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The Battle Of Romania – Dirt Rider Magazine

By: Chris Denison

Monday, December 14, 2009

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<p><em>“I watched in faraway horror as my teammate’s front wheel slipped off the bridge in slow motion, sending bike and rider into the frigid river and completely underwater.”</em><em>The dirt in front of my face was fascinating. With each exhalation of air from my heaving lungs, a tiny mushroom cloud of dust would appear and then disperse. If it weren’t for the fact that I was too tired to turn my head, I might have missed this micro-spectacle. Yet here I was, gulping down air halfway up a nasty hill in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains, kneeling in the dirt with my forehead resting on the ground, absolutely riveted by the puffs of soil three inches from my mouth. When I finally started to catch my breath, I turned my head and saw my teammate standing to my right. In hindsight, “drooping” might have been a better description given the way he was dangling over the seat of his motorcycle. The rear end of the KTM sagged under Alexander’s weight, and I could see a line of sweat and phlegm dripping from the mouthpiece of his helmet. We were spent.</em><em>It had only been a few hours from the time that we ran out of water, but it felt like days since our hydration packs had gone dry. Even in my semi-foggy condition, the Eagle Scout in me noticed more than one symptom of heat exhaustion creeping on. Yet I knew that we had to keep pushing. Slowly, I clawed my way to my feet and swung a leg over my bike, which was still perched axle-deep in the rut where I’d left it a few minutes earlier. Alexander staggered over and dutifully grabbed the motorcycle’s front Tugger Strap, and together we heaved the 250 EXC another two meters to the next switchback where the other bike sat. He and I both croaked a few hoarse words of encouragement before continuing our ascent, but our minor victory was short-lived: The hill above us showed no signs of letting up, and we still had three and a half days of this to go.</em>As I sit here in my air-conditioned office in Southern California, the pure misery of that hill is as fresh in my memory as it was when I was ascending it. Almost a month has passed since we crossed the finish line of the Red Bull Romaniacs-widely known as the world’s toughest hard enduro-and physically I am almost fully recovered, save for a few persistent blisters on my hands. Mentally, though, I’m somewhat shell-shocked. The race packed so much experience into such a small amount of time that it took me the better part of three weeks just to mentally process everything we went through. Trying to break the trip down into writable chunks has been challenging to say the least, as I have enough mental data to fill a novel. Every time I’ve sat down to write this story, I’ve drawn a complete blank and just stared at a blinking cursor on the text-less page. Eventually, though, my thoughts always drift back to another memory of the brutal race in Romania:<em>Around five kilometers into the first day’s off-road section, the carnage began. We hit a series of slick, root-covered hills that required some light tugging and teamwork to get over, but we kept our momentum up. As the official naviguesser of our two-man team, Alexander kept checking and rechecking our route on the two Garmin GPS units mounted on his handlebar, while I kept an eye on my own Garmin and simultaneously watched for the telltale orange banner tape pieces that would let us know we were on course. Eventually, the hills flattened out into a fast, winding trail that ran alongside a deep ditch. One of our Expert Team competitors had swapped into the ditch not 10 minutes earlier, launching bike and rider into the trees below. His teammate shouted up to us that help was on the way and we should keep going, but both Alexander and I hesitated. Seeing the rider’s motionless body sprawled awkwardly on the rocks in the creek bed below was a sober reminder that one rider’s mistake can ruin a team’s race, and help is never close at hand in a race like this.</em>Teamwork. Alexander Smith and I had become well acquainted with that word as we spent months preparing, planning and practicing for this race. An 18-day trip to Europe is never an easy thing to set up, and there was more than one occasion when we almost called the whole thing off. Yet for some reason, we kept pushing. From the countless emails we sent while arranging bikes to the long hours in the gym and the endless days of GPS practice we went through, it had taken our full effort to make our dream a reality. We took a lot of pride in the fact that nobody offered this race to us on a silver platter; we came up with the idea ourselves and made it happen. Of course, we couldn’t have done it without the help of Acerbis, Tucker Rocky, MSR, Malcolm Smith Motorsports and a long list of other sponsors, as well as our hardworking pit crew and our two biggest supporters: “Pistol” Pete Denison and the legend himself, Malcolm Smith. We knew from the outset that if the trip actually happened, these two were coming with us. Our logic was simple: If we’re going to race the world’s toughest enduro in a faraway undeveloped nation, why not take our dads with us? After all, they may come in handy.<em>Just when I was beginning to accept the fact that the day was not going to end, the trail spit us out into a green field bordered by a road on the east and a massive, spectator-covered hill to the west. Naturally, the directional arrow on the GPS pointed west. Arranged at the bottom of the hill was a telltale Red Bull arch marking a checkpoint, and just beyond that I could see my dad standing in his signature cowboy hat. Pulling up, I noticed that he was more than a little relieved to see us, given how pounded we were at the last service point. My dad spoke deliberately and to the point: “Hit this hill as fast as you can in second gear, and try not to nail any trees. When you get to Malcolm, turn right and you’ll be on the trail. Less than 20 clicks to go and you’re done for the day. You’ve got this!” Following Pistol Pete’s advice, I sized up the hill and launched straight at it. Pinning it around the trees, I suddenly saw Malcolm pointing frantically to the north and grinning like he’d just won the Six Days. I followed his direction and dropped directly onto the trail, where Alexander quickly joined me. We flashed our proud fathers a huge thumbs-up and continued down the trail.</em>The trail riding in Romania was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. A mix of wild hillclimbs, trials-like rock sections and tight, technical trails, the Expert route that we raced was as tough as anything I’ve ever ridden in the States, including EnduroCross. Even the Hobby class route (which our class often used as transfer sections) was solid A-level stuff. The Pro segments, on the other hand, were simply ridiculous. Impossible hillclimbs and super-demanding trails were commonplace, and seeing the effects that these routes had on the Pro riders made me glad that we were riding the Expert Team class.<em>When we finally rolled into the service point, I handed the bike off to Pistol Pete and immediately began refueling, while Alexander gave his KTM to Malcolm and sat down on a lawn chair to tend to the bloody welts under his knee braces. While my dad fixed some minor crash damage and checked the bike over, I elevated my legs, sucked down several bottles of thickly mixed CytoMax and pounded as much pasta and fruit as my body could take. Toward the end of the mandatory 20-minute impound, I was shocked to see Jimmy Lewis walk up. A harsh morning on the Pro loop had led J-Lew to make the difficult decision to throw in the towel, but he said he wanted to finish up the day on the Expert loop with us. Holy smokes! Although approaching full old-guy status, my boss is one of the toughest guys I know. It’s not uncommon for Jimmy to go for an all-night ride or run a 100-miler, and the fact that he’d had enough says a lot about the brutality of this race, not to mention the punishing level of difficulty of the Pro class. As we geared up and took off, I began to wonder what I’d gotten myself into.</em>
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<p>As far as hard enduro racing goes, the Red Bull Romaniacs ranks right up there with the Erzberg Rodeo, Hell’s Gate and the Tough One in terms of difficulty. Martin Freinademetz, the mastermind behind Romaniacs, is one sick puppy. While the aforementioned hard enduros are one-day events, Martin’s race is five. Erzberg racers must finish within a four-hour window, while the adjusted cut-off at Romaniacs is as long as 16 hours (four Erzbergs) and the organizers require that you carry two smoke flares, a pack of waterproof matches and a signal mirror in case you get lost. The main challenge in Romaniacs is in the endless kilometers of hidden trails that snake through the Carpathian Mountains, out of sight for all spectators save for a few surprised farmers and lonely shepherds. However, the race is well known for its wild spectator sections.<em>We pushed (and, at times, carried) onward for nearly 45 more minutes before arriving at the three final obstacles of the day. The first, a gigantic wooden wall ride over a river, was a snap compared to the side-hills we’d ridden that morning; the spectators cheered when we made it across, but it was clear that they wanted to see one of us take a dip. The second obstacle consisted of a square concrete telephone pole extending back to the east side of the river, which we also crossed with ease. Finally, we came to the finish line: An inviting Red Bull arch set atop a small hill. The only problem was that the finish lay on the opposite side of the river, over which was strung a sketchy wooden bridge anchored on a narrow cable. Alexander went first, and Jimmy and I watched in faraway horror as my teammate’s front wheel slipped off the bridge in slow motion, sending bike and rider into the frigid river and completely underwater. Like a good teammate, I plunged in to help retrieve the bike, and with Lewis’ help we hauled it out of the water and brought the soaked (but, luckily, rented) KTM back to life. The three of us then successfully crossed the bridge-albeit much more cautiously this time-and clocked in to the finish line. Soaked to the bone, completely filthy and utterly annihilated, the day ended on a high note when the scoring girl announced that Alexander and I were in fifth place.</em>Ride smart. Those two words had comprised the entirety of Malcolm’s pre-race speech as we sat on the hot asphalt waiting for the prolog to start. With decades of experience under his belt, Malcolm knows what it takes to succeed at a race like Romaniacs. Throughout the week, he offered valuable bits of advice to us, obvious remnants from his long and successful career as an off-road racer. From what to do when you’re stuck on a hill to how to effectively, nonverbally communicate with the locals, Malcolm’s guidance was essential to our race effort. Likewise, Pete brought a wealth of mechanical and leadership skills to our team, and he always seemed to know what to say when we hit a tough spot. His pre-race advice was similar to Malcolm’s: “Use your heads, but when the time comes to pin it, don’t give ‘em an inch!”<em>When we entered the sweltering creek bed, the third-place team was less than 30 seconds behind us. Alexander glanced back and I gave him a nod, and with that we dropped the proverbial hammer and started to break away. Sweat burned my eyes as we pounded through the rocks, hoping to gap the two riders on our tail. It worked. Halfway down the valley we had pulled them by a few minutes, and by the time we reached the end of the section-five kilometers and nearly 40 minutes after we’d entered it-we were almost 20 minutes ahead of our rivals. Alexander remarked that he had “the worst arm-pump of my life,” and my hip flexors felt like they were on fire. In the rider’s meeting that evening, we were told that someone had placed a gas stop in the wrong spot and the entire creek bed section was being thrown out, relegating us back to third place.</em>The hard enduro rider ethos is exemplified in a race like the Red Bull Romaniacs. These riders are the toughest of the tough, and many of them train all year for this one event. They travel from around the globe-24 nations were represented in 2009-and pay thousands of dollars just for a shot at conquering this vicious event. Physically, the sheer size of the archetypical hard enduro racer is impressive. Alexander and I arrived in great shape, but not in the right shape: We were lean and light like featherweight boxers, while most of the others racers were built like commandos with about 40 pounds of extra muscle and reserve stores of energy. It’s safe to say that Alexander and I felt a little out of place considering that our combined weight was less than that of one of the Swedish Armed Forces riders! Nevertheless, we felt a strange affiliation with our foreign competitors.<em>Eventually, we arrived at the day’s first spectator point: A brutally steep switchback known on the map as “Zicky-Zacky.” Due to the earlier split, most of the Hobby class had arrived here first, leaving a trail of exhausted riders for us to weave around as we started up the shredded hillside. Three-quarters of the way up, the trail bottlenecked onto a 30-meter length of an impossibly steep, axle-deep rut that ended with a two-meter vertical wall. This wasn’t going to be easy. In an effort to save time and valuable energy, Alexander and I struck a deal with two nearby Expert Singles riders that we’d all help each other up the hill. With no alternative options, the racers agreed on the condition that we bring up Alexander’s bike last so that we wouldn’t ditch them. Hard Enduro trail etiquette states that if someone helps you, you must help them as well or face being pushed down a hill, punched in the neck or left for dead later in the race. We agreed, and after forming a multinational human chain and sweating all four bikes up the hill, we were off again.</em>Of course, the trip wasn’t all about suffering. When we first flew into the Milan airport and spent a day with the generous Italians at the Acerbis factory, I felt like I was on vacation. Our borrowed Acerbis Sprinter van provided the perfect mode of transportation with which to explore the heart of Europe, and as we drove past the lush vineyards and lakes of Northern Italy, we hardly talked about the race ahead. Staying at our friend Andreas’ flat in Vienna, we toured the old city just as any tourists would do. But once we picked up our bikes at the KTM factory in Austria and started toward Romania through Hungary, the mood changed from relaxed to focused. Our resolve grew when we finally arrived at our destination of Sibiu and began building up the race bikes with the parts that we’d shipped over weeks before. When we were finally done, our machines looked so good I felt almost guilty knowing what they were about to go through.
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<p><em>“Rock!” I heard the noise before Alexander screamed the word, and I instinctively ducked as another basketball-size boulder went flying past me. We’d been bulldogging-half skidding, half walking-our bikes down this hill for so long, my pipe was almost cool to the touch, and I literally had monkey butt in my armpit from where the seat was rubbing me raw. For all but one or two of the best trials riders in the Pro class, this hill would be impossible to ride down. We’d already been using our hand guards and pegs as makeshift brakes when we started to lose control, and the bikes looked as though they’d been dragged behind a truck. Still, we joked that we should have brought skis to Romania and laughed at the fact that the trees were always there to break our fall.</em>After the race, Malcolm told Alexander and me that he thought we’d wasted half of our energy laughing at each other in the deep forest. It seemed that the worse our surrounding condition became, the funnier it appeared to us. Suffering alone is difficult, while doing so with a buddy is considerably easier and, oddly enough, fun. Alexander is tough as nails, but beyond that he is a class act, and the humility and enthusiasm he displays is easily on par with that of his father. He’s also one heck of a rider, and while roosting alongside Alexander through one of Romania’s wide-open grass fields, I couldn’t help sing the theme song from On Any Sunday in my head. However, the music stopped when we reached the last section on day five, the final day of the race.<em>The name says it all: Crazy Bike House. This six-story cement structure had loomed ominously above the prolog course just four days earlier, and now we were going to ride into, through and on top of it. With Alexander in tow, I started up the first flight of cement stairs and pivoted around a rusty piece of rebar on the landing. Heading up the second set, I grabbed too much traction and launched the bike, landing on the hard concrete with an audible pop of my wrist, much to the horror of the Romanian locals that lined the stairwell. I heaved my bike up once more and continued upward, stopping to realign along the narrow staircase and to give Alexander a shove or a tug up to where I was. Finally, we reached the top of the stairs and clocked into the final checkpoint before the finish line. Only one final obstacle remained…</em>Going into Romaniacs, we’d set what we felt were three attainable goals for the trip: First, bring everyone home safely. Second, come home with a good story and photos. And finally, we set out to bring home a trophy. I’m thrilled and relieved to say that we accomplished all three. Pete, Malcolm, Alexander and I all made it back to the U.S. safe and sound, and all four of us are overflowing with stories from the trip. But the greatest sense of accomplishment that I get from the race comes when I look at the small metal statue sitting on top of my bookshelf at home. Alexander has an identical one sitting in his office right now, and I’m sure that each time he looks at it he remembers that our trophies were anything but free-we paid for those cheap metal figurines with our sweat, blood and all the heart we could muster. The five little words stamped into the base say it all: “Third Place, Expert Class/Team.”<em>My heart pounded as I turned the final corner of the race. We no longer needed our Garmins to tell us where to go; the route ahead of us was clear. Carefully, I did a second-gear burnout to warm up my tire, and then launched up the steep wooden ramp leading to the roof of the Crazy Bike House. As I crested the top, I saw the final Red Bull arch, surrounded by a small throng of screaming people. I paused for a second as Alexander rode right up the ramp, and together we skirted the peak of the tin roof and crossed the finish line. The people around us exploded with applause, and a throng of high-fives and television cameras were thrust at us from every direction. I shook hands with Alexander, who was grinning that signature Smith-family grin, and my thoughts turned to our two fathers, who at that very moment were racing back to the pits from the last service point, most likely wondering if they would beat us to the finish line. Sitting there on the top of a building next to one of my best friends, looking out over a foreign city that my Garmin told me was exactly 10,373 kilometers from home, I was almost overcome by everything we’d been through in the last five days. My thoughts were interrupted when a random hand reached out and offered me a cold can of Red Bull. I grabbed the can and took a long, hard pull. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted.</em>To learn more about Team USA’s adventure and the Red Bull Romaniacs, be sure to catch the upcoming DVD release from Throttle Entertainment<br />
(<a href="" rel=”nofollow” onclick="javascript:window.open(

www.throttleentertainment.com) and visit the Red Bull Romaniacs event website (www.redbullromaniacs.com).

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