Quand la route devient chez toi

vélo couchée avec remorque Le temps que je passe en Ecotopia Biketour restent comme un tat des aventures tres denses dans ma tete. J’ai du mal a en sortir des expierences specifiques, quest qui vaut la peine de raconter et quoi non? quelle des milles histroires choisir? soir de deluge ptet celle-ci: on arrive apres une journee de decentes et montees le long des falaises asturiennes sur une pre pas loin de la mer. Une reunion est prevue, finallement, quand les gens se sont rassemblees, on fait un tour de paroles, quelqu’un dit: „je vois pas comment on va faire…

Continue reading

Alltag

Bin schon vor ner Weile am Camp angekommen. Wie R. schon sagte, immer wieder beeindruckend, was die Scouts fuer Orte finden. Diesmal im Garten eines gelben Ferienhauses. Niemand hier, Rollos unten, Rasen frisch gemaeht. Wasserleitung! Menschen tauchen, eine nach der anderen mehr oder weniger erschoepft auf, ihr Rad die letzten steilen holprigen Meter hinaufschiebend. Die altbekannten Gesichter blinzeln in die Sonne und erkunden den Ort. Laden das Essen ab, welches sie in Pappkartons oben auf ihrem Gepaeck festgezurrt haben. Das Cooking-Team nimmt ihnen die Sachen dankend entgegen, sichten, schmieden Menue-Plaene: Alles-was-wir-haben-Suppe mit… Hungrige schnappen sich die matschigen Bananen, fuettern sich…

Continue reading

Naked dogs, unasked helpful help, blahblah about blahblah and myself

The water, the lake, the rhythm. Breath in and laugh at the world. Precooked plastic sealed quinoa taboulet. Also other food. Thanks dumpster. The beach, the sun, the wind. Pedal up and keep pedaling up. Pedal up and keep pedaling up. Downhill thrill. But we can’t stay here, go on. Although it was a nice place as many others before. Just a constant humming noise from the factory disturbed the beach-lake-cyclist paradise. And maybe that the natural park contains pine and eucalyptus plantations. And windmills. Us, a threat for their well-being. A cow stands next to the windmill, unable to…

Continue reading

the first 2 weeks of a social expieriment

throw a bunch of very different people together in a group, they are all supposed to be free and equal, add some spicing(=cycling, wildcamping,…) and see what they will make out of it… This is the 3rd time I join ecotopia biketour. During the winter, the organizing team had not only worked on planning the practical aspects of this years tour but also a lot on the theoretical bases. We created a detailed procedure how we would deal with conflicts in future. We wanted to be better prepared than last year, where it took us months to act in a…

Continue reading

DIY Panniers

When you travel with your bicycle it is useful to be able, to carry your stuff on your bike instead of your back. Therefore you can get some expensive bags, that are made for that purpose, or you build something yourself!! In general, there is 2 options: Either you make something that hooks on your rack. Or you have a construction that allows you to easily attatch your backpack or whatever other things you have to transport. For the first option, you can either look for exisiting bags and add some hooks that they can hang on your rack: It…

Continue reading

DIY Front Rack

It’s often useful to have plenty of loading options on your bike. So when you find loads of food in the dumpsters for example, you can easily take some and be a bit independent from trailers. It is actually pretty easy to attach a rear rack to the front of your bike. Rear racks can be very easily found in any bike kitchen. You just have to figure out the right size, that it doesn’t touch the wheel. If it messes with your mudguard, you can also just remove it. The front mudguard anyways doesn’t do much. You need to…

Continue reading

Art on Bike

I participated in Ecotopia Biketour this year again. As always, I try to capture some nice moments with pen and paper. It is kind of difficult to find time and space for that within all the cycling, cooking, camping, projects, nice new people or group organising processes. This is the first go of the rocketstove we built in the first days in Strasbourg. This year it is made entirely from trash: A oil-barrel that we received from a restaurant, a piece of an oven-pipe we got in mimir-squat and glaswool that our host had left over. After last year, I…

Continue reading

Collaborative map tool FacilMap & How we chose the region

Collaborative opensource map tool For the planning of the Biketour, we have an online tool, an interactive, editable map where we can all work together. Anybody who’s been organising this tour can add projects, nice places, interesting events and other relevant things. You can switch on and off marker types and routes you want to look at on the right side of the map. If you click on a marker or a line, it shows you more information like descriptions, contact-details and for routes the elevation profile. Because it’s openly published, this map is a non-editable version of the map. For the…

Continue reading