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Video: Two cyclists ride from Berlin to Prague - without a map

Riders armed only with compass and mission to stay off main roads feature in timeless video

Two cyclists from Berlin-based fixie brand 8bar Bikes set themselves a rather unusual challenge – riding their bikes from the German capital to its Czech counterpart Prague, without using a map, with their journey filmed for a short video.

Armed with just a compass to keep them heading hopefully in the right direction, Stefan and Max hoped their ride would hark back to a simpler form of cycling before the days of reliance on maps, let alone GPS navigation and other technological aids.

Aiming to stay off main roads and on small tracks as much as possible, the video captures what turned out to be an evocative journey with a real sense of timelessness about it.

8bar Adventures - Berlin to Prague without a map from 8bar BIKES on Vimeo.

In a straight line, the distance between the two cities is 280km, and the cyclists were allowed to check their position twice a day to ensure they were going in the right general direction.

As a graphic towards the end of the video shows, the two cyclists rarely deviated too far off that line – but their route did meander, and they did get lost on occasion, meaning that by the time they arrived in Prague, they had ridden 457km.

“Don’t plan too much, and you will have a memorable adventure,” they conclude. “Go for a ride, take a new path, and just go as far as you want.”

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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4 comments

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a.jumper | 9 years ago
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Vimeo is broken. Any other sites?

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DAG on a bike | 9 years ago
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Never mind the nay-sayers, Stefan. I thought it was a fun idea for a ride. Where next?

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Leviathan | 9 years ago
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Who is holding the video camera? And somehow skipping ahead of them when they don't know where they are going? Seems to be a bit too 'Topgear' for my liking. Not so magical.

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Stefan 8bar replied to Leviathan | 9 years ago
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Hey bikeboy,

we had no support car or something... Stefan (the filmer) was riding with a Cyclocross bike himself. You can see it at the outro where he is filming with a GoPro on his head.

Yes, we were stopping to do some filming and riding a few sections twice.

There are no "rules" for an unsupported ride... So we set some ourself.

Stefan

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