Strâmtură means a narrow place, a gap or defile, and La Strâmtură is a spot where the Măgurice hills pinch a stream and a lane into a tight corridor. The point lies near Ortelec, about four kilometres from Mirșid in the western Meseș, and the narrowness gives the whole valley a sense of enclosure that you can feel on a bike: the road shrinks, the trees close in and the sound of the engine bounces off the banks.
In places like this, water has always been a source of power and food. Small streams in these hills once turned the wheels of mills, grinding maize and wheat for whole villages, and many mill sites survive as overgrown stone foundations beside the water. Some of the streams hold trout and grayling, and villagers still fish them on summer evenings. Crayfish, which need clean water, were once common and are making a modest comeback in some places. The Meseș is a quiet corner of Romania, and the quietness shows in the water.
Another reality is that many of the people who built the houses are no longer here. Since the 1990s, many families from Sălaj have worked abroad, in Italy, Spain, Germany and elsewhere, and money sent home has paid for large new houses, some of which stand empty for most of the year. They are often built in a showy style with tall columns and tiled roofs, beside older farmhouses of timber and daub. The result is a countryside in which new and old stand cheek by jowl, and in which the population is older than it once was.
The riding is narrow and technical, with short sections of damp, shaded road and little room for error. Slow down for the blind bends, and give cyclists and walkers plenty of space. Mirșid has a few shops, but fuel is better found in Zalău, so arrive with a full tank. In the summer holidays, the villages briefly fill with returning families and the roads are busier.
Visit in late summer, around the time of the village festivals, when the diaspora comes home.