Blog – Page 22 – Ecotopia Biketour

Learning about the roots of the Biketour at Färnebo folkhögskola

Candid January 5, 2016 December 22, 2015

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…

Biketour visiting Permakultur Stjärnsund

Candid January 1, 2016 December 22, 2015

Stjärnsund (pronounce: Shairnsoond) is a small village of about 430 inhabitants somewhere half-way between Oslo and Stockholm. The Biketour stayed there for two nights in the middle of August. Originally an industrial village that started to slowly be abandoned because of people moving to the cities, a lot of Hippies moved there during the 70s and started to live in communes. As part of their spiritual connection with the earth, they started growing vegetables, and over time, people also joined their communities who were not interested in their spirituality but only in the gardening. Today, many of the old Hippies and…

Wild-camping in Norway: Woken up by the Vikings

Candid December 28, 2015 December 22, 2015

The first night after Oslo, we wild-camped somewhere far off the road in the middle of the forest on a lake. In the morning, the Vikings came and had a fight in between our tents.

Links #3: Painted ponies, tree house elevator, smog in China, AlterTour, Bike Travelling Festival

Candid December 24, 2015 December 22, 2015

Bad Drivers Are Forcing an English Town to Paint Its Ponies Bicycle Powered Tree House Elevator Company Selling ‘Bottled Air’ Sells Out in 4 Days as China’s Smog Crisis Deepens AlterTour, a bicycle tour similar to Ecotopia, have announced their route for 2016: They will cycle from 10 July to 21 August in the north-west of France, starting at la ZAD and visiting many interesting projects on the way. On the weekend of the 16 and 17 January, there will be the International Festival of Travelling by Bike in Paris, France. The event seems to take place in French. While mostly…

Biketour in Oslo

Candid December 20, 2015 December 20, 2015

In the beginning of August, the Biketour stayed in Oslo for 4 full days. It was half-time for the tour, and more than half of the group left, but the same amount of people joined. We stayed at Blitzhuset, a famous anti-fascist squat and social centre. Blitzhuset is open as a volunteer-run vegan café almost every day, and the money earned is donated to political groups in different parts of the world. There is also a big hall with a stage where concerts happen almost every week (outside of the summer holidays). The upper floors are used for different projects such as…

Cycling to Oslo

Candid December 16, 2015 December 16, 2015

After Kampetorp, the Biketour took three days to cycle to Oslo. Entering Norway, things were as different as you could possibly imagine. The part of Sweden that we had previously cycled in was full of forest, with not many people or cars around, and people seemed to live in some kind of unrealistic idyllic dream, where no matter what happens, everyone will always be friendly to each other. Norway seemed to be the opposite – suddenly the roads were so packed of (new and shiny) cars that cycling got much slower, there were people everywhere, one supermarket after each other,…

Biketour in Kampetorp

Candid December 12, 2015 April 10, 2016

At the end of July, the Biketour stayed for two days at Kampetorp, an eco-village in Sweden really close to the southern border of Norway. Getting there was a nightmare – steep gravel roads at about 10°C and heavy rain. But when we arrived we were welcomed to stay in a cosy little red house heated by a fire stove. Kampetorp is a clearing in the middle of the forest where a group of (about 10?) young people have started to live in a communal and sustainable way. People live mostly as families in their own houses, and there is not…

Wildcamping in Sweden – with hot showers and a sauna

Candid December 8, 2015 December 8, 2015

On the way from Broddetorp to Loo Östang, the scouts had difficulties finding a good sleeping spot. In the end they chose a lawn next to a football pitch just outside a village. No one was around to ask whether it’s a good idea to camp there, and our Biketour experience tells us that wild-camping really close to a village without asking for permission is normally not a very good idea, and football pitches in particular are not the kind of places the most open to strangers, so we were already expecting that we would be told to leave the…