Kombinatas Fest and Back To Biking 15.08.-22.08.24

Our ecotopian experience started at Kombinatas Fest, in a north-east lithuanian campsite, the 15th of August. Getting there from Barcelona was a challenging experience on itself, taking into account our willigness to avoid planes. But we achieved it!! And realised that there is still much to be done in improving train connections, prices and bike users friendlyness. In that last aspect, there was one key ingredient that helped us a lot: bike sharing among the ecotopian group. Since the group was changing, there were two kind and cool people leaving two bikes that were incredible matching our sizes and expectations.…

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Time Travel to Tampere – 12.07.-15.07.

note: Our route this year has not been straight forward or following any sensible, chronological order! Don’t be confused that our blog posts are also coming in a non order of anarchist chaos. This post is about Tampere, which was our third place to visit after Helsinki and Turku. So, all of this took place before the last four blog posts you may have read, enjoy a little time travel! Tampere Tampere Tampere! This was my 1st Ecotopia bike tour, and first bike tour. I wasn’t sure what to expect and was nervous about how it would go with the…

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A Small Review On Bike Stands

The last day of leaving Estonia was when my two year old Ortlieb paniers broke apart and I had to tape them. I hope to get a refund but WTF they claim to be so reliable… This is not the first of my technical material to be broken on this biketour, and here we enter the main point of this blogpost: the bike stands. There are two schools of biketourers: One which bikes lay against trees, and the other where, after a fancy backwards move of the cyclist’s leg, the bike stands elegantly in the middle of the field, like…

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Trails and Tribulations of the Tallinn Triple Trip Tour (Tallinn-Haapsalu)

I arrived in Tallinn by bus on the 18th of July, first day of the non QUINTAW part (which is something we might talk in another blogpost). Back then I was young, excited to start that new adventure of cycling through this unknown paradise we like to call The Baltics, I was so naive… Okey, the Tallinn experience was indeed thrilling. We were hosted for five or so days in the Anarchist Social Center of the city, Ülase 12, by the most sweet, lovely and caring hardcore coloured mohawk haired gang of punkies. They were making us dinner every day!…

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Missing the Flixbus to Tallinn – Europe in a nutshell

Passed the despair of missing the only direct Flixbus from Berlin to Tallinn (22h), Galina and I decided to make new friends. If you ever feel lonely in your travels, Flixbus stations are the right place to make new friends: you share the frustration of your bus being delayed, the joy of being able to fit your bicycle in the back, you get to chat about the place people are leaving or the one they’re going to -I even managed once to convince the person sitting next to me to book an appointment with a therapist (it took more than…

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Sleepover Time, Bicycle Repair and Prison Abolition – Turku 06.07.-09.07.2024

we arrived in turku fashionably chaotic and one day late during the afternoon and evening. a very sweet person from ABC showed us around. if you have never been to a bikekitchen: imagine a place that is only about bicycles. there were wheels hanging from the ceiling in all sizes and shapes, some empty bicycle frames scattered in between. on the walls hung front forks in shiny metallic colours like garlands, stood shelves with front racks, backracks, tubes, gears, tools and more parts. some cables sticking out over here, piles of boxes with screws over there. Turun Pyöräpaja (Turku Bike…

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Difficult Times – Helsinki to Turku 01.07.-06.07.2024

i think we like to keep it fresh and lighthearted here on the blog. and it’s true that even the more difficult periods of ecotopia are aften funny or at least make a good story when you look back at them. to quote a good ol’ proverb: bad news make a good story. but let’s not make it sound prettier than it was this time. the first two cycling days were HARD, chaotic and utterly exhausting. one person had a bad bicycle accident in helsinki on the day before we started and looked r o u g h, wounds and…

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Finding Solace in Solis – Helsinki 25.06.-01.07.2024

i feel as though my brain cells are rotting and expanding at the same time. the crew we have and the company we keep know how to get things done, are nerds in various topics, and together our skills are (almost) endless. but we do not forget to also have fun and laugh and to communicate across culture and language our weird senses of humour. in the north of helsinki we were greeted so warmly and with such hospitality by some of the people from solis who generously hosted us in their garden for a week. we were fed fresh…

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