Greetings from Bulgaria!

Cant wait to see the helmet cam pics and footage..

Met up with some Italian bikers on the way to belgrade the other day, and met them again today.. About 15 of us carving up little romanian villages.. Heh

[ogden]

Originally Posted by philbut

I don't know if your zumo does, but my 660 logs everywhere it has even been (and speed worryingly). its amazing to load it up onto mapsource and see where you went, with all the detours and wrong turns etc.

The 350 does, but it seemed to roll over the trip logs at some point and I only had stuff from the last few days.

We didn't have too many navigation cockups, other than Mark's general sense of direction failure. Most, I suspect, because it's easy to tell when you're on the wrong road out east - it usually has no surface. Not infallible (most of Romania, for example) but it usually works.

[ogden]

Looks like we were a bit luckier with the weather than you, Purity41. Bright blue skies the whole way from Nuremberg to the Black Sea coast. Sounds like you're having fun though.

Poland's on my list for next year, thinking of a tour round the Baltic rim, maybe including a dip into Russia. This bike's going to be worth nine tenths of sod all by the time it gets to needing its first MOT!

Bit of hotel room combat

And the transfargen was fine yesterday, sunny skies.. Today i went up it, and it was foggy with cloud and rain, slightly unnearving.. I use a garmin 60cx.. Maybe not as awesome as a real sat nav, but you can scroll around the map or have it lock to your position.. Handy for knowing there is a hairpin in amongst the fog

I have the same routing feature so i know where i have been, im looking forward to downloading that when i am home..

Traveling through romania takes a long long time...

[ogden]

Originally Posted by Purity14

Traveling through romania takes a long long time...

Doesn't it just. Not so bad when you're off the main trucking routes or on the motorway, but when the traffic builds up (or if you're paying any attention whatsoever to speed limits) or on loose surfaces the pace really drops. We were down to 3 or 4 mph on the Bucharest ring road, and the SMT doesn't really do anything less than 13 without slipping the clutch. Painful.

Plenty in Romania to look though, so even when it's slow it's not boring.

I havent been to Bucharest, the only major city here i have been to is pitesti.. But if i didnt filter through traffic my bike was overheating.. The countdown timers on trafficlights are awesome though!!

The remainder of my time has been through villages, if you do 50kph as the signs say you get overtaken, if you do more one of the many policemen will spot you and call ahead..

Having no one else to talk to ive been laughing to myself that i think there are more police than watermelons.. But anything to keep me sane

My average is up from that, ive been tagging onto locals through villages where avaliable which is the only place i have seen speedtraps, and thats anywhere between 50-80kph then outside its full bore just to cover ground.. But like you said.. The road can get abit tricky now and then.. Wouldnt have enjoyed it on the sv.

Im going to try and make bucharest from here in brasov tomorrow.. I can only try!

[dyzio]

Originally Posted by Purity14

Traveling through romania takes a long long time...

Not really, I was pressed for time, but I went from Bucharest to Oradea in a day via the Transfagaras road.
Of course if you get off the main roads it'll take you time. You can get cought out on the main roads as well (E79 )

Originally Posted by ogden

Bucharest ring road,

Road?

I meant Budapest in Hungary, typo btw

Quite inspiring, I'm still working my way through the detailed write-up and it makes a very interesting and inspiring read.

Thanks for sharing!