Thirty-six years ago to this day, on the night of November 9, 1989, I fell asleep, unaware that the world would be transformed upon my waking. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a watershed event, and though time has passed, the memories of the Cold War remain vivid. Born in Magdeburg and raised in a divided country, I wanted to mark my 50th birthday with a special journey: cycling a section of the former inner-German border, now known as "Das Grüne Band" (The Green Belt), a nature conservation project.

This summer, along with three friends from Magdeburg, we set off to explore a part of the 1,400 kilometres of this border. Our goal was to cycle the section of the former Magdeburg district, rich in personal connections for me.

This lovely couple is custom-built for the “Villa Cavrois”, located just outside of Roubaix, for their employees and associates. The Villa Cavrois is now a museum and used to be the residence of a textile industry dynasty, the Cavrois family, who had it built in the 1920s strongly influenced by modernist design and architecture concepts, inspired by movements of the time such as the Bauhaus.

Not the best conditions in the workshop this month due to the cold. The oven was doing its best and the participants of the frame building course were working files and hacksaws to keep warm. We had exciting projects going on during the courses, two frames came back from paint and are now fully assembled, ready to hit the road. I have a lovely photo story to share from Remi, who has documented his project from start to finish.

2023 has begun with a few exciting projects. Some were finished, quite a few are work in progress at different stages. Beginning with this year I would like to share more of what’s happening in the workshop. The plan is to have a little update once per month. I realise that I’m already running a bit late for January :). With all the projects going on, I have not been as diligent in the past year to post regular updates on social media. I find it harder and harder to keep up. So I will focus to keep my site up to date as much as possible.

France has a great network of high-speed trains, the TGV (train à grande vitesse), and it is possible to cross the entire country in just half a day by train in great comfort. The trains are usually very punctual and reliable, and at 300 km/h an amazing piece of technology. It becomes quite problematic though, when you want to take your bicycle on-board, especially if you don’t want to or cannot take it apart.

The French government wants to spend 8 billion Euros of public money supporting it with false claims, discriminating other participants who are competing in the same market with more sustainable and responsible products and processes, and influencing stock market prices to enrich private investors.

The only thing possibly better than riding on a custom bike made to your measures and specific needs is building it yourself. Unfortunately there are not many places where you can do that. 

So when friends asked me if they could come by and if I could teach them how to build their own steel bicycle frame I thought, sure, why not...