EnduRoMania 1995 - 2015 - Part 1

EnduRoMania celebrated in 2014 its 20th year of existence. Over 130 EnduRoMania events have been held since 1995. The basic thought was to turn one of Romania’s disadvantages – the lack of infrastructure – into an attraction. EnduRoMania was the spark that ignited Enduro/Trail-Riding as a way to develop sports and active tourism in the southwestern part of Romania. An entire network of boarding houses came to life trough EnduRoMania, which are offering their services not exclusively for the EnduRoMania participants, but also for anybody who enjoys the concept of niche tourism, offering them a glimpse of Romanian hospitality and traditional cuisine. This also proves to the local population that boarding tourism can be a lucrative business. EnduRoMania is confirmed as a sustainable tourism development in the region. Since 2004 on the platform of EnduRoMania, incentive events on behalf of international companies are being organized. The best known is Conti-Romania-Trophy an 4x4 Incentive Event of the Continental AG tire manufacturer Hannover/Germany.
The EnduRoMania is a field navigation/orienteering event. Starting from one of the meeting points, it is possible to reach over 80 checkpoints, spread on an area of 40.000 km2. The difficulty and the distances to reach the checkpoints are different and the checkpoints can be chosen by the riders (according to their ability, fitness and skills). The region offers gravel roads and also abrupt mountain narrow roads. The organizers are only making recommendations about some of the alternative roads and trails to reaching the checkpoints, the participants decide about the road to be followed. In the last years the GPS satellite navigation technology became more and more used by the EnduRoMania participants. The organizers are providing the participants the detailed documentation and the yearly updated maps of the region at a scale of 1:100000. The maps are provided iun digital format and as hard copy and are user friendly and suitable for the GPS-Navigation. The road system is scarcely developed: thus, there are large areas of up to 8000 sqkm without any tarred roads. Paradoxically, standard mobile phone coverage is available in these underdeveloped areas. The satellite navigation system (GPS) has increasingly become more and more popular within the participants. The organizer offers the participants also detailed advice.