By bike to Cape Horn

A mission to promote reading and sports among young people

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 18.03.2025, 13:09

Today we are not only talking about an absolute first, but also about a mission to promote reading and sports among young people, carried out towards the end of last year by Gabriel Bota and Rudolf Nyari, two of the organisers of the Transylvania Book Festival, which takes place every autumn in Cluj. Inspired by Radu Tudoran’s novel, “All Sails Up”, the two set off on a journey by bicycle to Tierra del Fuego, on the island of Cape Horn. What should we know about this adventure?

Rudolf Nyari: “I think that first and foremost we should know that this adventure is a project that started a few years ago, with the goal of ​​promoting the reading part and the sports part. The project reached its 3rd edition, this “Read and ride to the end of the world” is last year’s edition, in which we were the first people in the history of mankind to reach the southernmost point of the globe, namely the island of Cape Horn, by bicycle. For the first edition, my colleague Gabi Bota travelled around Europe, and I will ask him to say a few words about his bicycle adventure 6 years ago.”

In turn, Gabriel Bota added:

Gabriel Bota: “We must say that all the “Read and Ride” editions are projects within FICT, the Transylvania International Book Festival. The goal, as Rudi said, is to promote reading and sports among young people, but not only among young people. The first edition took place in 2017. I was alone that time, I left Romania, I visited 10 countries, I read 10 books on the way, I visited 10 writers at their homes. Many of them also visited us in Cluj afterwards, during the festival, and we travelled 4,884 kilometres in 40 days, convincing several tens of thousands of people to do more reading and sports. That has always been our simple message: by the power of example, let’s promote reading and sports. After that we teamed up. We made a wonderful team with Rudi, launched the second edition in 2022, when we went beyond the Arctic Circle, to the northernmost place in the world, to North Cape. The goal was to get close to the North Pole, but it wasn’t possible at that time; however, by the power of example, we managed to promote reading and sports.”

How   was   this   message   perceived   at   Cape   Horn?

Rudolf   Nyari:  “It was the biggest surprise for us, first of all talking about this project with all the people we met, and all of them embracing this idea, and joining our story and supporting us with everything they could. They understood the message for the young people, but at the same time they also understood the story behind this message and the story was to take a book to the end of the world. It is Radu Tudoran’s book, “All Sails Up”, a famous book that marked our youth, we both read the book and saw the film. Our entire adventure was virtually built on this book, in which two friends wanted to reach Tierra Del Fuego. In that adventure they separated, met again and discovered those regions. Basically, we traveled the same route, over 40,000 km, but this time by plane, then we took our bicycles, from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia, a port city in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, and we did 1,700 km on our bicycles in record time, 8 days, and from there we took a ship that took us to Cape Horn. It was a 5-day journey in which we passed by the most important glaciers and through the southern part of the world, to finally arrive at Cape Horn, where we eventually managed to disembark with the bicycles and take the 2nd  book to the lighthouse on the island.  A Chilean navy officer lives there with his family, as he was posted for 5 years. And we left this book in the lighthouse as a tribute to Romanian literature, so that all those who step on the island should see a seed of Romanian literature there,” said Rudolf Nyari.

Gabriel Bota added:

Gabriel Bota: “The story behind the book is even more impressive: for those who don’t know, Radu Tudoran is Geo Bogza’s brother, Tudoran is not his real name, it is his pen name, he was actually Nicolae Bogza. We must also say why we brought this book: his life’s dream was to travel around the world, but he never left the country. He started building a schooner in the port of Galați, but it never left the port. We chose to bring this book because the heroes of the book arrived there.”

A luxury copy, in natural leather covers, received as a gift from the Lucian Blaga Central University Library in Cluj-Napoca, was left to the Ushuaia Library, and a 1967 edition of the book was left at Cape Horn. Our two guests left us with a message: “Don’t forget to read and exercise!”