The Bure Forest – heart of the Ressistance to Nuclear Power in France

The small village Bure in eastern France in the past years has become the epicentre of the environmental movement against nuclear power. Some Environmentalists from France and Germany settled down here permanently and part time to join forces for the struggle. They bought some land and an old farming house in the village, the “maison de resistance”. Our friends received us with warm hospitality in the lively kitchen, the bawn and the garden where we slept and spend our days during four wonderfully inspiring days. The “maison de resistance” is the permanent base for new and veteran activists that recently…

Continue reading

Nancy – la Velorution

Conrad   Thursday the 4th we arrived at Nancy after a ride under a deep blue sky and a nearly mediteranean sun that made us sweat. We took many rests and enjoyed the good weather nevertheless. The last kilometers we went on the cycling path along a channel in the shade of trees and the first people that were not telling us bonjour announced the transition from country to city. We were then greeted by some other cyclists that had also arrived for Velorution – the annual France wide meeting of critical masses of all cities. Spontaneously we formed a…

Continue reading

First cycling days from Strasbourg to Nancy

On Monday we started cycling from Breuschwickersheim. We had 4 days scheduled to do 155 km, a lot of time to develop a daily routine and to have a buffer in case something goes wrong with the bikes or trailers. We even managed to all leave around 1 pm on the first day, which is a record by far among the last years. Cycling was quite hard despite only doing between 30 and 40 km per day. The summer came back with some really hot sun, and the road went up and down a lot through the Vosges mountain range.…

Continue reading

STRASBOURG «Le paradiet»

One more summer the Ecotopia Biketour is again on route. On the 28th of June the five of us met in a field at the end of a muddy road, to me it felt like a night like any other one,we were just some travellers gathering around the food and sharing stories. The next morning we moved to a little and cozy terrain called ‘Le parediet’, which was the official meeting point. Once there, people slowly started to arrive and things somehow started to get done: thanks to the materials and tools from our host and the people in Maison…

Continue reading

Picking a circuit for the dynamo-powered USB port, part 2

Ecotopia Biketour 2017 is already under way and updates about how our first days of cycling went will follow soon. One thing that we want to achieve this year is not rely on the electrical sockets of our hosts anymore when it comes to charging the numerous electronic devices that people are bringing on the tour these days. One way to do that is to build a circuit that converts the power coming out of the dynamo of a bike to power that is needed to run a USB port. We have tried to find the best way to build…

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

Traffic

In this short film the Biketour cycles through Minsk in Belarus, where it is forbidden to ride your bike on the road! Mixed up with the different curiosities that crossed our way, such as a youth-brass-band on the beach or a bison in the polish forest.

Spring meeting 2017

Eleven of us (plus two dogs) met on the week-end from the 14th to the 16th of April in Freiburg, Germany, to work on the preparation of the upcoming Biketour. The venue was the public café of the housing cooperative SUSI. SUSI is several former military barracks that were bought by a collective using the Mietshäusersyndikat, and association that makes it easier to get a loan for buying houses collectively, while at the same time making sure that these houses can never enter the capitalist real estate market again. The complex is huge, with space for 285 people to live and…

Continue reading