One of the toughest weeks in off-road motorcycling is almost here. From 28 July to 1 August, the 23rd edition of Romaniacs takes over Sibiu and the Carpathian Mountains under the banner "UNSTOPPABLE", and while the Romanian epic sits outside the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship (HEWC) calendar, its start list once again reads like a roll call of the championship’s biggest names.
A non-championship race with a world-championship field
To be clear, Romaniacs is not a round of the 2026 FIM Hard Enduro World Championship, and nothing that happens in Sibiu will change the title race. But that has never stopped the sport’s elite from treating it as the season’s ultimate proving ground. In 2025 the event drew more than 600 riders from 63 nations, with HEWC championship leader Manuel Lettenbichler taking the overall win to move one step closer to Graham Jarvis’s record of seven Romaniacs titles. Expect the same star wattage this year, with the world’s best hard enduro racers testing themselves across a city Prologue and four brutal off-road days.
Triumph’s adventure assault
One of the biggest storylines is Triumph Factory Racing’s return with a three-rider Adventure line-up aboard near-stock Tiger 900 Rally Pro machines. Two-time Romaniacs winner Jonny Walker leads the charge in the Adventure Ultimate class after finishing second on debut last year, joined by two-time Dakar champion Sam Sunderland and five-time FIM Enduro World Champion (Enduro GP) Ivan Cervantes in the more competitive Adventure Core category. Their presence underlines how Romaniacs keeps expanding, welcoming big-bore adventure machines alongside the traditional hard enduro field.
The ultimate test of machine and equipment
Nearly 600 kilometres of rock, root and river over five days makes Romaniacs one of the harshest durability tests anywhere in motorcycling, the kind of arena where races are won and lost on preparation as much as talent. It is exactly the challenge the HEWC’s technical partners are built for: Plews Tyres, whose tyres and mousses are engineered for extreme grip and puncture resistance; S3 Parts, specialists in the hard parts and protection that keep a bike alive in the rough; and Factory Links, whose linkage and bearing systems are designed to survive relentless punishment.
Form is running high too, Teodor Kabakchiev arrives fresh from victory at the non-championship Ditrocks Hard Enduro on 20 July, where an all-HEWC trio locked out the podium.
Eyes back on the world championship
Once the dust settles in Romania, attention swings straight back to the title fight. The next round of the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship is the inaugural Forza Orza in Orsa Grönklitt, Sweden, from 20–22 August, the first time the country has ever hosted a world championship round. Lettenbichler heads the championship standings on 88 points, ahead of Mitch Brightmore on 75 and Kabakchiev on 68, as the German chases a fifth straight crown. Romaniacs may not count for points, but a strong week in the Carpathians is the perfect springboard into the second half of the season.