Cycle Ende Gelände

Over two weeks and more than 1000km, a group that grew by the day cycled from the UK to the east of Germany to reach Ende Gelände - the mass action  that shut down the coal mining industry.

We experienced the co-creation of a mobile community within the ride which was evolving everyday, and as bees on bikes, we connected our movements with other patches of resistance along the way. This project linked up Time to Cycle to a wider network of rides that we called Cycle Ende Gelande 2016. As the ride went on, our numbers, cultures and skills grew as we join up with rides coming from France, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Sweden, all heading to the Lausitz Climate Camp.

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Communities and Projects

Along the ride, we passed by Ecotribe and a large squat in the Netherlands. Then once in Germany, we were greeted and hosted by the Substanz social center in Osnabrück, a Christian community hall in Hille, a permaculture garden in Hannover, a waganplatz in Brunswick, a social center in Magdeburg, ZEGG ecovillage in Bad Belzig, a variety of squats in Berlin and a few other beautiful places.

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Ende Gelände

Ende Gelände was part of Break Free, an international initiative for mass actions to take place during May 2016 around big areas of fossil fuel extraction. This particular one in Germany hit the coal mining industry where Vattenfall, the current company owning this industry, is trying to sell it off and pass the burden of mining the dirty lignite coal onto someone else.
Over three days, 4000 people came from many different countries and brought the Vattenfall's activity to a near stand still by hitting different areas of its industry: the mine, the machinery, the conveyor belts, the railways and the power plant.