Dealing with persistent oppressive behaviour on the Biketour

Every year, a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds join the Biketour. Like in any group that does not consist exclusively of people, who have already intensively reflected upon power structures, situations happen that are experienced as more or less oppressive by some people. As none of us is perfect, we will make mistakes. That’s okay, because the Biketour aims to be a space that is open. A space where people who have never thought about mechanisms of oppression before can learn about them. Sometimes though, some specifically difficult personalities are joining, who regularly show inappropriate behaviour.…

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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…

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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.

ACROBATICS

In this video the participants try the freakbikes of Radi Vidi Pats in Latvia. Different varieties of tallbikes or a tandem where you cycle face to face are pretty strange cycling-expieriences. Or other balance and body control challenges such as pushing another cyclist with the fully loaded trailer up a super steep hill. Or just turnig in circles.

Music by: AWOTT(the beaty one, awott.com/ ) and Trio EMM (the traditional one, facebook.com/TrioEmm/ )

How to get a group of cyclists into Belarus

As you might have read in our belarus border chaos blog post, getting into Belarus wasn’t easy for us, and our visa application was rejected several times, and then we were rejected on the border several times. When we were preparing the tour, we were not finding a lot of information on how to do this, and the information that we found was often contradictory or simply wrong. Even the border police of Belarus themselves often gave us wrong information or didn’t know how things work. So here is the ultimate guide on how to get a group of cyclists into…

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Free Riga!

Sorry, this entry is only available in English. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language. We reached the our first host in the latvian capital shortly before midnight after our hardcore cycling day. It was the Kreicbike-workshop. A place where loads of crazy custom- and freakbikes are built. Also motorized ones. It was an impressive place with tons of tools and equipment. They were also related to Radi Vidi Pats, the other freakbike-workshop we were visiting earlier in Liepaja. Unfortunately, here we…

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2 days, 180 km, 3 punctures, 1 thunderstorm

Sorry, this entry is only available in English. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language. After having survived the hippie-festival the biketour was heading Riga. We had 2 days to make the ~170km. Quiet tough, regarding that normally, we do normally between 40 and 80 kilometers per day… But we had a good road and not really any questions about the way. Just all the time along the coast. Never ending pinewoods on both sides of the road, every now and then…

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