Cycling in Berlin: 19 routes measured, €5.90 for the bike
Berlin’s 19 signed cycle routes, each measured from the city’s own GPX files, plus what a bike ticket costs on the U-Bahn and S-Bahn. Checked September 2026.
A Berlin U-Bahn carriage takes two bicycles, and on a Sunday afternoon the second one is usually already leaning against the rail when the doors open.
Cycling in Berlin is well signed and badly filed. Two of the city’s three Mauerweg tracks share 23 km of identical GPS points, so adding the three files counts that stretch twice and inflates a 160 km trail to 188.
The short version
- Berlin publishes nineteen route sheets, each with a free GPX track: eleven numbered city routes, the Mauerweg in three parts, and five sheets covering four long-distance trails.
- Your bike travels on its own ticket. €2.70 for one journey in Berlin AB, €5.90 for 24 hours — on top of your own fare.
- A single bicycle ticket is expressly not valid for the way back. Return and round trips are excluded, so a there-and-back day is two tickets or the 24-hour card.
- Bicycles are barred from every BVG day bus. Night buses N1–N9 only, and only if there is space.
- Tempelhofer Feld needs no ticket and no route sheet. It closes at 21:30 through September and at 19:00 from 1 October.
Every route Berlin publishes a file for, and what it measures
The Senate department for mobility publishes a tour flyer and a GPS track for nineteen routes: seven radial routes, which the flyers all start at Schloßplatz in Mitte, four tangential routes crossing between them, three covering the Berliner Mauerweg, and five sheets for the Berlin sections of four long-distance trails, the Europaradweg R1 getting one each for its western and eastern halves. The Senate puts the whole network at “about 590 kilometres, excluding overlapping sections”.
The lengths below are not taken from the flyers. We downloaded all nineteen GPX files and measured each one along its own track points.
| Route | Runs | Measured length |
|---|---|---|
| RR1 Wannsee-Route | Schloßplatz → Glienicker Brücke | 28.3 km |
| RR2 Gatow-Route | Schloßplatz → Groß Glienicke | 21.6 km |
| RR3 Spandau-Route | Schloßplatz → Falkensee | 23.3 km |
| RR5 Reinickendorf-Route | Mitte → Märkisches Viertel | 11.4 km |
| RR7 Hohenschönhausen-Route | Schloßplatz → Ahrensfelde | 17.2 km |
| RR8 Hellersdorf-Route | Schloßplatz → Hoppegarten | 19.9 km |
| RR12 Teltow-Route | Schloßplatz → Teltow | 19.1 km |
| TR1 Westspange | Steglitz → Märkisches Viertel | 20.2 km |
| TR2 Nordspange | Jungfernheide → Alt-Hohenschönhausen | 17.9 km |
| TR4 Südspange | Dahlem → Biesdorf | 22.6 km |
| TR7 Ostring | Köpenick → Ahrensfelde | 17.1 km |
| Mauerweg 1, Stadtroute | Hermsdorf – Mitte – Schönefeld | 50.8 km |
| Mauerweg 2, Südroute | Schönefeld – Lichterfelde – Griebnitzsee | 60.1 km * |
| Mauerweg 3, Westroute | Griebnitzsee – Spandau – Hermsdorf | 77.1 km * |
| Havel-Radweg | Hennigsdorf → Potsdam | 33.8 km |
| Europaradweg R1, west | Potsdam → Schloßplatz | 34.8 km |
| Europaradweg R1, east | Schloßplatz → Erkner | 35.5 km |
| Berlin–Kopenhagen | Schloßplatz → Hennigsdorf | 35.7 km |
| Berlin–Usedom | Schloßplatz → Buch and Bernau | 30.2 km |
* The Südroute file does not stop at Griebnitzsee, and these two overlap by 23.1 km. Do not add them together — the next section explains why.
The three Mauerweg tracks are not three stages
All three Mauerweg flyers open with the same figure: the complete trail is 160 km. Each then sizes its own section — around 50 km, about 45, around 65. Measured from the GPX those come out at 50.8, 60.1 and 77.1, adding to 188. The obvious conclusion is that the trail is 28 km longer than the city admits, and the obvious conclusion is wrong.
The Westroute file’s very first track point is the exact coordinate the Südroute reaches after 37.0 km — the same numbers, to the last digit. The Südroute then carries on for another 23.1 km, round the Havel to Kladow, over ground the Westroute covers again; 381 of its 768 points recur in the Westroute file. Add the three together and that stretch is counted twice. Take it back out and the three cover about 165 km, which is the published 160 give or take a spur, not 28 km beyond it.
The consequence is the part worth having. Plan three days by downloading three files and following each to its end, and day two carries 15.5 km past Griebnitzsee to Kladow — ground day three then covers again. Ride the Stadtroute as its own day, then split the outer loop where the S-Bahn is, not where the download stops.
Fifty kilometres of old patrol road is a long day and a very good one, and it is a much better day with somebody to stop at the bakery with.
What it costs to bring the bike
Inside the Berlin-Brandenburg network a bicycle is a separate passenger: it needs its own ticket, valid only alongside a valid ticket of your own, and every extra bike in a group needs one again. 2026 prices, from BVG and S-Bahn Berlin.
| Bicycle ticket | Berlin AB | Berlin ABC | What it actually buys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short trip | — | €1.90 | 3 stops on the U- or S-Bahn, 6 on the tram. Not valid on regional trains, not on the F10 Wannsee–Alt-Kladow ferry |
| Single | €2.70 | €3.30 | One journey, two hours, breaks allowed. Return and round trips not permitted |
| 24 hours | €5.90 | €6.70 | One bike, unlimited journeys, 24 hours from validation |
| Month | €14.60 | €18.20 | One bike, transferable, issued to anyone |
Across the whole VBB network the single, 24-hour and monthly cost €4.60, €7.50 and €30.30; the short-trip ticket has no VBB-wide version. Your own fare sits on top: €4.00 for an AB single, €11.20 for the 24-hour.
Several of these routes finish a long way out, and the zone follows the station rather than the distance. S Ahrensfelde, at the eastern edge of the network, is still fare zone B, so an AB ticket covers the ride home. S Teltow Stadt, S Griebnitzsee and Potsdam Hbf are all zone C. Check the station before you buy.
The line that catches people is in the single ticket: return journeys and round trips are not permitted. It buys one journey in the direction of travel, and the way back is a second purchase. Two singles out and back in zone AB come to €5.40, fifty cents under the 24-hour card — so the moment a day involves three train legs, the €5.90 card has won. One more trap, this one the operator’s: the English version of S-Bahn Berlin’s single bicycle ticket page labels both price rows “Berlin ABC”. The German page has it right, and €2.70 is the AB fare.
You cannot put the bike on a bus
BVG lists the vehicles that will take a bicycle, in German and in English, and the list is short: U-Bahn, tram, ferry, and night buses on lines N1–N9 if there is room. No day bus, on any line, at any hour. That matters, because the bus is how you would normally rescue a ride that has gone wrong — a puncture in the Spandauer Forst, a headwind back from Falkensee.
There is a trap here too. S-Bahn Berlin sells the €1.90 short-trip bicycle ticket as covering “up to six stations by bus or tram”, in both languages — a network-wide rule, since some Brandenburg operators do carry bikes. On BVG’s own network that half of the sentence is unusable.
The ferry exception is worth writing on your hand. The short-trip bicycle ticket is good on ferries with one named exception: the F10 between Wannsee and Alt-Kladow. That is the crossing the Mauerweg’s Berliner variant uses to reach Kladow — so on the stretch of water most likely to appear in your day, the cheapest bike ticket is the one that will not cover it.
Two singles, a 24-hour card, a ferry that is somehow excluded. This is the part that keeps a ride in the group chat instead of on the calendar — post the route and the meeting time, and let whoever is in sort their own ticket out.
Three places to start cycling in Berlin
RR5, the Reinickendorf-Route, 11.4 km. The shortest of the nineteen here, from Mitte up to the Märkisches Viertel, staying inside the city boundary the whole way, so it is an AB ticket at both ends. If you have never followed a signed Berlin route, learn what the signs look like here before committing a Sunday.
RR1, the Wannsee-Route, 28.3 km. Schloßplatz to the Glienicker Brücke, the Berlin–Potsdam border itself. Its last stretch is shared with the Mauerweg and the Europaradweg R1, and it finishes where the western lakes begin, which makes the swim-then-train-home version obvious.
Mauerweg 1, the Stadtroute, 50.8 km. Hermsdorf down through Mitte to Schönefeld, on the old customs path and the GDR patrol road, past twenty-four numbered stops on the flyer. Of the three Mauerweg sections it is the one whose file matches its printed length, and its northern end is a few minutes from S Hermsdorf. Treat it like an S-Bahn hiking route: ride one direction, train back, do not plan a loop.
Pick one line from the table — RR5 if you want it done inside an afternoon — pick a Saturday, and post it. Forty seconds, and you know whether anyone else fancies it before you buy the ticket.
The one that needs no ticket and no route sheet
Tempelhofer Feld is two former runways and the taxiways around them, free to enter, with no cars on it at all. Of everything in this guide it is the easiest place to ride a long straight line without meeting a junction, and a good place to start if you are not ready to share a lane with a delivery van.
The gates are seasonal: 06:30–21:30 through September, 07:00–19:00 from 1 October, 07:30–17:00 by December. After closing you can still get out, but only at five named exits, and all five are turnstiles — worth knowing before you are inside with a bicycle at 21:35. The field sits on the Ring at Tempelhof, the U6 at Tempelhof and Paradestraße, and the U8 at Leinestraße and Boddinstraße. The M43 stops at the Columbiadamm entrances, which is of no use if the bike is with you.
If budget matters more than distance, it belongs with the rest of the free things worth doing here.
What to take
- Lights, from now on. Tempelhofer Feld’s gate times measure how fast the Berlin evening goes: 21:30 through September, 19:00 from 1 October. A route you finished in daylight in August finishes in the dark in October.
- Tyres that survive a Kolonnenweg. The Mauerweg runs long stretches on the old concrete patrol road and on forest and gravel tracks. It is not a surface for narrow racing tyres.
What nobody tells you
- Your ticket is not a guarantee. BVG states plainly that there is no entitlement to carriage of a bicycle. Staff decide, and a full train means you wait for the next one.
- Two bikes per carriage. Board only at doors marked with the bicycle symbol, hold the bike for the whole journey, and give way — prams and wheelchairs have priority, and if they need the space you get off.
- The Deutschlandticket does not include a bike. VBB is explicit: you buy a bicycle ticket on top. BVG adds that the Berlin school, trainee and Berlin or Potsdam semester tickets do carry a bike free — but the semester Deutschlandticket and the Berlin-Ticket S do not.
- The route sheets moved and nobody redirected them. The old Mauerweg portal on berlin.de redirects to a notice saying it has moved and the Senate’s old radrouten address returns a 404, while the PDFs stay live at their original addresses and the tourism side of berlin.de still links straight to them. The whole set downloads as one archive, in .7z format.
- The network map in the route flyers is dated August 2021. It numbers radial routes up to RR12 and tangential routes up to TR8 — twenty. Flyers and GPX files exist for eleven. The rest are on the map and not in the download list.
How we chose these
We did not pick favourites. The table is every route for which the Senate publishes both a tour flyer and a GPS track — the full set, in the city’s own order. Tempelhofer Feld is the one addition, because it is not a route and the Senate does not list it. Commercial tours and rental fleets are left out: none publishes a file you can check.
Do I need a ticket for my bicycle in Berlin?
Yes. Inside the VBB network every bicycle needs its own ticket, and that ticket is only valid alongside a valid ticket for you. In Berlin AB it is €2.70 for one journey or €5.90 for 24 hours. A completely folded folding bike counts as hand luggage and travels free.
Can I take a bicycle on a Berlin bus?
Not on a day bus. BVG lists the U-Bahn, the tram, the ferries and night bus lines N1–N9 as the only services that will carry a bicycle, and the night buses only if there is space. Plan the ride so the way home is a train, not a bus.
Does the Deutschlandticket cover a bicycle?
No. VBB states that bicycle carriage is not included in the Deutschlandticket anywhere in Germany, and that in the VBB area you must buy a bicycle ticket of the VBB fare or a bicycle day ticket of the Deutschland fare in addition to it.
Are single bicycle tickets cheaper than the 24-hour one?
For exactly two journeys, yes, and only just. Two singles in Berlin AB come to €5.40 against €5.90 for the 24-hour card. A single is not valid for the return leg, so there and back is genuinely two tickets. From the third journey onward the 24-hour card is cheaper.
Where are Berlin’s official cycle route maps?
The Senate department for mobility publishes a tour flyer and a GPX track for nineteen routes, on its Radrouten pages. The old address for that section now returns a 404 and the old berlin.de Mauerweg portal redirects to a notice that it has moved, but the PDF and GPX files themselves are still online at their original addresses.
How long is the Berlin Wall Trail?
160 km, and that figure holds up. Adding the three published GPX tracks gives 188 km, but two of the files overlap: 381 of the Südroute’s 768 track points recur in the Westroute file, a shared 23.1 km. Remove the duplication and the three cover about 165 km between them.
Want to keep reading?
- Hikes near Berlin — nine walking routes on the same one-way-out, train-back logic
- Best lakes in Berlin — where several of these routes end up
- Berlin in October — what shuts as the evenings go
- Free things to do in Berlin — costed, and mostly outdoors
- Best picnic spots in Berlin — for the stop halfway round
- Best views in Berlin — nine viewpoints, €0 to €20
One last thing
Eleven numbered city routes, the shortest 11.4 km and the longest 28.3, is a winter’s worth of Sundays. Cycling in Berlin at this level needs no club, no licence and no fast bike — a day, a ticket that is valid for the way home, and on the longer ones somebody to stop with at the bakery in Hermsdorf.
MITRA is built around one plan at a time: you post the place and the time, someone joins. It is not a standing club with a fixed roster, and if a room of thirty people is what you want, a cycling club will serve you better. For one route, one Saturday, one other person, it does the whole job. Berlin first, with more EU cities on the roadmap.
How we checked
Every fare and carriage rule here comes from BVG, S-Bahn Berlin or VBB directly, read in German and in English and compared, on 11 September 2026. Route names and end points come from the Senate’s own tour flyers, and Tempelhofer Feld’s hours from the operator’s published table. The lengths in the table are not published figures: we downloaded all nineteen GPX files and summed the great-circle distance between consecutive track points, a method that under-reads rather than over-reads. We then tested the files against each other point by point, which is how the 23.1 km duplication surfaced — and it is not the only one, so no total in this guide is a sum of whole files. All nineteen flyers print a length of their own; ten match our measurement to within a kilometre, and the gaps are widest where a file carries on past the section its flyer describes. Anything we could not verify from the operator or the responsible authority is not here.
Sources
- https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/mobilitaet-und-verkehr/verkehrsplanung/radverkehr/radverkehrsnetz/radrouten/
- https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/mobilitaet-und-verkehr/verkehrsplanung/radverkehr/radverkehrsnetz/radrouten/gpx/
- https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/mobilitaet-und-verkehr/verkehrsplanung/radverkehr/radverkehrsnetz/radrouten/flyer/
- https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/_assets/verkehr/verkehrsplanung/radverkehr/radrouten/rr1_wannseeroute.pdf
- https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/_assets/verkehr/verkehrsplanung/radverkehr/radrouten/rr5_reinickendorfroute.pdf
- https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/_assets/verkehr/verkehrsplanung/radverkehr/radrouten/berliner_mauerweg_1.pdf
- https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/_assets/verkehr/verkehrsplanung/radverkehr/radrouten/berliner_mauerweg_2.pdf
- https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/_assets/verkehr/verkehrsplanung/radverkehr/radrouten/berliner_mauerweg_3.pdf
- https://www.bvg.de/en/bicycle
- https://www.bvg.de/de/fahrrad
- https://sbahn.berlin/en/tickets/all-tickets/taking-bikes-on-board/
- https://sbahn.berlin/tickets/alle-tickets/fahrradmitnahme/einzelfahrausweis-fahrrad/
- https://sbahn.berlin/en/tickets/all-tickets/taking-bikes-on-board/bicycle-single-trip-ticket/
- https://sbahn.berlin/en/tickets/all-tickets/taking-bikes-on-board/bicycle-short-trip-ticket/
- https://sbahn.berlin/en/tickets/all-tickets/single-tickets/single-trip-ticket/
- https://sbahn.berlin/en/tickets/all-tickets/single-tickets/day-ticket/
- https://sbahn.berlin/en/tickets/the-vbb-fare-explained/fare-zones/
- https://www.vbb.de/abonnements/deutschlandticket/wissenswertes-rund-um-mitnahme-1-klasse-und-mehr/
- https://www.tempelhoferfeld.de/service-infos/besuch-planen/
- https://www.berlin.de/tourismus/fahrradtouren/radrouten/
- https://www.berlin.de/mauer/mauerweg/
- https://sbahn.berlin/fahren/bahnhofsuebersicht/tempelhof/
- https://sbahn.berlin/fahren/bahnhofsuebersicht/ahrensfelde/
- https://sbahn.berlin/fahren/bahnhofsuebersicht/teltow-stadt/
- https://sbahn.berlin/fahren/bahnhofsuebersicht/griebnitzsee/
- https://sbahn.berlin/fahren/bahnhofsuebersicht/potsdam-hauptbahnhof/
- https://sbahn.berlin/fahren/bahnhofsuebersicht/hermsdorf/
