Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
We look forward to the vibrant, joyful images from our friends at Coffee Tea Trip in Poland each time the annual Swift Campout rolls around, and they recently sent over a lovely selection of photos and a quick recap of this year’s getaway. See it here…
Words and photos by Wojtek Waloch
With the first weekend of summer comes the Swift Campout campaign that involves spending warm days outside the city riding a bike, sleeping in the forest, and having a good time. We really like this way coming together, so just like in previous years, we participated in the global campout by rallying a bunch of positive people. Old friends showed up, some of whom we hadn’t seen for a long time, as did new ones, including a couple of first-time bikepackers. There were delegations from Warsaw, Szczecin, Poznań, Gorzów, Berlin, and other small and large cities. The variety of bikes was dizzying. Gravel bikes, city bikes, MTB, singlespeeds, and trekking bikes all came to Zielona Góra to explore the western borders of our province.
The day of departure was initially marked by rain, but as soon as people started showing up at the meeting point, the sun came out. After greetings, we set off on the route. Our destination this year was an area in the state forests “spend the night in the forest” campaign, where you can legally camp by Lake Wojnowskie. To reach it, we’d drawn up a roughly 50-kilometer route leading through forest roads, small villages with shops, and old and new bridges over rivers.
Again this year, the idea with the lake turned out to be a bullseye. The first thing we did after reaching our destination was take a refreshing dip. There was plenty to wash off, because some of the roads had turned into muddy puddles after the morning rains. Just moments after our group made it to camp, a crew from Berlin’s Tortuga Cycles & Café arrived.
After setting up hammocks, pitching tents, arranging chairs and resting, it was time for the annual rock, paper, scissors tournament. Thanks to the people from Pathfinder Gear, LESOVIK, Baby Legs, Vae Soli, Ride and get lost, Cheesy Supply, Cafflano, Bagirlsproject, Pieca Warte. Without you, we would be just a bunch of lunatics waving their hands in the forest for no reason. Instead, we had a great tournament with prizes! We spent the rest of the evening talking, laughing, and dancing.
The next day we slowly got out of our beds. Coffee Hunter, a local coffee roastery, knew that this would be the case and provided beans for a delicious morning coffee to give us energy for cleaning and packing. We took a group photo, ate a sweet, hearty breakfast, and headed back toward our respective homes. First, though, the adventure ended with a nice barbecue at participant Dawid’s workshop, Too Good Wood.
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