Sibiu, 2023, what a year, a celebration of twenty years of extreme hard enduro competition for Red Bull Romaniacs and an edition that certainly delivered. Some memorable highlights included:

• Five classes ranging from the top professional elite Gold class to amateur Atom class competitors travelled from 55 nations around the world with the goal to fulfil their enduro dream of becoming a Red Bull Romaniacs finisher. As promised every year this is no easy feat. 
• During Offroad Day 1 mother nature presented these athletes with beyond their worst nightmare conditions, a freak storm of all storms where the forests turned as dark as night and torrential rain and hail pounded the competitors and the tracks. To try to fight it was madness and what was left afterwards were tracks as slippery as ice and thick mud creating exhausting and almost “Impossible” conditions. For all competitors it was a battle zone that was off the charts. Some amateur competitors took shelter in shepherd huts, under fallen trees and afterwards fought to the bone to be able to reach the checkpoints that would see them through to the start line of Offroad Day 2. 

Bronze and Iron competitors reaching the finish after battling the storm.

With Offroad Day 1 out of the way tough times still lay ahead. Some of the notable achievements included:

• Mani Lettenbichler Germany, KTM factory racing achieved his fourth win at Red Bull Romaniacs with an overall lead of 1h9m59s over his fellow Gold class competitors, making this an unusually large time difference compared to other editions where the victory might be won with only minutes difference. 
• Mario Roman Spain, Sherco factory team faced his share of impossible when he lost his clutch early during Offroad Day 2, even with a slipping clutch he achieved the unthinkable and cleared the insanely technical signature sections such as “Titanic”, “Bears Nest” and “Sheep Farmer” and placed in position 10 for the day.  
• The two female competitors in Bronze race class Maria Grigoras #581 Romania and Tjaša Fifer #403 Slovenia displayed commendable comebacks managing to regain 58 and 150 positions respectively on Offroad Day 3 after both competitors encountered difficulties on Offroad Day 2.  
• Billy Bolt United Kingdom, Husqvarna factory racing took both the organisers and spectators by surprise when he hit the final obstacle in the Romaniacs Prolog at full throttle and cleared a concrete barrier (placed to slow competitors at the finish), launching a whopping 17 meters. 
• Romaniacs legend and three time winner from 2004, 2005, 2007, Cyril Despres made a surprise guest appearance and spoke with the top elite Gold Class competitors during the LiveManiacs sections on Offroad Day 3 and Day 4. 
• Trystan Hart Canada, FMF KTM Factory racing was the first competitor to be reach the top of the hill at the renowned Final hill climbs arena successfully, making him the king of the hill climb for the second consecutive year. 

Looking forward to the upcoming 2024 Edition of Red Bull Romaniacs competitors can expect a lot of new terrain. Track Director Teo Isac and his track team spent the fall months scouting new areas on their bikes which also continues on the lower aspects during the snow months. During the winter the 2024 LIVEmaniacs offroad stages will be developed with some scouting on foot. To ease the pressure for competitors in 2024 the goal will be for the transfer times to the Offroad starts to be kept as low as possible and minimising the distances from the Offroad finish to the paddock. 

Behind the scenes there are over 200 permission applications that have to be processed to allow the enduro rallye to cover such vast terrain with such a wide variety of other user groups; public lands, forestry, private lands, farmers, hunters, the list is long. These permissions come at a cost, are time consuming and are an important task for Teo Isac and the 'terrain permissions' team.

Mario Roman makes up positions on Offroad Day 3.

Starting the New Year off on a high, Red Bull Romaniacs will be offering the all-new 2024/2025 Romaniacs training session camps. These camps will offer 3 full days of riding with Martin Freinademetz, the founder of Romaniacs and his team of Track managers. This pre-competition training will focus on technical skills and scenarios that competitors will be faced with during the four Offroad days. 

Once again the most popular class with the highest demand was the Bronze class, where the start positions were filled very quickly during the registrations this year followed by the Iron class. Silver and Atom classes still have starting places available and Gold awaits those athletes who are technically skilled and endurance trained enough to sign up. In the spirit of the festive season the organisers decided to offer an extra ten Bronze starting places in late December which, for the lucky top ten on the waiting list, was a happily received surprise gift.

Behind the scenes rumour has it that Martin Freinademetz has been having some more “crazy” thoughts. Possibly the hard enduro attempts of such athletes as Pol Tarres on his Ténéré 700, Matthias Walkner on his KTM Rally bike and Gerhard Forster on a Touratech BMW RX9 have stimulated Martin to question the concept of ‘is hard enduro really only for enduro bikes?’ Could the Atom class be successfully opened up for experienced competitors on adventure and trail bikes like the KTM freeride, Beta Alp, Fantic XEF, Yamaha TTR, XT, Suzuki DR, Kawasaki KLR, Honda XR & CRF and the recent manufacturing newcomers GPX, Kovo and of course the bigger twin cylinders motorcycles for the most experienced crazy competitors?  For now the concept is real and circulating in the mind of the extreme hard enduro mastermind, whether we see it come to fruition in 2024 or further down the road remains to be seen. 

Pol Tarres in the forest on his Ténéré 700.

The 2023 Enduro for Romania charity project initiated an ongoing educational program for local school children in Vâlcea County, a region where the Rallye passes through and locals come out onto the streets in support. It started with educating over 80 teenagers from the Câineni School about the environment, including garbage in the countryside, particularly the rivers and streams. These waterways are commonly and heavily polluted by waste and garbage. Over 250 garbage bags were collected by the children who were rewarded with new school supplies. The educational programme will continue in April 2024. Enduro for Romania charity also donated 8,000 Euros to the local Oncology support centre by the “Sus Inima” Association. Team MISSION RACE -Race Against Cancer Enduro from Germany also donated one third of their raised funds to Enduro for Romania. The four man team raised funds for Cancer while partaking in their memorable 2023 Romaniacs adventure.

All contributions and donations are accepted via:

• Contribute with a direct cash donation into the charity account for our Asociatia Club sportiv "Hai la miscare"
  IBAN EUR: RO67BTRLEURCRT0645227001
  IBAN RON: RO20BTRLRONCRT0645227001
  Banca Transilvania: Sediul Central: Str. George Baritiu, nr. 8, 400027, Cluj-Napoca
  SWIFT: BTRLRO22

The Red Bull Romaniacs website is a complete source of Event information and For competitor information.
During the event RBR LIVEnews reports can be viewed 2023 | 2022  | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 as well as video archive footage dating all the way back to the early 2004 pioneering days of the competition, when there were a mere 32 competitors lined up at the start.
The daily 2023 ONLINE LIVEstreaming REPLAYS and daily video recaps from every year of Romaniacs can be viewed.

Competitors, fans, friends can purchase official Romaniacs branded merchandise from the ONLINE event SHOP 

Red Bull Romaniacs 2024, Edition 21, is round four out of seven in the F.I.M hard enduro world championship and is the longest track event on the calendar. Held in Sibiu, Romania the 2024 dates are July 23 - 27.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you in Sibiu!

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Red Bull Romaniacs
Media team