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Episode #18: Ionut Maftei

Guide and Owner

Bike In Time – Romania

Ionut Maftei
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Guest Bio

Ionut Maftei is a certified mountain guide and travel consultant with over 15 years of experience in the tourism industry. Based in Bucharest, Romania, he co-founded CarpatBike in 2007, the country’s first cycling tourism company, and later established Bike in Time in 2019 to help cyclists discover Romania by bike. Ionut specializes in organizing cycling and hiking tours across various Romanian regions, aiming to promote the country’s natural beauty and cultural heritage.

Show Summary

In this episode, Ionut Maftei shares his journey from a background in finance and management consulting to becoming a pioneer in Romanian cycling tourism. He discusses the challenges and rewards of introducing and promoting cycling as a means to explore Romania’s diverse landscapes. Ionut also reflects on his involvement in developing a national cycling strategy and his efforts to certify cycling-friendly establishments, enhancing the overall experience for both local and international cyclists.

Key Takeaways

  • ✓ Entrepreneurial Spirit: Transforming personal passions into business ventures can lead to fulfilling careers.
  • ✓ Promoting Active Tourism: Encouraging cycling and hiking fosters a deeper connection with nature and supports sustainable travel.
  • ✓ Community Engagement: Collaborating with local communities enhances tourism offerings and supports regional development.
  • ✓ Advocacy for Infrastructure: Developing national strategies and certifications can improve the quality and safety of cycling tourism.
  • ✓ Cultural Preservation: Showcasing local heritage through specialized tours enriches travelers’ experiences and preserves traditions.

What You’ll Find on Bike in Time’s Platform

  • ✓ Guided Cycling Tours: Explore Romania’s scenic routes with expert guidance, suitable for various skill levels.
  • ✓ Customized Itineraries: Tailored cycling experiences to match individual interests and preferences.
  • ✓ Bike Rentals: Quality bicycle rentals for independent explorers.
  • ✓ Cultural Immersion: Opportunities to engage with local communities and experience Romanian traditions.
  • ✓ Adventure Consulting: Professional advice and planning for personalized adventure trips in Romania.

👉 Visit Bike in Time’s Official Website to explore their offerings and learn more about Ionut Maftei’s contributions to cycling tourism in Romania.

Learn more about Bike In Time – Romania and connect with Ionut at:

http://www.bikeintime.com/

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Podcast Transcript

This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.

Welcome back to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the Adventure Traveler. Super excited today. We’ve got Ionut Maftei from Bike in Time Romania joining us. And this is my second conversation with Ionut and the first one kind of just blew my mind just trying to imagine growing up where he did and then turning around and creating this thriving business that’s kind of really a pioneer in Romania. So super happy to have him.

here to share some of his stories with us and educate us a little bit about Romania. So, Ionut, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah. I’m very happy to help. And I’m very glad to have Romania on your podcast because it’s a, I don’t know, it’s a country where it’s somewhere in Europe. Not everybody knows about that. Right. Yeah. And I remember you saying that was kind of part of your…

part of your vision, both for your company, but mostly for your country is to kind of get it on the map with some of the other tour operators out there. And so that when you go and look for bicycle tours or just tourism in general, that Romania comes up on that list and is well represented. And based on our conversation last time and the conversation I’m sure we’re gonna have right now, I think that you’re going a long ways to helping make that happen. So, and…

before we jump into more about bike and time, more about Romania, I really wanna know about you. Because there’s always an interesting story when you’ve got a tour operator that goes against the grain, against swimming up river, sometimes their family is like, what are you doing? This is crazy. So there’s always some kind of interesting story. And you were actually probably more so than most working kind of against the flow of society when you first were getting into this. It was probably a foreign concept. So…

Jason Elkins (02:21.77)
So tell us, how did you get started? What got you going in bicycling, tourism? How’d you get from where you are now, or well, where you were to where you are now?

Jason Elkins (02:34.03)
So, yeah, it’s not a long story, but… It was a long question. I know I gave you a lot there, so… But it’s a good start for discussion. Yeah, cycling was always in my life. Since I was a kid, I had bicycles. I don’t remember, I don’t have memories in my life without a bicycle, so it was always there.

Jason Elkins (03:03.222)
didn’t, we don’t have, especially in the last part of the communist times and in the yearly time of democracy, we don’t have a culture of cycling. But once we became part of the European Union, that was obviously, that will be one of the trends that will happen. In my mind, at that moment, was kind of a niche of the tourism that will gonna happen. And my idea was, yes, in

early 2000s that I should create something because I liked any how to go on bicycle. My formation is not at all in cycling, not at all in sport, it’s mainly in banking, in finance. So I study economics in Bucharest. I work in a mortgage program, in the first

Jason Elkins (04:02.318)
And then during the consulting, once we were on the way to be accepted in the European Union, I had this idea and I still remember and I also keep, if I allow me, I can also have one…

I still keep one magazine. I don’t know if it’s true. Yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. It’s a nice story with this. I forgot to tell you last time, but it’s a good time. And for our listeners that are listening to this, as a podcast and not watching the video, tell us a little bit about what you just showed me there. Yeah, it’s just a magazine about traveling, a Romanian magazine, but it’s from 2006. And in…

that period I was considering if I should start something in tourist fashion, should not start something as a hobby. And this magazine I found it in one of the pubs that I was going quite often. Because you were working in banking. Yes, exactly. Consulting, a lot of work. What is called networking.

What is my reality is… Or coping or medicating or you know, there’s a few words for it, yeah. So in one of the pubs that I found this magazine opened exactly at an article which was with a map, is not very visible right now, but that map of Europe was stopping all the cyclone trails at that time were stopping at the border of Romania, Hungary and Serbia.

So it was kind of, you know, this is the cycling options that you have now. If you want to go on a cycling holiday, you should go from the Atlantic to the eastern part of Hungary or Serbia. After that one was almost nothing. So yes, for me it was both a little bit frustrating, but also kind of an opportunity because we…

Jason Elkins (06:09.998)
like very much to look not to a problems but to opportunities or to transform problems into opportunities. So that’s a great that’s a great story. I mean I can just imagine you sitting there looking at the magazine and all the routes go right up to the border and just stop and you’re like oh aha.

Yeah, that was the moment when I decided that yes, I should go there because my thoughts for more than one or two years was should I start, should I not start? But that was the moment and what’s kind of, you know, this magazine was waiting for me in exactly place. That’s why I was usually staying. That’s a great story. I love it. Yeah, very cool. So that was the moment that it was a yes decision for me without any other…

analysis, market analysis, trends or whatever, because anyhow, we didn’t have figures for us. So yes, this is how I started. I started in 2007, 2008, and my first client was the company I was working for. I was very lucky that my manager, my boss was supporting me and even now we are friends.

despite we are not working together anymore, but I had a great help from him and from the company I was working for because I was very open to tell them, look, I would like to do this. I want to do that just as a hobby, but just let’s do something. And they said, yes, why not? If it’s your free time, it’s not affecting your job here. So you can start, why not?

So they also being my first client that we organized an escape for them, a kind of team building for the company. That’s pretty cool. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. And when you said that they say, yeah, sure, whatever. It’s not impacting your job. Little did they know. Yeah. But that’s the thing. If you’re unhappy, you’re unhappy. And there’s no sense in trying to keep somebody in something.

Jason Elkins (08:20.546)
they’re unhappy with. So that’s very, very cool. Yeah, but we always keep everything open and transparent. And at a certain moment, I observed that it’s not anymore a hobby because in fact, the project increase, increase and grow and grow. And at a certain moment, some foreign companies started to send travelers in Romania and I said, okay, this is not anymore a hobby. So I should decide, should I keep it as a hobby or should I jump?

to another activity. So yeah, we decided to, it was a tough decision because of course it’s also money, it’s matter in our life. And you had a family, you had a family, right? Yeah, yes, I have a family. So we decided to get that, okay, we are going in this direction and…

Yeah, even today it’s not the same amount of money like in the consulting is totally different. But yeah, I decided to do this and I continue to go forward. Was there anybody in your life that just really just resisted it that you’re willing to share with us here or any stories of kind of challenges you came up against?

And I asked that because several of the folks that I’ve been interviewing have had somebody in their life that was very resistant at first, like, whoa, no way. What are you doing? You can’t do this. And now, you know, that they’ve seen, oh, this is real. This can be done. You know, they described a real shift to where that person is now their biggest champion. I’m wondering if you had any experiences like that as well.

Well, in my case, the close persons, they were supporting me, but a lot of people around me, they were asking me, why are you doing this? Because I don’t see the business, in fact. In Romania, nobody was doing this. The cultural way of doing holiday was, you know, two weeks you are going on the seaside and you have one beer in the hand. That was the holiday.

Jason Elkins (10:37.586)
So they were asking me who is going to pay you for doing even more effort during their holiday. Who wants to go on vacation and actually exercise? Exactly. People are waiting the holiday for just for not doing any more exercise. You are asking them to do even more and to be paid for it.

So, yes, I tried to explain that the market for the moment is not in Romania. I will try to sell this abroad and probably in time we’ll arrive here. And it was like this because for many years people from Romania were not part of the travelers that I had. More than 90% were from abroad. And even today…

majority of our travelers, especially for holiday, for long, for multiple day trips, they are from abroad. Are the people in Romania, do they kind of get it now though? Because they presumably see companies like yourself, they see tourists riding around on bicycles or hiking or doing these things. So is it…

Does it just seem to make more sense now or are they still kind of blind to it or what? What’s that? No, no, no. It’s totally different right now. So I started in 2007 and the reality was like this in the whole country. We’ve been about, I don’t know, 300 people. We were meeting to various, cycling contests, like cycling marathons in just a few cities. There have been maximum 10 contests per year.

That was it. And we were just a group of people. We are meeting only for this type of events. Right now we have, I don’t know, every weekend you have 10, 20 events all over the country. So we are at the stage where, yes, the new generation is very active. They want to do something.

Jason Elkins (13:08.617)
the

Jason Elkins (13:29.374)
Probably in the future they will go to the next stage where they will say, okay, it’s too much time for organizing the trip for us. So let’s go to somebody who knows the routes, who knows how to do the equipment and has all the services that we need. And that will be much better for us. So they were willing to pay for services. And I’m curious, as you’re working with these younger people that are getting into biking,

Do you see some of them getting turned on by the idea of working in adventure tourism? You know, which you didn’t really have that kind of support. You weren’t growing up in that environment. But these kids now, they’re getting involved in these biking events. I can see them looking at you as kind of a role model and this little light bulb going off like, oh, maybe I don’t have to work in banking. Maybe I can, you know, do what Jonas is doing. Yes. Obviously it is.

They need to be more courageous, let’s say, to start. There are opportunities, of course, young generation, they don’t need to be afraid of the future. Like we were in the nineties, we’re terrible. That was terrible times for us. But they have so many opportunities. So, and now it’s an industry growing.

which is very good. I’m also looking what is happening abroad, because we are just following the trend. Romania is not one of the top countries, the leading country in this area. We are following the trend. And if I’m looking at the trend, it’s really becoming an industry, not only the production of bicycles, but the services. The services, it’s already, it’s not anymore a niche of the tourists. It’s…

It’s a line of business in the tourism. People are considering taking bicycles for traveling, not the car, not the train, not the plane. So everything that is around, starting with the accommodations, hotels, infrastructure, and then the bicycles, of course, which is again, growing industry. And now with the e-bikes, it’s even more.

Jason Elkins (15:51.054)
and then all the services like guiding, transferring, luggages, food and everything is becoming bigger and bigger. So it’s covering a lot of activities, in fact. If you don’t really need to be a bike mechanic or to have a study in engineering, you don’t need necessarily to be in the tourism area.

Because you have to do in this area. You need, there is a need of work here. Okay. What do you think, pardon me. What do you think? So when you say, pardon me. When you say that, you know, maybe Romania is a little bit behind as far as, you know, a competitor in the bike world, as far as attracting tourism.

What do you think is the biggest thing standing in the way of that right now from making Romania like right up there with the tops? As far as popularity, what’s getting in the way? Yeah, very good question. And I think there will be a lot to discuss on this. But we just have to work on. We, I mean, we the nation, we have to work on this.

And it’s not only the cycling, it’s the whole tourism. Romania is perceived as a country, yes, which doesn’t invest too much in tourism, the conditions are not the highest. So we have to work for this. We have a lot to do, but I think now we are on the good trend, in the good direction. We need to accelerate.

very much. We need just to be very fair with us. We need to be more professional. We have to correct what we are not doing correctly, what we are doing wrong. But that’s it. It’s a lot of work. It’s also a little bit of frustration. For instance, now I see what is happening now. Companies which are offering packages, but they don’t have a

Jason Elkins (18:15.202)
or persons which are guiding, but they are not authorized guides or don’t have a license for guiding, which is a little bit risky. I see it is happening, but because the cycling is growing very much, these things are happening, unfortunately for us. And we also have to work in this direction, to clean a little bit all the industry and everything. It is not too much in the cycling on this niche of tourists, but we have to do it properly.

Okay, so it sounds like what I hear you saying is it’s just kind of a general across the board embracing tourism, the infrastructure, the just kind of everything that goes around it. It’s not that the quality of your roads or the quality of the experience is an issue. It’s just getting all those parts and pieces to work together to make it logistically more feasible for people to visit and have a variety of activities. Is that right?

Yeah, that’s it. I don’t think we have a problem with the infrastructure, especially for roads. In fact, we are right now in a very good position for the gravel bicycle. Gravel is the new black in cycling. And Romania, because it’s not so much developed, statistically we have more than half of our roads are not paved.

So we have a lot of gravel here. And we did not realize till two years ago, but companies from abroad, they just send us requests that look, we want to come to your country for gravel biking. And I was curious why for gravel, because now people are asking for more asphalt, more asphalt and to go on top of the mountains on

very nice bicycles and no, you have a lot of other gravel roads, we want to go there and we want to experience and suddenly we are a kind of paradise for gravel cycling and it’s really successful, we have this year was really interesting because we have some unusual groups, unusual big groups, usually our groups are six to twelve people

Jason Elkins (20:35.454)
and now we have a 40 people group, which is totally unusual for us, to put them as a group on roads. But they were very happy with what they found here. It’s not totally gravel, we have some single trail, which they also like very much.

But yeah, you see, we have opportunities. Some problems are turning to opportunities because we are a little bit behind with infrastructure. Suddenly we can benefit from this. It’s good you didn’t pave all those roads back in the last decade. Yeah, now we ask the government not to pave or unpave. Stop, stop paving. Maybe you can take some of those roads they did pave and you can dump some.

Jason Elkins (21:29.354)
expand your network. That’s pretty cool. So if someone’s thinking about going to Romania for a bike tour or a trip, do they need to bring everything with them? Are you set up? Are there ways to just show up and get the bicycle and everything you need? What does that look like for somebody? At that moment, I think we can offer most of the services and conditions for cycling. You can just show up.

and we can organize luggage transfer, bicycle accommodation, food, food on the way and so on. And we are prepared for all kinds of trips starting from bikepacking so people can get their luggage or total assistance. Like they just need to get up in the morning and we they find the bicycle prepared and they’re ready to go to the next stop and the next stop

the luggage is waiting for them and on the way they have a picnic or a restaurant somewhere, I think we can cover almost everything. But of course, if people, they want to bring their own bicycle for their own comfort, it’s possible. We are becoming more and more, the service level is, the quality is rising, including for hotels. They see.

also this opportunity that a cycling group is coming and they are quite good people for them. They consume quite a lot of services. So it’s not like in the past that yes, it’s one cyclist and he just needs a place to put the tent.

Jason Elkins (23:22.146)
backpacker type that’s trying to go to Eastern Europe and spend, you know, $5 a day or something like that. I can imagine somebody that’s going there for bike orders. It’s not anymore the case. And they’re consuming quite a lot of food, quite a lot of drinks, yeah, and services. Okay, no, that makes a lot of sense. You had, I didn’t not, I’ll be honest, I did not make the connection when I saw the name.

of your business, which is bike and time. And then we’ve already kind of touched on some of the reasons, you know, the benefits and advantages that Romania offers to bicyclists. So help me clear that up for everybody. The play on words, which I think is brilliant, but maybe I’m not so brilliant and I totally missed it. Yeah. And in fact, this is why I choose this kind of backgrounds because you see there it’s a very old church.

was kind of a feedback that I initially received from travelers. The first travelers, when they came, they saw something that doesn’t exist anymore in many places in Europe. People are doing the hay for the animals by hand, they are doing lots of things by hand, the ceramic on the houses, the tiles are also done by hand, a lot of things they are doing. So…

Jason Elkins (24:51.35)
This is another thing, you see one cart here, people are cycling, but on the other side, you don’t see the horse here, but they are just doing the hay on the street, which is something which is very usual on our roads. So, yes, it’s a travel back in time a little bit. Also, the accommodation that we are proposing, that we are offering.

It’s a mix of very old houses which are transformed into not necessarily luxury, but comfortable hotels. I wouldn’t say that we have luxury for accommodation. In Romania, luxury is in the woods. This is what we say. If you need luxury, we are doing luxury tours, but luxury is in the woods. And yes, but otherwise, it’s a lot of things that we are visiting. They are like…

a trip back in time and because we are doing by bicycles. Yes, it’s a bike in time. Yes, exactly. I get it. I get it now completely. And that makes that makes so much sense. So you’ve I have the benefit of being able to look at the screen here and I see some of your backdrops that are just, you know, beautiful. Like you said, a mix of kind of the modern with the bicycle. Then somebody’s over there, you know, cutting hay. It kind of is what I imagine Romania looking like.

And I also realized that a lot of people that have never been have preconceived ideas about Romania. Maybe they have heard of something or some place that they think, oh, we need to, if we go to Romania, this is what we should do. So for somebody that’s never been there, what advice or suggestions do you have about Romania in general? Are there any misconceptions? Are there anything that’s like kind of any places that are over oversold?

that maybe somebody could skip and go do something else instead. And I think you know where I’m going with this, because you brought it up last time we spoke.

Jason Elkins (26:59.086)
Yes, and I think it’s for many countries there are preconceptions, not only for Romania, maybe especially Romania because it’s a country which not too many people know exactly where we are. As I said, maybe in the first days people are somewhere in Europe, so they are starting to…

about our history, who we are, what we want and so on. But for me, again, it’s not a problem, it’s a nice opportunity for this, just to change the mindset of people which are here, especially for the first time. And another opportunity is because of these preconceptions, the expectations are somehow quite low.

Which is good for us, you know, when you have expectations and you’re reaching them, you have a happy traveler, you know. If the expectations are too high, doesn’t matter how good you are, if you don’t reach the expectations, they will not be very happy. So for the moment, we are, let’s say, in a good position that people don’t have very high expectations from us. So at the end, their expectations are not reached, but much.

over past so… And are there some things or anything in particular that is in Romania that people have this really high expectation that maybe isn’t being met? Or when they come there… I think we are still suffering about Dracula syndrome. Yeah, that’s where I was going with that. Because many people are saying, Romania, okay, there are a few things. Transylvania…

Of course, if you say Transylvania, then you say Dracula. So with Dracula, you have expectations because you expect to find the vampires or counts or whatever here. But in reality, we are trying to not to get rid of this, but to change a little bit the perception. We are very much now inclined to show people the nature, the history, the values.

Jason Elkins (29:22.394)
the communities that we have which are really an asset for us, then a story which is nice, but is not done by us. We are beneficiary of a story of a novel which was written by Bram Stoker and is just a fictional novel. It’s almost nothing related to reality. So yes, people are expecting to find Dracula at the Dracula Castle.

But the Dracula Castle, in fact, it’s a story about the Queen of Romania, the Queen during the First World War. So some of them, they are a little bit disappointed that they don’t find Vlad the Impaler there, they don’t find Dracula, they find something else. In fact, that castle, which again is not a castle, again, they are expecting to find the castle like in the cartoons, but it’s just a former…

middle-age fortress, but which looks very nice because it’s on the top of a rock and the architecture is very special, but it’s not a castle, it’s very tiny and then it’s not about Dracula and it’s not about Vlad the Impaler. So yes, these kind of very high expectations we cannot reach, but again, it’s not our fault because it’s not a story done by us. On the other hand, we have some other stories which are…

people are finding very interesting. The Queen of Romania was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria. When people came and they found this one, especially people from royalty families like from UK or from other royal families, they are unexpectedly to find this, that we are connected with their families and so on.

So we can compensate with some other things and some other stories. Yeah, well, my take on it is, and I haven’t been, but just what I heard you describe about the Dracula, the stories, and it’s kind of almost like a Hollywood type of Disneyland type of thing that… I’m just saying that, that’s just my thoughts. It sounds like there’s so many other things.

Jason Elkins (31:43.038)
In Romania, there’s so much more interesting and real and not kind of this made up story that maybe a few people around that fortress are benefiting from tourism. So they may be adding to the story. I don’t know, but it’s, it just sounds like there’s so many other things to see and do there. So thank you for sharing that. Yes. Yeah. And in fact, our duty in fact, is that just to show people exactly this kind of

sites which are hidden, they are not marked and this is why if somebody will come to Romania, especially now when the infrastructure is not very developed, maybe in the future it will be, but we have this situation now that the sites are not very commercial, you don’t know exactly where to go to find a place, where to go to find a museum and so on. So it’s good

to have somebody like us to guide you. It’s not much more expensive and you will save a lot of time and effort at the end of the day. A much, much better experience. Well, and there’s the ability to connect with community through the guides, either directly with the guides, the conversations that you have with your guides, but also guides have a…

pretty unique way of putting you into places that you just would never go if you were by yourself and to connect with people. Do you have some, when clients visit you, do they have some opportunities like that to meet with families or local people in special ways that they’re just not going to get if they’re doing it on their own? Yes. Yes, they do have. We are working very much on this. And it’s one of the…

main assets that we have. In fact, the people that we are meeting on our way is one of the best things that a traveler can experience. And what we want to show people is the real life and the real people. I’m not afraid to show people that when they arrive here that, yes, this is a gypsy community and we are going through the gypsy…

Jason Elkins (34:05.202)
gypsy community with the bicycles and nothing is happening there, part of our life, part of our country, part of our nation. In fact, what we are trying to promote very much is exactly the ethnic communities. We are one of the countries in Europe with the highest number of nationalities. We have more than 20 ethnic communities and it’s not about

newcomers like from Syria or from Afghanistan or from other countries, they are old people, some of them they are so old that their countries, it doesn’t exist anymore. We have Tatars in our country, they don’t have where else to go, they are part of us, they’re part of our nation and they’re such a beautiful community and unfortunately we as a nation, we don’t know to appreciate them

my worst nightmare, if you want, that we know to appreciate their values only when they are disappearing, because those populations are getting old. And if we don’t care about them and if we are not promoting them, they are getting older and older and at the end they will disappear. And only at that moment we’ll realize their real value. So we are trying to…

to help them and to keep them as much as possible. As I said, some of them, they cannot go anywhere else. So we have people which they don’t have a country. I love that about this adventure tourism space is so many operators like yourself just really get that, that it’s about that connection, their communities. And there’s a lot of tourism out there that just doesn’t do that.

So I love speaking with people like yourself that really feel that connection to the local communities, work with local families and share that. Because if I were to go to Romania, honestly, if I went to Romania and I didn’t have an opportunity to learn some of this and meet some of these people and see it, I think I’d be disappointed. So that’s probably. But you know, you will find out after you’re leaving and then you’re. Yeah, exactly. It’s like.

Jason Elkins (36:30.41)
I want to see it all. And for me, adventure travel can literally just be doing that. I don’t need to necessarily be on a bike or climbing a mountain or rafting a river. It can be just being in the communities, meeting families, getting outside of my comfort zone, and just learning. And I think that resonates. I’m guessing that resonates with most people that are listening to this. And I hope so, because it’s really the name of it. So you have a play on words, Mayden?

Big world made small. We’re having these conversations to see how we can bring people together to make this big world feel just a little bit smaller. So I get that. Boy, we talked about quite a bit. I’m trying to think, is there anything else that you think the people should know about if they’re planning to trip to Romania? Maybe give us kind of an idea what the seasons look like. Just anything you think is important for people to know about Romania, about your business.

Jason Elkins (37:29.064)
or about bicycling? Also, it would be good to add that for adventure travelers, we also have the nature and the adventure part, because we discussed about history, about culture, about communities and so on, but we also have this part, which is more adventurous, let’s say. So we have a few roads which are going on top of the mountain. So you have to do what to do if you are going…

on cycling. And another good thing is that we have all we are ready for all kinds of cycling, including for downhill, which I don’t like personally, but there is one, another niche. So people which they like just to go on top of the mountains and just go down with the bicycle. I like the other way. I like to go up on the bicycle and but yeah.

So it doesn’t matter what kind of cyclist you are, you should find something to do here. And we have quite a good experience for offering customized trips for all the travelers. And then about seasonality, yes, there is a seasonality, of course. On the last two years, we did not stop cycling season. So we had a seasonality like, yes, in February, it’s not the same number of…

of travelers on bicycle like in September or August. But there is a request and now, especially because the weather changed quite a lot, for instance in Bucharest we don’t have snow anymore, we have just rain and it’s less and less. We are open all the season, but not for all kinds of cycling. Of course on the mountainside there is something else. We have to go on snow.

snowshoeing, for instance. Winter in Romania is very nice for snowshoeing when we don’t have cycling. But yes, there is a seasonality usually starting from April, May, till end of November, but including December. So last year, December was very warm. I remember 31st of December and 1st of January, I was in Jersey, just normal Jersey, like in the…

Jason Elkins (39:47.662)
in the cell by bicycle, which is not normal, but that did happen. Yeah. Okay. But it still, it sounds like you’ve got a lot of good opportunities, depending on what people want to do. I’m going to have your website down in the show notes so they can click through to your website. It’s a bike and bike in time. What’s your website? Yeah. Bikingtime.com. Yeah..com. Okay. Thank you. So I have that. It’s both that common row. Row is from Romania.

Okay, I think you will go to the same to the same page. All right, wonderful So if somebody wants to learn more about you your business Romania biking in Romania Obviously, that’s a good resource. Is there anything else people should know as far as to get in touch with you? Stay connected with you that type of thing so yes, if you’re going on the website that will be We have a few standard tours, but it’s good to know that

probably 80% of our travelers, they have customized tours. So we have to customize the standard tours for them on request. We are very happy and flexible for this. Of course there are some limits, but just to have an idea, our standard tours are there, they’re about 19 tours and they are covering the whole country.

Jason Elkins (41:15.774)
We also have a few hiking trips and bike and boat trips, especially in the Danube Delta, which again is a very nice spot. What they should know is that we included a few sites which are UNESCO sites. Most of the UNESCO sites which are in Romania, they are included in our tours, depending in which area. And that was one of the most…

important resources for us when we design the trips. But otherwise, we can customize the trips for families, for more sporty people, for more lazy people, people which are looking for culture, for more, yeah. Do you actually have a trip right there on the website that’s like the lazy, lazy Roman, Romania tour? I love that.

Align with that or they know it We’re just using words for jokes and when I don’t want to no I know I get it completely I won’t say anything about ebikes or you know any of that stuff No, and that actually I think it’s pretty interesting what’s going on with the ebike thing so anybody listening to this You know my understanding is just a great opportunity to kind of get more people involved in

and the sport going out and having families share it with each other. Because maybe you’ve got somebody in the family that doesn’t necessarily want to have the same physical experience. What are your thoughts on that? Because you’d mentioned earlier. Which is normal. I mean, it’s not something unusual. We don’t have to say that, yes, if somebody in the family is a great athlete, everybody should do, should be like this. And even if they are.

they still, maybe they have small kids, you know, maybe they have some old parents. If they need to come, they should do something. We will not just let them wait in the hotel for two weeks and they will see each other at the end of the tour. So we had situations and I’m very happy that our youngest participant was about three months.

Jason Elkins (43:38.534)
And the oldest was plus 85. So in some cases, yes, we had to design some parallel tours for cyclists and non-cyclists. And the cyclists, they are doing their stuff. It’s very simple for us as well. But non-cyclists, they also need to see part of the country. So they have another tour.

parallel tour with another guide probably, they will see something else or similar things, but a little bit behind because they are in a car. So I think this again is, as I said, is part of the industry which is developing and it’s not only cycling and pedaling, this kind of tourism is much, much more. Yeah, no, I think it’s great. I think that when you have a variety of activities people can do.

together as opposed to, you know, I guess an analogy, you know, climbing Everest or Kilimanjaro or something like that. It’s you’re probably not going to take your family along unless they really want to, you know, do that type of thing. So it’s great that we can offer a variety of things to people that can go do it, do it the level they want to do it. So thank you for sharing that with me. So all right, Jonas, thank you so much.

for being here, educating us a little bit about Romania. I still love your story. I’m never gonna forget your story about how your business got started. I just, I think that’s like sitting in the bar, open the magazine, it’s like a light bulb. So that’s a very cool origin story. So thank you so much for sharing that. All right, so yeah, anybody that’s listening to this, I would definitely encourage you to reach out to Yonatz through its website if it’s something you’re interested in learning more about, so.

Thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you for inviting me and looking forward to see how the podcast is advancing. I’m very curious. Oh, cool. Well, thank you so much. It’s been great to keep in touch. It’s been great so far. And I love that we’re able to share some information and share connections because that’s really what it’s all about. So thank you so much. Appreciate it. Great. Thank you.

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