Category: Gatherings

Gath­er­ings

Travel info 2024 summer gathering

This year’s gath­er­ing will take place at the beau­ti­ful Crabap­ple coop­er­a­tive near Shrews­bury.

PARKING & SHUTTLE INFO BELOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE!

The address is

Berring­ton Hall
Berring­ton
Shrews­bury
SY5 6HA

The near­est train sta­tion is in Shrews­bury, just under five miles away. From there, you can either walk, cycle, take a bus, or get a lift in our shut­tle­bus. More info on the shut­tle­bus will be added short­ly. The near­est bus stop is called “Junc­tion”, 0.8 miles away on bus line 540, or “Berring­ton Junc­tion”, 0.9 miles away, on bus line 436.

There’s no need to pre-reg­is­ter or give any details — just show up.. There are no tick­ets and we ask for dona­tions (if you can) to cov­er run­ning costs (eg food, fuel, buy­ing access kit, van hire) at the wel­come desk.

Public Transport

The near­est train sta­tion is Shrews­bury, which is less than half an hour cycle from the site and has hourly bus­es from the sta­tion that take you to with­in a 20 minute walk of the site. We will be organ­is­ing shut­tles between shrews­bury and the site, as well as some cycling con­voys! There is use­ful infor­ma­tion about pub­lic trans­port to and from the site here: https://1drv.ms/w/s!ApQ_j7pcP9d_jhgS-x24z9w5BF56?e=4I7QFs
There is a group chat for co-ordi­nat­ing pub­lic trans­port to and from the site here:https://signal.group/#CjQKIN-Q_j4AYK8uOHcAQic5XZLSncBpIyEF_oez_-6_SZZxEhBLDUOqBtmzt7PCWSybssqa
If you have a vehi­cle and are able to help us with organ­is­ing shut­tles, please get in touch on earthfirstuk@riseup.net

Wheelchair accessible shuttles & taxis

We have access to a wheel­chair acces­si­ble shut­tle vehi­cle — please email us (earthfirstuk@riseup.net) to agree a time for this, or ring the site phone (this doc­u­ment will be updat­ed with the phone num­ber once we have it)
There are a few wheel­chair acces­si­ble taxi com­pa­nies that oper­ates around Shrews­bury. Their web­sites are below.
Wheel­chair acces­si­ble taxis:  Dellstaxis.co.uk/wheelchair-taxis
A2onA2onetaxisshrewsbury.co.uk

 

Parking

There is very VERY lim­it­ed park­ing on site — we have space for around 7–8 addi­tion­al vehi­cles. If you need to come in a vehicle/have access needs please email us. We rec­om­mend get­ting pub­lic trans­port if you are able to. If you need to bring a vehi­cle and don’t need to be on site, please park in Shrews­bury or Berring­ton.
Some options:
- You could look for a lay-by in the gen­er­al area your­self
- You could park in paid park­ing (info here) in Shrews­bury and then take the bus or shut­tle.
- You could park in Berring­ton

 

Shuttle

Do you need a shut­tle from the train sta­tion? We will have a reg­u­lar shut­tle from Shrews­bury train sta­tion to site:

Fri­day 4pm, 6pm, 8pm

From site to Shrews­bury:

Sun­day 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, 9pm

Mon­day 10am, 11am, 12am, 1am

Arriv­ing on Wednes­day, Thurs­day or Fri­day morn­ing? No prob­lem, give us a call on the site phone (at least a cou­ple of hours in advance please!!!) and we will arrange a ride, either from the train sta­tion or the bus stop.

Please remem­ber there are fre­quent bus­es from just around the cor­ner of the train sta­tion, 2 pounds, info here.

If you get stuck, call the site phone 07780 996042

 

Accessibility 2024 summer gathering

File:Wheelchair rugby pictogram (Paralympics).svg

Camp­ing in a field and attend­ing meetings/workshops can pose par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges for peo­ple who use wheel­chairs, have oth­er mobil­i­ty needs or are hear­ing impaired (have oth­er acces­si­bil­i­ty needs). The gath­er­ing will include pri­or­i­ty camp­ing areas, lev­el access toi­lets, and acces­si­bil­i­ty mat­ting, but please let us know if there is more we can do to make the gath­er­ing work for your phys­i­cal needs. Sim­i­lar­ly if you have any oth­er kinds of acces­si­bil­i­ty needs, relat­ed to men­tal health for exam­ple, then do let us know. We’ll do our best to pro­vide infor­ma­tion and to meet people’s needs, but as access is a prac­tice, not a des­ti­na­tion, we invite peo­ple to let us know about ways we can improve. The rev­o­lu­tion must be acces­si­ble!

Our detailed acces­si­bil­i­ty doc­u­ment can be found here.

 

Whether you’re brand new to EF! or have been coming for decades — join us to celebrate the 30th ever EF! summer gathering in the UK!

Exciting update: workshop blurbs online now!

 

💜 We are very excit­ed to announce the 30th ever Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing in the UK! From 25th-29th July at Crabap­ple, a gor­geous com­mu­ni­ty orchard in Shrews­bury in the West Mid­lands. We invite you to five days of work­shops, skill shares, sol­i­dar­i­ty, social­is­ing, and con­spir­ing the destruc­tion of cap­i­tal­ism, patri­archy, and all the forces of dom­i­na­tion of humans and nature ✊ Trav­el info here, acces­si­bil­i­ty info here, info about well­be­ing here.

🌈 It’s a space for rad­i­cal thinkers, rebel­lious souls, and curi­ous minds, bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to strength­en and spread the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal resis­tance move­ment across these north­ern isles that we call home. Join us! ☺️

🌱 Learn about cur­rent and past envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles here and around the world, about (anti-)repression and move­ment vic­to­ries, green anar­chism and bio­cen­trism, queer ecol­o­gy and anti-colo­nial land jus­tice. Or get your hands dirty in some of our more prac­ti­cal work­shops, from direct action, skills to solar pow­er, night nav­i­ga­tion, tech secu­ri­ty and more. Or just relax and enjoy the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ings and let loose on the dance floor! 🪩🕺

🥕 There will be three veg­an meals a day, cooked by the won­der­ful Eat­First! col­lectve, dona­tion-based. 🍝

🫖 Tea, cof­fee, cake and a tug shop will be pro­vid­ed by the amaz­ing Veg­gies col­lec­tive ☕

🎲 There will be a kids’ space and pro­gramme too!

🚽 We’ll have com­post toi­lets and even show­ers this year 🚿😯

🐥 Are you new to EF!, have nev­er been, maybe feel­ing a bit ner­vous? No wor­ries, there are won­der­ful humans who will show you around, explain how things work, and sit down and have a cup of tea with!

🌳 Do you want to share sto­ries from the past three decades of EF! in the UK, offer a work­shop, or help out with the kids’ space? Ques­tions on acces­si­bil­i­ty, trans­port (there will be a shut­tle ser­vice from Shrews­bury train sta­tion) or food? Get in touch! earthfirstuk@riseup.net

🦮🐕‍🦺🐕 Dogs 🐕 🐕‍🦺🦮 We have now reached our capac­i­ty for dogs at the gath­er­ing. We have a lim­it on the num­ber of dogs we can accom­mo­date this year because the site is a sen­si­tive habi­tat with nest­ing barn owls, fledg­ling birds and small mam­mals liv­ing in the fields and woods. 🦮 If you have an assis­tance dog that you need to bring to the gath­er­ing then please do email us before the gath­er­ing to reg­is­ter your dog with: earthfirstuk@riseup.net

🔥 Bring your friends, com­rades, ener­gy and ideas, and please spread the word! 📢

🚐 Please note that (depend­ing on the weath­er) we might have very lim­it­ed park­ing space and CANNOT guar­an­tee that you can bring your car or live-in vehi­cle onto the site. If you need your vehi­cle for acces­si­bil­i­ty rea­sons, you will be pri­ori­tised — please send us an email! 🚗

 

Pricing info

  • How much mon­ey?
EF is as DIY as it gets, and doing it our­selves also means fund­ing it our­selves. No one prof­its off of EF. No one gets paid.
EF gath­er­ings always run on a dona­tion basis, and no one is turned away for lack of funds. As a rough esti­mate, we ask that on aver­age peo­ple pay £8 per day for food (three meals) and around £20 for the camp, depend­ing on what you can afford.
The total expense of the gath­er­ings is hard to say accu­rate­ly before­hand, we esti­mate that it’s around 20 pounds per per­son (assum­ing there will be around 300 peo­ple) plus food.
At the wel­come desk you will be able to donate what­ev­er feels right, based on ‘sol­i­dar­i­ty pric­ing’:
    
  • Sol­i­dar­i­ty pric­ing: Have more, pay more. Have less, pay less.
Here’s a lit­tle guide to help you judge how much you can afford com­pared to oth­ers, it’s not just about income, oth­er fac­tors are impor­tant. Class, wealth, and expe­ri­ences of sys­temic oppres­sion all play a part. Remem­ber, it’s just a guide, an imper­fect way to cre­ate a more eco­nom­i­cal­ly lib­er­at­ing mod­el while we work to smash cap­i­tal­ism and cre­ate dif­fer­ent eco­nom­ic sys­tems.
  • Some fac­tors that MIGHT allow you to afford more:
- Hav­ing above aver­age income
- Own­ing land or prop­er­ty
- Being like­ly to inher­it prop­er­ty or wealth
- Hav­ing sig­nif­i­cant wealth, sav­ings, or invest­ments
- Being eas­i­ly able to meet basic needs and able to afford lux­u­ries (hol­i­days, take­away)
- Hav­ing recog­nised edu­ca­tion­al back­ground and qual­i­fi­ca­tions (‘good’ schools, degrees, post­grad etc.) 
- Being eas­i­ly able to get well-paid work
- Hav­ing a safe­ty net or strong social sup­port net­works (e.g. a par­ents’ house to retreat to, friends with mon­ey etc.)
  • Some fac­tors that MIGHT reduce how much you can afford:
- Earn­ing less than aver­age income
- Sup­port­ing depen­dents or hav­ing car­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties (chil­dren, rel­a­tives, part­ners etc.)
- Hav­ing dis­abil­i­ties or long term ill-health
- Reg­u­lar­ly being in con­tact with state/institutional vio­lence
- Pre­car­i­ous migra­tion sta­tus (eg being a refugee, asy­lum seek­er, or per­son with­out papers)
- Being unable to legal­ly work
- Expe­ri­enc­ing finan­cial dis­tress (eg. unex­pect­ed court fees, los­ing a job, sud­den rent increas­es)
- Expe­ri­enc­ing sys­temic oppres­sion due to things such as race, class, gen­der, neu­ro­di­ver­si­ty, sex­u­al­i­ty.
No one is turned away for lack of funds, please don’t let cost put you off attend­ing!
We all have dif­fer­ent rela­tion­ships to mon­ey and we encour­age every­one to be hon­est with them­selves. The emo­tions that come up when we talk about what we can afford can often cloud our judge­ment. Cap­i­tal­ism breeds a cul­ture of scarci­ty — for some this feels like emo­tion­al insta­bil­i­ty and uncer­tain­ty, and for oth­ers this looks like mate­r­i­al pover­ty and a lack of resources. It is impos­si­ble to talk about things like class, mon­ey, wealth, or income with­out think­ing about sys­temic oppres­sions like racism or ableism and yes, it’s com­pli­cat­ed, but let’s do the best we can.
There are lots of hid­den costs involved with gath­er­ings like EF. Some stuff can’t be found in bins or bor­rowed and, while we try to keep costs down, there is equip­ment we would like to pur­chase to make sum­mer camps like EF more acces­si­ble in the future (eg track mat­ting for wheel­chair acces­si­bil­i­ty, a minibus, light­ing, solar pan­els.) By donat­ing more gen­er­ous­ly you are help­ing achieve this!

2024 summer gathering

30th ever EarthFirst! summer gathering in the UK!

 

💜 We are very excit­ed to announce the 30th ever Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing in the UK! From 25th-29th July at Crabap­ple, a gor­geous com­mu­ni­ty orchard in Shrews­bury in the West Mid­lands. We invite you to five days of work­shops, skill shares, sol­i­dar­i­ty, social­is­ing, and con­spir­ing the destruc­tion of cap­i­tal­ism, patri­archy, and all the forces of dom­i­na­tion of humans and nature ✊

🌈 It’s a space for rad­i­cal thinkers, rebel­lious souls, and curi­ous minds, bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to strength­en and spread the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal resis­tance move­ment across these north­ern isles that we call home. Join us! ☺️

🌱 Learn about cur­rent and past envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles here and around the world, about (anti-)repression and move­ment vic­to­ries, green anar­chism and bio­cen­trism, queer ecol­o­gy and anti-colo­nial land jus­tice. Or get your hands dirty in some of our more prac­ti­cal work­shops, from direct action, skills to solar pow­er, night nav­i­ga­tion, tech secu­ri­ty and more. Or just relax and enjoy the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ings and let loose on the dance floor! 🪩🕺

🎲 🐕There will be a kids’ space and pro­gramme too!

🌳 Do you want to share sto­ries from the past three decades of EF! in the UK, offer a work­shop, or help out with the kids’ space? Ques­tions on acces­si­bil­i­ty, trans­port (there will be a shut­tle ser­vice from Shrews­bury train sta­tion) or food? Get in touch! earthfirstuk@riseup.net

🔥 Bring your friends, com­rades, ener­gy and ideas, and please spread the word! 📢

🦮🐕‍🦺🐕 Dogs 🐕 🐕‍🦺🦮 We have now reached our capac­i­ty for dogs at the gath­er­ing. We have a lim­it on the num­ber of dogs we can accom­mo­date this year because the site is a sen­si­tive habi­tat with nest­ing barn owls, fledg­ling birds and small mam­mals liv­ing in the fields and woods. 🦮 If you have an assis­tance dog that you need to bring to the gath­er­ing then please do email us before the gath­er­ing to reg­is­ter your dog with: earthfirstuk@riseup.net

Acces­si­bil­i­ty info here!

 

EF! Summer gathering 2023

Summer gathering 2023!

You’re all warm­ly invit­ed to the one and only Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing 2023!

For this year’s gath­er­ing we have squat­ted the site of the new coal pro­posed coal mine in White­haven, Cum­bria!

Leave the coal in the hole!

The pre­cise loca­tion for the site entrance is here: https://w3w.co/guilty.polygraph.scale

Near­est train sta­tions are Cor­kick­le or White­haven. It is a long walk from the sta­tion so let us know if you need a lift by call­ing the site phone 07592479185. Please call, don’t mes­sage!

Telegram lift share: https://t.me/+RbhnJUczz000YjM0 (self-organ­ised)

If you are trav­el­ing by road: A595, signed White­haven. Then turn R. (from N), or L. (from S), onto road signed: ‘St. Bees/Sandwith’ At B5345: turn L. onto St. Bees Road, then take first R. Sat­Nav: CA28 9QJ

If you need help with acces­si­bil­i­ty or any­thing else the site phone num­ber: 07592479185

We will also keep check­ing our email: earth­firstuk (at) riseup.net

There will be deli­cious food by Veg­gies kitchen, a kids’ space and an amaz­ing pro­gramme of work­shops. and dis­cus­sions Join us!

EF! summer gathering 2023

Summergathering 2023!

 

You’re all warm­ly invit­ed to the one and only Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing 2023! This year’s gath­er­ing will take place in the north of Eng­land, on a beau­ti­ful squat­ted piece of land. If you want to book train tick­ets, aim for Carlisle for now – a more spe­cif­ic loca­tion will be announced on th 29th. We’ll get going on the 29th, with set­up and work­shops. There will be deli­cious food by Veg­gies kitchen, a kids’ space and soooo many excit­ing work­shops. We can’t wait!

Please spread the word and get in touch if you can get there ear­ly to help us pre­pare the site <3

For work­shop offers and ques­tions about access­abil­i­ty and any­thing else – please email earth­firstuk (at) riseup.net!

 

 

 

 

What to expect when you arrive

A wel­come tent with peo­ple in to give you a warm wel­come and tell you about the site, where the loos are, where to camp, things you can get involved with straight away, and take dona­tions for the cost of the camp (£0–50), and the meals each day (£0–10/day). Depend­ing on how ear­ly you arrive, mar­quees will be ris­ing or risen for work­shop spaces, peo­ple will by scur­ry­ing about on mis­sions to build or clean com­post toi­lets, find that ham­mer that dis­ap­peared, paint­ing signs, chop­ping veg­eta­bles for the next meal, whis­per-plan­ning a secre­tive action, hav­ing loud polit­i­cal debates with some­one they’ve just met… or hav­ing some qui­et time with a book in a cor­ner of some mar­quee. No one is in charge. We are all crew here, putting col­lec­tive liv­ing into prac­tice, cre­at­ing a tiny tran­sient vision of the world we want to cre­ate and defend. The more you par­tic­i­pate in this camp, the more you will get out of it.

But what the f*** is it, really?

The EF! gath­er­ing is a gath­er­ing of like-mind­ed peo­ple inter­est­ed in eco­log­i­cal direct action, green anar­chy, and rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal pol­i­tics. It includes 6 days of camp­ing, 3 veg­an meals a day, a pro­gramme of work­shops and activ­i­ties and dis­cus­sions. There will be some music, danc­ing, and sto­ry­telling around the fire. We’ll have some spaces for com­mu­nal eat­ing and chill­ing, and to stay dry in case it rains. But feel free to bring addi­tion­al tarps! Don’t expect luxaries, but there will be com­post loos and some kind of wash­ing facil­i­ty. Remem­ber, this is a sqat­ted site, so there might be some police inter­ac­tion. If you have any con­cerns, get in touch!

What to bring

Bring your own cut­lery, a plate and a mug, and every­thing you might for a camp­ing trip, such as a tent, sleep­ing bag and mat, warm clothes, water­proofs, head­torch, and wellies!

Get in touch

The site phone will be on from the 29th, num­ber will be on here. More info will be post­ed on here soon. For any ques­tions, emails us at earth­firstuk (at) riseup.net

 

 

EF! Summer Gathering 2022

Prac­ti­cal info
Overview info
Anti-oppres­sion
Kids Space
 
 
 
Loca­tion infor­ma­tion:
 
Bridge Farm, next to Old Flaxmill, Flax­dray­ton Farm, South Pether­ton, TA13 5LR
 
https://maps.app.goo.gl/D1k9b24QXwAmKFLb9
 
The near­est train sta­tions are Yeovil Junc­tion, Crewk­erne and Cas­tle Cary. (Check for bus replace­ment on Sun­day if you’re bring­ing a bike)
 
Pub­lic trans­port info:
 

Train to Yeovil Pen Mill (on Bris­tol-Wey­mouth line) or Yeovil Junc­tion (Water­loo-Exeter line)

Num­ber 68 bus from both sta­tions to Yeovil bus sta­tion (Pen Mill is also easy walk­ing dis­tance from bus sta­tion, Junc­tion is 2 miles south of town), this bus is half-hourly except Sun­days when it does­n’t run

Num­ber 81 bus from Yeovil bus sta­tion to Nor­ton-sub-Ham­den, clos­est vil­lage to site (1 mile), runs hourly week­days, 2‑hourly Sat­ur­days, not at all Sun­days.

Nation­al Express in the­o­ry have a coach stop in Yeovil, but don’t seem to be run­ning any­thing there at present.

Berrys Coach­es run a ser­vice (Super­Fast 2) from Lon­don to Taunton serv­ing South Pether­ton, this has to be booked (and this does run Sun­days). You could then get the 68 bus from South Pether­ton to Nor­ton, or just walk it.

Please send a mes­sage to our site phone (07706 017355, after 5pm on 29th August) if you need a lift — there will be irreg­u­lar shut­tles from Crewk­erne sta­tion. Make sure to let us know plen­ty in advance (day before arrival ide­al­ly) so that we can make this hap­pen!

Bus times:

Hel­lo, here is the timetable for the 81 bus:

https://images.southwestcoaches.co.uk/images/pdfs/81service-public-sept2020.pdf

Also Yeovil sta­tions to bus sta­tion:
http://wyndham.gettingaroundsomerset.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Service-68-June-2018-Bus-Timetable.pdf

 
Call­ing all defend­ers of the wild! You are warm­ly invit­ed to five days of work­shops, skill shares, plot­ting and plan­ning, sol­i­dar­i­ty and social­is­ing in a beau­ti­ful camp out. This year’s Earth First! Sum­mer gath­er­ing will be from Wednes­day 31st August till Mon­day 5th Sep­tem­ber and will host a nation-wide and inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns roundup, work­shops on organ­is­ing secure­ly, facil­i­ta­tion and prac­ti­cal Direct Action skills, avoid­ing burnout and more. The gath­er­ing is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet like-mind­ed peo­ple and form con­nec­tions with oth­ers fight­ing the good fight up and down the British Isles and beyond. So come along!
 
VENUE: near­est train sta­tions are Yeovil Junc­tion, Crewk­erne and Cas­tle Cary. You can get in touch via earthfirstuk@riseup.net.

 

  • www.earthfirst.uk
  • twitter.com/earthfirst_uk
  • FB: Earth­First UK
  • Ins­ta: Earth.FirstUK
What to bring: tent, sleep­ing bag+mat, cup, plate and cut­lery. Cash for cake and dona­tions. Your friends and com­rades. More info here.

What to expect when you arrive

A wel­come tent with peo­ple in to give you a warm wel­come and tell you about the site, where the loos are, where to camp, things you can get involved with straight away, and take dona­tions for the cost of the camp (£0–50), and the meals each day (£0–10/day). Depend­ing on how ear­ly you arrive, mar­quees will be ris­ing or risen for work­shop spaces, peo­ple will by scur­ry­ing about on mis­sions to build or clean com­post toi­lets, find that ham­mer that dis­ap­peared, paint­ing signs, chop­ping veg­eta­bles for the next meal, whis­per-plan­ning a secre­tive action, hav­ing loud polit­i­cal debates with some­one they’ve just met… or hav­ing some qui­et time with a book in a cor­ner of some mar­quee. No one is in charge. We are all crew here, putting col­lec­tive liv­ing into prac­tice, cre­at­ing a tiny tran­sient vision of the world we want to cre­ate and defend. The more you par­tic­i­pate in this camp, the more you will get out of it.

Get in touch

The site phone will be on from Mon­day 29th, 5pm: 07706 017355

Community and eco-anarchism

At this gath­er­ing we are work­ing towards a dif­fer­ent kind of liv­ing-togeth­er in nature – non-hier­ar­chi­cal­ly, low-impact and in sol­i­dar­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty. We want to chal­lenge the mul­ti­ple sys­tems of oppres­sion – patri­archy, white suprema­cy, trans­pho­bia, ableism, speciesism and oth­ers – and work towards new rela­tion­ships with the earth, non­hu­man nature and one anoth­er.

By demon­strat­ing green/e­co-anar­chist ways of organ­is­ing and liv­ing in order to con­front, halt and reverse eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion, we can build a cul­ture of active, non-hier­ar­chi­cal, grass­roots eco­log­i­cal resis­tance. EF! and Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Gath­er­ings pro­vides a plat­form for shar­ing infor­ma­tion, prac­ti­cal direct action and cam­paign­ing skills. In the next few days, we are also prac­tis­ing the kinds of skills that you may need when occu­py­ing land to defend the earth, and our­selves, against the kind of so-called devel­op­ment that involves extract­ing resources from the earth, cut­ting trees, con­struct­ing dams, killing non-human ani­mals, or build­ing large infra­struc­ture projects in the name of moder­ni­ty or progress. This involves keep­ing the site safe from the police by run­ning effec­tive gate pro­tec­tion, organ­is­ing kids’ spaces, mak­ing sure we are all fed healthy veg­an food, and learn­ing from each oth­er.

Roll Back The Tracks Bike Ride

What do you need to bring?

– bicy­cle 🙂
– bicy­cle pan­niers
– tent, sleep­ing mat and sleep­ing bag
– headlamp/flashlight
– pow­er bank for charg­ing elec­tron­ics
– bot­tles for car­ry­ing drink­ing water
– a seal­able tup­per­ware for car­ry­ing food and eat­ing out of, mug and cut­lery
– toi­letries and med­ica­tion
– clothes to stay warm and dry
– first aid kit
– a basic cycle repair kit if you have one
– ban­ners and flags to attach to your bike! (no XR ban­ners please)
– cash for dona­tions for food.
We are look­ing into con­tin­u­ing the bike ride along the sec­ond leg of the pro­posed route from Birm­ing­ham to Leeds from the 20th to rough­ly the 27th of August. For this leg, you will also need:
— camp­ing stove & gas
— cook­ing equip­ment

Camping Sites

We have tried where pos­si­ble to get per­mis­sion to use camp­ing sites. How­ev­er, in some places we will be tres­pass­ing, and as such, facil­i­ties will be min­i­mal. We have select­ed places that we feel are suit­able to camp for the nights of the 15th-19th.
On the night of the 20th, we will be wild camp­ing in a park in Brum cen­tre, and from then on, wild camp­ing in loca­tions that we have not yet vis­it­ed, and there­fore we can’t guar­an­tee they will be bril­liant places to camp.

Food & water

On the first leg of the ride from Man­ches­ter to Birm­ing­ham, we will have a cater­ing team fol­low­ing us in a vehi­cle. With vol­un­teer sup­port from us, they will pro­vide one cooked, veg­an, evening meal each day, and pro­vide the ingre­di­ents for us to make our own break­fast and packed lunch­es.
Vol­un­teers in the kitchen will need to wear a face mask and observe phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing.
Dona­tions for food are great­ly appre­ci­at­ed, though no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.
On the sec­ond leg, we will NOT be catered for, so if you are cycling from Brum to Leeds, you will need to buy your own food and cook for your­self.
Most of the camp­ing sites have run­ning water near­by. How­ev­er, you need to have at least 2 1L drink­ing bot­tles with you on the ride, and to fill them up when­ev­er pos­si­ble on route to camp­sites. Stay hydrat­ed!

Toilets

At some of the camp­sites, there are toi­lets. Where there are not toi­lets, we will have a bike trail­er toi­let cubi­cle in tow, and a spade. Col­lec­tive­ly, we will have to dig a pit for every­one to poo in. If the idea of poop­ing in a pit gross­es you out, then make sure you use pub­lic toi­lets on route.

Checking your bike is ready to join Roll Back the Tracks

Lots of dif­fer­ent bikes can make this trip, but it needs to be in good work­ing order.

Please make sure you have at least one water bot­tle hold­er on your bike. You also need to think about how you will car­ry your lug­gage. You need either a pan­nier rack bolt­ed to your bike frame to car­ry pan­nier bags with your belong­ings, or you’ll need to bring bike pack­ing bags to car­ry lug­gage direct­ly on the frame. Please don’t come with a back­pack of all your stuff, you will be sweaty and uncom­fort­able quick­ly. Full sus­pen­sion moun­tain bikes are not rec­om­mend­ed.

If you don’t cycle reg­u­lar­ly, or you are bor­row­ing a bike for the trip check that the bike fits – take it for a test ride of a few hours to see how com­fort­able it is. You need to be able to stand over the frame with­out it touch­ing you between your legs and be able to com­fort­able reach the han­dle­bars and brakes.

Check your brakes

Rim brakes (the brakes act on the metal circular part of your wheel)

• pull on the brakes one at a time to ensure that they can stop the bike
• check there is plen­ty of rub­ber across the whole of all the pads (espe­cial­ly if your brakes are noisy)
• check that the brakes just touch onto met­al and not onto the rub­ber of the tyre
• check that when you pull the brake lever (the part in your hand when rid­ing) the lever does­n’t touch the han­dle­bars.

Disk brakes

• Check that the front and the back brake stops your bike (rather than when both are pressed at the same time).
• Check the rotary wheel is straight and firm­ly attached.
• If the brakes are ring­ing you need to get them adjust­ed.

Wheels

• Check that quick release wheels are prop­er­ly tight­ened. You should be able to read the word ‘closed’ when they are;
• oth­er­wise, check that wheel nuts are tight, espe­cial­ly if you remove your front wheel.
• Clean the brak­ing sur­face if you have rim brakes – use wash­ing up liq­uid in water and a rag.
• Check the tyres are ful­ly inflat­ed. The pres­sure is writ­ten on the side of your tyre.
• Check the tyres still have a pat­tern across the sur­face and do not bulge.
• Check that the brakes haven’t rubbed a grove in the rub­ber of the tyre.
• Check that the wheel runs in a straight line – do this by lift­ing one end of your bike and push­ing the wheel round fast, it should move smooth­ly and not rub.
• Look at your wheels to ensure all the spokes are there and squeeze them in pairs to check they are of a sim­i­lar tight­ness.

Frame

• Make sure there are no cracks or big dents in the frame.
• Check the bolts attach­ing mud guards, water bot­tles and the pan­nier rack are all tight.
• Can you move the han­dle­bars flu­id­ly?
• Could they be too loose? Put the front brake on, turn the front wheel 90 degrees and then see if the front of the bike rocks if you push for­ward on the turned han­dle­bar. If so, it needs tight­ened.

Gears

• Look at your chain and every­thing it touch­es. Dirty? It real­ly is worth­while using an old tooth brush to clean each link and con­tact point before re-apply­ing oil to each link and then remov­ing any excess with a rag.
• Move the ped­als and ensure they can freely turn round com­plete­ly.
• Check that the bike can go into all of its gears. There are going to be hills, so you’ll need a range of gears.

Got a creaking bike?

Can you work out where it is com­ing from? If stand­ing up to ped­al makes it stop check your sad­dle, if it is worse when you ped­dle hard it is like­ly your bot­tom brack­et.

Got a prob­lem with one or more of these areas? If yo don’t know how to fix it find a friend who does or take it to an inde­pen­dent bike shop – but watch out they may not be able to do this at short notice.

Please bring a spare inner tube with you in case you get a punc­ture, the size is writ­ten on the side of your tyre. If you don’t know how to change a flat tyre still bring a spare inner tube and we can fix it togeth­er.

Hav­ing a ful­ly work­ing bike is your respon­si­bil­i­ty.
We are meet­ing togeth­er on the 14th at Rye­bank Fields Protest Camp in Man­ches­ter to check bikes. Please bring a bike which is in full work­ing order as we may sad­ly have to ask you not to come if you’re bike isn’t up to the job and we can’t get parts to fix it.

How can you help?

• Know of any­where we (max 50 rid­ers) could sleep in the fol­low­ing areas?
◦ North Cheshire
◦ Birm­ing­ham Cen­tre (ide­al­ly near Dig­beth)
◦ West Leices­ter­shire
◦ Sheffield
◦ Leeds
• Involved in a crit­i­cal Mass or cycling group in Brum, Not­ting­ham, Sheffield or Leeds? Help us organ­ise some cyclists into a crit­i­cal mass!
• Have you got a bike sound sys­tem you could bring on part of the ride?
• Do a work­shop on route. Sing a song round the camp­fire.
• Get cre­ative and make some flags or ban­ners for our bikes!
• Vol­un­teer in the kitchen.
• Tow the bike trail­er toi­let for a few hours.
• Spare some change? We are try­ing to raise 2000 pounds to fund the project. can you help either by donat­ing or shar­ing? Here´s the link to the crowd­fun­der:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/roll-back-the-tracks

Drop us an email on rollbackthetracks@riseup.net to RSVP or for more info.

 

Earth First! Summer Gathering 9–14 August 2017 — location, help publicise & more

Do please join us for five days of skill-shar­ing for grass­roots eco­log­i­cal direct action — make links, share ideas, and get involved in the strug­gles against frack­ing, new roads and more.  All wel­come.

Can you help dis­trib­ute fly­ers, posters, badges & stick­ers 4 this year’s Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing? Email outreach@earthfirstgathering.org

Want to offer work­shops?  Get in touch with the pro­gramme organ­is­ers here.

All the info about the EF! Gath­er­ing 2017 and what’s been on offer pre­vi­ous years is avail­able here.

Updates: near­est train sta­tion info released — Cuf­fley