we tried to use gravel roads, but failed sometimes because the navigation was difficult. It was scenic though! <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KbLK7I2BtTU?fs=1&hl=de_DE"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KbLK7I2BtTU?fs=1&hl=de_DE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object> We crossed a river! A first for us. It was terribly slippery... <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kNZyifTsbLg?fs=1&hl=de_DE"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kNZyifTsbLg?fs=1&hl=de_DE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> Terrible cellphone quality and a german comment - Excuse me I had to dry my boots after the first crossing. As we couln´d find a way on the other side of the river we had to cross it on the way back. My brother being very sure about his skills, tried to gas it in 2nd gear and failed. Utterly! He dropped the bike twice. After the first tip over the bike started without issues, the next time we had to push it out and it gave us ten intense minutes until it fired up again. In the afternoon we made it to Brad. In front of the motel I checked on the water-leaking KLR again. I was pretty sure the water pump seal was blown. As there is no Kawa Dealer in Romania I had to keep the fingers crossed that oil and water wouldn´t mix! Refilling the water became very unnerving. Every 100k´s we had to refill one liter. The city was pretty dull. They did have this fancy square though. Every lightpost played different music... The LED lit fountain was impressive too The next morning we got chased by vicious dogs when we left town and headed to the Transalpina Highway that crosses the carpathian mountains. We found that much of the road was paved in the recent years, but it was still stunning! A damn... The two of us... After the damn we took a wrong direction and got lost after a good 20k´s gravel ride and decided to backtrack and try to make it to the city of Sibiu.
We met some nice Romanians - who emigrated to Germay decades ago - on the Transalpina. They told us there was a beautiful road heading to Sibiu. After getting lost figuered we´d try that out. Damn, it was beautiful! Next year it will be covered in asphalt My KLR kept on losing water When we reached Sibiu we got lucky with a Motel! Not knowing where we are my brother asked some locals whether the city centre was far off. Turns out we were only 200m from it and had parked in front of a motel. So we checked in and went to discover the city. Sibiu is a very old town and has been german for centuries. There is still a german minority in Romania, so sometimes you bump into people who know your language. That´s kinda cool! Anyways, the city is stunning. It´s been European Cultural Capital of the year 2007. Some impressions - we stayed for two days. Some maintainance on the bikes... The following day we went off to ride the Transfagarasan pass... 170k´s of beautiful alpine roads crossing the carpathian mountains. Goiung up that road was big fun. The road was decent and the sound of the bikes in the mountains was enormous We hit 2000m (6000ft) Descent. We met some German traveller on the way down. He had been around the black sea iirc. Nice chap. On the foot of the mountains we hit some gravel and dirt roads -great fun! Time for a break! We found a hotel made of wood and a beer! Behind the hotel there was some KTM-tape so we unloaded the bikes and went to play a little - no pics though.
View from the hotel It was steep hillclimb and continued in a even steeper single track. After a good night´s sleep we climbed the bikes and headest west. We had some of the most beautiful picnic places you could imagine. It´s a shame though that the locals don´t give a damn about trash. Although we didn´t meet lots of people most of the scenic spots must be crowded in summer and trash is everywhere. Our sausages were even better when smoked over a fire Back on the Trasnsalpina there was lots of roadwork going on. After the Transalpina we found some nice dirt/gravel roads. It was a blast to ride! It was challenging sometimes. Very washed out roads, cattle on them, steep climbs and downhills and we didn´t have a clue where we actually were. At some point we hit the motorway - more or less accidentally - and a quick check on the oil made us decide to head homewards. My trusty steed had been drinking/pissing water like crazy and the oil glass seemed to be fogging up. We headed to the village and hotel we had stayed in on our first night. On The way there we encountered the world-famous Arad-Rallye! We stayed around and had fun watching the cars shoot by and finishing the stage right next to us! Damn, those beasts were fast. And loud! When the show was over we headed to the hotel and checked in. While my brother was inside asking for a room some guest came stumbling out of the door and puked in the flower boxes... Yeah right! The party lasted all night long, we didn´t sleep well and the next day rain greeted us! That was promising! We had about 450k´s to our destination, my bike had now mixed a nice coffe and milk in its engine, the speedo-cable was broken and it rained cats and dogs. And it was cold! We rode 380k´s in literally pouring rain! We had to stop several times to refill the cooler with water and were cursing quite a bit. I remember being hit by walls of water when trucks passed... It was fun - for my brother to watch! An open faced helmet is a real plus in these conditions too We finally arrived in Hungary, had a Schnaps, some beer and lunch so everything was fine again! Miles ridden totally! This adds up to 4500k´s combined with the trip we took by car & trailer. My bike wouldn´t have done any more than the 2049k´s! That´s for sure... That´s what the "oil" looked like when I drained it. Chain and sprockets weren´t too fit either... I guess it´s true what they say about KLR riders after all... I´m a cheap bastard. In summary: The trip was awesome, we could have ridden offroad a little more, but the bike issues were hesitating. We´ll be back! If you got questions let us know. We´ve got more pics, track data etc. and will be happy to share our meager knowlege about almost anything
Great report! I have 3 brothers, no twins, but it is good to see you get along with each other so well! Where are you trying to ride to next?
We´re thinking of going to Romania again. Bringing dirt bikes then... Having someone on a trip you know as good as yourself is a real advantage I guess. But this doesn´t mean we don´t argue from time to time. Getting lost in bigger cities would sometimes end in a fight if there wasn´t so much traffic around
Same with my brothers, but sometimes the fighting starts before we even leave the house! We usually stop before a doctor or policeman is necessary.
Beautiful pictures and nice trip. Too off road for me :). I'm glad that you liked Romania and I'm happy that you want to come again. I have a question: are you sure that you hit Transalpina (I don't know why it's called like that since there are no any Alps in Romania, maybe TransCarpatica is more appropriate:)) because from your pictures I don't recognize it. I'm worried that you missed such a beautiful road. Did you see something like this on your way: http://picasaweb.google.com/1037553...?authkey=Gv1sRgCLSPr9SgjNS6LA&feat=directlink I didn't load the pictures right here because it failed to upload, I don't know why.
Yeah! Go KL600! I am probably the only person in America who has actually owned two of them, and has bothered to do a piston\rings on one of them... My farkled out 84 (Also had a big tank for it:) Closer to stock 85: Here in the states, those oversized tanks sell for $250+ USD used on eBay, they are impossibly rare. If you ever sell that bike, be sure to take the tank off first.
Damn we did indeed miss that part! Actually I know our mistake, looking at the map right now - we didn´t turn left on the damn but kept going what seemed to be the right way... Another reason to come back, I guess @WB-PDX: We actually got 3 KLR 600´s! They are nice bikes but the OEM piston is utter crap. I got the first oversive in mine and its burning 1l/1000km of oil again. I had it up to 2-3l/1000km on the first piston. Then one valve said goodbye ;-) Big tanks are cheap over here, around 150 U$ #1 #2 @all: Thanks for the nice comments!
Those 600s are in such nice shape!!! I have never seen one even close to that nice here in the states! Great compromise of off and on road; I wish they had kept that thinking when building the KLR650. I had burning oil after about 15k miles because of bad rings, which then burned up the top end when I ran it out of oil... I used an old stock OE piston, but because there are no rings available in the states, I had custom rings made by TotalSeal.
