Motorcycle routes · The DJ 176, over the obcine to Argel
The road that would link Moldovița to Putna over the ridges. It isn't tarmacked, and in places it isn't even gravelled.
Start and finish: Câmpulung Moldovenesc
On the map it looks like the perfect shortcut: from Vatra Moldoviței you cross the mountain to Brodina and come out at Putna, closing a northern loop with no detour. In reality, the tarmac or concrete surfacing on the DJ 176 ends around the village of Argel, some thirteen kilometres from the centre of Moldovița commune. From Argel to Brodina the road is mostly gravel, and in places bare earth. On a road bike you won't get through: the tarmac detour means sixty kilometres instead of twenty-odd.
Daylight · The DJ 176, over the obcine to Argel · today,
The times are for the starting point. Between ridges the light goes earlier than the clock says, so turn back a good hour before sunset.
Weather · The DJ 176, over the obcine to Argel · today,
The forecast is for where you set off. Up on the ridge, count on a few degrees less and on wind you cannot see from below.
The middle of the route is not paved: it's gravelled, and in places it's bare earth. Road tyres will not get through, however slowly you ride.
If you're on a touring bike, the tarmac detour is the Putna loop, some sixty kilometres more.
The kilometres and times are measured on the map, from the gate of the house. The time is what you actually ride: with photo and coffee stops, add half again.
See the whole route on the map All 5 points of the route, in order, opened straight in Google Maps. From there you can start the navigation or send it to your phone.| Câmpulung Moldovenesc → Vatra Moldoviței | 24.7 km · 30 min The DN 17 and the DN 17A. Tarmac, with the patched stretch before the Trei Movile pass. |
|---|---|
| Vatra Moldoviței → Argel | 16.5 km · 24 min The DJ 176, up the Moldovița valley. This is where tarmac and concrete end. |
| Argel → Brodina | 0 km · 0 min Over the ridges. Gravelled and, in places, bare earth. Roughly twenty-odd kilometres, which we can't give exactly: we haven't ridden them. |
| Brodina → Putna | 26.2 km · 42 min The DJ 209G, tarmac, heading east. |
We counted every bend on the route. Not the gentle waves of the road, but the real turns: where the road changes direction by more than 12 degrees, which is enough to feel the bars move. Then we split the loop into two-kilometre pieces and gave each piece its number of bends. That's what the chart below shows: the taller the bar, the twistier that stretch is.
Twistiest: kilometres 0–2 25 bends in two kilometres, that is one every 80 metres.
Tarmac, with about 15 km of patching before Trei Movile.
Tarmac or concrete in places. The surfacing ends around the village of Argel.
Gravelled for the most part, and in some places bare earth. This is not a road for road bikes.
Surfaced; the section rebuilt in 2025.
Tarmac changes from one year to the next. Above is what we know now. Before you go, ask us.
These are the pumps mapped in the villages and towns along the route. They close, they move: in the mountains, don't count on just one.
The things that come from the road itself: how narrow it is, how steep, what it passes through. How often they happen is our own judgement, not statistics.
Not a short stretch you cross carefully, but the central part of the route. On road tyres, you don't get through.
On the earth sections, rain changes everything. What was passable in the morning may not be by evening.
Between Argel and Brodina there is nowhere to stop, nowhere to fill up and, in places, no signal.
It's a logging road. The trucks have right of way in practice, not in law: they have nowhere to pull over.
If you go anyway, go with someone. A fall here isn't fixed with a phone call.
From the highest point of the crossing you see one ridge after another, with not a single building in the frame.
The last village with tarmac. The hard part starts here.
On the way down the valley opens out.
The last sure stop before the crossing.
Few options, irregular hours.
At the end, places to eat and guesthouses in the village.
Taste Bucovina
Between Vatra Moldoviței and Brodina there's nowhere to stop. On gravel, burning fuel and with no villages, bring food and water from home.
You won't find a workshop that works on motorcycles alone on any of these roads. The nearest is in Suceava, some seventy kilometres from the house and further from most of the loops. What you will find are car workshops and tyre places in the villages and towns, and plenty of them will turn a hand to a motorcycle. For a puncture, a battery or a tyre, they'll sort you out. For the engine, call first.
Call ahead. They keep their own hours and not all of them work on Saturdays.
We checked all of this in . We measured the kilometres on the map ourselves; the fuel stations and workshops are the mapped ones.
The other loops
A base for the loops
Parking in the yard and the whole house to yourselves. Leave at sunrise without waking a reception desk, and come back as late as you like.
Via Transilvanica