Biketour on Åland (last year)

After Stockholm, at the end of August 2015, we cycled north towards Kapellskär to ferry-hop towards Turku across the Åland archipelago. The Åland archipelago is a collections of literally hundreds of thousands of islands in the Baltic Sea between the Swedish and Finnish mainland, and it is known for its exceptionally beautiful landscape. Åland belongs to Finland, but its official language is Swedish. Only people who have family there are allowed to move there to not overcrowd it, and transit traffic is discouraged, so it doesn’t feel very touristic and there is a lot of space, nature and quietness. It…

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Veganism on the Biketour

On the Biketour, all common meals and all things bought by communal money are vegan. This means that they should not contain neither any animals (meat, fish, chicken, gelatine, shrimps, lobsters, carmine, leather, etc.) nor any products produced by animals (milk, eggs, honey, bee’s wax, wool). On the last tour, in Broddetorp in the end of July 2015, we did a workshop about this topic. In case you are wondering why the Biketour is vegan and what veganism has to with environmental and social justice, here is a summary of what we talked about in the workshop, an overview over the…

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Links #6: Tall Bike Tour, Self-driving Bikes, Critical Mass arrests in Minsk, SapfoFest, Overtaking Buses

Tall Bike Tour Introducing the self-driving bicycle (April Fools!) Minsk: Two participants of Critical Mass cycling event may face up to 6 years in jail SapfoFest is the first independent community-initiated festival in the Baltics and is happening for the 5th time this summer. We are excited to join with the Biketour! (Facebook event, the website is not updated yet) Teaching bus drivers what it feels like to be overtaken by a bus when cycling

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Biketour in Stockholm

On the 21st of August 2015, the Biketour arrived in Stockholm. Our sleeping place was meant to be Kulturhuset Cyklopen, a cultural centre in the south of Stockholm. Arriving there, it turned out that there was not really a lot of space to sleep, so we decided to only spend one night there and have a look for new sleeping opportunities for the other 4 nights the next day. The next day, the Anarchist Bookfare happened, which was one major event on our tour that made us change the whole schedule. We spent the whole day in a nice and…

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Links #4: Blocking a Pedestrian Crossing, Consensus, Białowieża Forest Logging, Unusual Bikes

Random guy shows car driver how a pedestrian crossing really works! Beyond ‘Consensus’ decision making (written by a former Biketour participant) Poland approves large-scale logging in Białowieża forest, one of the only original forests left in Europe. The Biketour will cross it on the way from Warsaw to Minsk. Cycling scarecrow Artist rides dinosaur bike across Norwegian Bible Belt  

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Biketour in Uppsala

The discussion about how many days and when exactly to go to Uppsala almost lasted longer than our actual stay there, but in the end we decided to stay for two nights, but spend the second night a bit further in the direction of Stockholm so that we wouldn’t have problems making it to the Anarchist Bookfare two days later. We had gotten a request by an organic farmer in the area who had heard that we are some travelling “volunteers” and needed some help with the harvest. We decided that we are not free workers but sometimes help out…

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Learning about the roots of the Biketour at Färnebo folkhögskola

On August 17, the Biketour visited Färnebo folkhögskola, a folk high school in Österfärnebo, about 150 km north of Stockholm. Folk high schools are a Scandinavian concept of people’s education, where people have the opportunity (usually between finishing school and starting university) to do a one-year course about a subject of their choice (read more here). Färnebo folkshögskola is, by what people have told us, the most radical folk high school in Sweden. The students live in a house next to the school, where they learn to live communally by making consensus decisions and sharing daily tasks like cooking and…

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