diff --git a/lib/sinatra/base.rb b/lib/sinatra/base.rb
index 5a4f3d88..69b4a54f 100644
--- a/lib/sinatra/base.rb
+++ b/lib/sinatra/base.rb
@@ -550,6 +550,7 @@ module Sinatra
       @response = Response.new
       @params   = indifferent_params(@request.params)
       template_cache.clear if settings.reload_templates
+      force_encoding(@request.route)
       force_encoding(@params)
 
       @response['Content-Type'] = nil
diff --git a/test/routing_test.rb b/test/routing_test.rb
index 85961a55..f15765a0 100644
--- a/test/routing_test.rb
+++ b/test/routing_test.rb
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+# I like coding: UTF-8
 require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/helper'
 
 # Helper method for easy route pattern matching testing
@@ -69,6 +70,14 @@ class RoutingTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     assert_equal 'pass', response.headers['X-Cascade']
   end
 
+  it "allows using unicode" do
+    mock_app do
+      get('/föö') { }
+    end
+    get '/f%C3%B6%C3%B6'
+    assert_equal 200, status
+  end
+
   it "overrides the content-type in error handlers" do
     mock_app {
       before { content_type 'text/plain' }