Gabriel Wibmer heads to Prague. Jak se máte.

With the Charles Bridge, Wenceslas Square, the Jewish Quarter, or Letná Park, Prague draws millions of visitors every year.

But those narrow streets and endless staircases also make the Czech capital a playground for urban freeriding. That’s exactly why Austrian mountain bike rider and YouTube star Gabriel Wibmer recently rolled into town with his Canyon Torque DH CLLCTV for a video shoot. The storyline has Gabriel witness a handbag getting snatched right in front of him. Without missing a beat, the 23-year-old gives chase recapturing the bag in an insane pursuit.

While the fast, risky stair sets – whether jumped or blasted – demanded perfect speed judgment and risk assessment, it was the technically trickier moves that took the most attempts: the jump off the wall, timed perfectly to the thief’s footsteps, took over 50 tries. The fakie stair set or back wheel jumps on the rails also demanded serious mental and physical endurance.

Gabriel’s personal highlight – and arguably the biggest challenge – was the stepdown backflip between the trees: "The stepdown flip was totally new for me. The takeoff wasn’t perfectly shaped and only 30 centimeters (1ft.) high. Even after some test jumps, I wasn’t sure until the last second if I should go for it or if it would even work. That was a real challenge." 

Another standout moment in the clip is riding over the arch of the 34-meter (100ft.)-high Troja Bridge. The moment Gabriel saw the spot, he knew: “I have to hit this.” Although pedaling up was tougher than expected, he still had enough left in the tank for a spontaneous wheelie: "The wheelie wasn’t planned – originally, I just wanted to ride over it – but once I got to the top, I thought, ‘why not?’"

The production in Prague spanned a total of 26 days in four blocks, but Gabriel says it could have easily gone another month – Prague’s potential is almost endless. The project was executed with a tight crew of four to five people, plus a security guard handling mostly camera gear in the busy city streets. The bike of choice? Gabriel’s Canyon Torque DH CLLCTV freeride bike equipped with a Marzocchi Bomber double-crown fork seemed to be a good fit.

"Besides the stepdown flip, I’m really proud of the whole video in general. It’s a new style with a storyline running through the entire clip. We really pushed ourselves to create something great, and I’m super proud of the result. It feels amazing. The behind-the-scenes turned out really special, too, especially considering how small our team was." – Gabriel Wibmer 

And yes: the seven-minute action clip comes with nearly an hour of behind-the-scenes footage, offering a deep dive into the making of Wibmer Impossible – also coming soon to YouTube. Stay tuned!