Blog – Pagina 11 – Ecotopia Biketour

From La Voulte to the Mediterranean Sea

2017 Settembre 16, 2017 September 15, 2017

From La Voulte we cycled south along the Rhône. There was a bike path (the Via Rhôna) all the way, which was quite good, but with some unpleasant surprises such as sudden steep hills, unpaved bits, impassable barriers or unnecessary detours as usual. Along the way there was a huge nuclear power station with a painting of a playing child on it and a wind turbine next to it for additional greenwashing. After one day we turned west into the mountains in order to reach the next planned project La Vieille Valette. The group split up in two for the…

Recyclerie La Voulte

2017 Settembre 14, 2017 September 14, 2017

From Saillans it was not far to La-Voulte-Sur-Rhône, where we went to visit the next project, actually kind of two projects. One was a farm collective where people grow vegetables and sell them to fund themselves and a place next to the river where people can live in vans and tents, and they invited us to stay there for some nights. The other one, run by the same people, is the Recyclerie, a huge warehouse in an industrial area of the city where the people are collecting all kinds of material, sort it, and try to redistribute it. They have…

Links #9: Space for Cars, Tall Bikes, Guerrilla Bike Lanes, Bike Thief Test, You’re in the Bike Lane

Candid Settembre 8, 2017 August 31, 2017

This ingenious illustration reveals how much space we give to cars Tall bikes will save the world Latvian bike activist create guerrilla bike lanes The Bike thief test in Brussels “You’re in the bike lane”

Joining the AlterTour from Eurre to Saillans

2017 Settembre 4, 2017 August 31, 2017

After Valence we had a short cycle to Eurre, where one of the most exciting part of the tour was awaiting us: We were planning to join AlterTour for three days, a Biketour similar to ours that happens every year since 2008 in France. It is the first time (at least in the last couple of years) that we meet another organised Biketour on the way, and we were very excited to find out what they are doing and how they are different from us. The first night we spent with them in l’Oasis de Serendip in Eurre, a collective…

Valence

2017 Settembre 2, 2017 August 31, 2017

From Roybon we had some nice and fast 20 kilometers of pure downhill until we reached the valley of the Isère again, and followed the bikepath along it and then along the Rhône to Valence. In Valence we had originally not planned to sleep, but some people had gotten in contact with the Poissons Rouges social and art space some days before, and they offered us to camp in their garden for a night. Our main destination in Valence was to visit the Valence Atelier Libre, a self-organised workshop where they build wind turbines, organise workshops to learn how to…

ZAD de Roybon

2017 Agosto 31, 2017 August 23, 2017

On Saturday and Sunday August 5/6, we arrived at the ZAD de Roybon. Some people had preferred to come here directly from Grenoble and not visit the bar collective, so the group split up and arrived on two different days. Roybon is on over 600 metres of altitude, so it was a tough day of cycling to get here. The ZAD is an occupation of a forest to prevent the construction of a huge holiday park called “Center Parc”. The plan is to cut big parts of the forest in order construct a huge dome with a water park at…

Le Pied de Nez

Candid Agosto 29, 2017 August 23, 2017

From Grenoble, we cycled on a beautiful bikepath through the mountains along the Isère river. At some point, we left the river to cycle into the mountains, through some tunnel, along another small river that came out of a steep canyon. We entered the Royans region and passed a very touristic small village. Our destination for the day was Saint-Eulalie-en-Royans, where a collective of 8 people and some volunteers are running a bar called La Pied de Nez. It is very nice there, lot of beautiful landscapes around and this place has some cool events. They have a rented house…

Switzerland part 2: Lausanne–Grenoble

2017 Agosto 27, 2017 August 23, 2017

Saturday we passed a beautiful landscape with a scenic view of the Mont Blanc massiv to arrive around noon in Lausanne. The expensive city offered us nevertheless a bike kitchen that had invited us and we repaired our bikes inside and on the pavement. The mountain passages had taken its toll. Some of us went to the Musee de Art Brut and greatly enjoyed it. Others went swimming in Lac Leman and a small public bath. In the evening we were invited again by a local theater space in the rue d´ industrie 10. We ate together the excellent vegan…