Paltinis Forest Mountain Bike Route
Twisting trails in the trees
Paltinis is a superb mountain resort and the oldest mountain sports resort in Romania. Close to the world heritage site, city of Sibiu in Transylvania, it’s perfectly located for a great bikecation vacation. There are hotel and mountain lodge accommodation options at the resort, and lots more to choose from at Sibiu. The mountain forests here have endless cross country mountain biking trails to explore – literally thousands of km of trails.
The resort is also home to the amazing TRIADA ‘Trilogy of the Trails’ mtb festival, and regularly holds the national championships.
Stats: 37km and 1400 metres climbing (Medium Route)
Refreshments & Where to Stay: Paltinis is a small mountain resort with good but limited facilities. Nearby Sibiu is a superb base for the mountains, and has all options for accommodation and places to eat and relax.
Character
This area is wild and beautiful, with natural rugged single and double track trails in the forests. The route is a short journey onto the forest, mixing technical rocky and rooty trails with the wide forest tracks, providing you with some great trail riding.
1. This is a route into mountain forests, so you really do need to follow the gps file to stay safe. There are some technical sections and you need stay on course.
2. Set off into the forest on the trail heading eastwards, riding along the easy to follow trail for 3.2km, where a track on the right should be taken into the trees.
3. The track descends to the 5.6km point, passing and ignoring a track junction on the left at 6.1km, as the trails swings right. It eventually meets old buildings in a clearing at a high point – 9.4km, near Varful Oncesti (on maps).
4. A sharp swing around left (hairpin style) at 10km, leads to a T-junction of tracks at 11.4km – turn left onto the wide track marked Trancindrel, staying on this track until 13.6km, then taking the right forking trail, until 16.6km where a track descends and swings around the hillside back towards the Trans Cindrel at 19.6 (go left).
5. At 21.9km take the rising track that swings left, staying on the Trans Cindrel, which passes by our earlier tracks from the ride out and start to descend after 24km.
6. At 33.7km a track off to the right in the trees, climbs back up to Paltinis and the finish.