Cycling to Sziget is no Sweat

The entrance on Thursday, six days before day 1 of the Sziget

One of Europe's largest music events, the Sziget Festival, starts next week on Hajógyari (aka Óbudai) Island.

With as many as 390,000 (2009 peak) attending the week-long event, it generates an enormous volume of traffic, particularly over the 4-5 kilometres between downtown Budapest and the festival site.

A number of public-transport options exists, including Budapest Transport Company (BKV) charter buses for inbound and outbound campers; passenger ferries on the Danube, and that old standby, the suburban train (HÉV). All these are fantastic ways to get close-up and personal with your fellow Sziget revelers before you arrive at the massive queues at the island entrance.

Riding the Szentendre HÉV to the Sziget
(Image stolen from http://www.budapestzin.com/2007/08/sziget-2007-day-three.html)

For those who prefer a better ventilated mode of transport, there are bicycles. Designated bike routes on both banks of Danube link downtown with the festival site. And once there, you can take advantage of a free, guarded bike parking lot.

If you want to use the service, you'll need to take your bike through the entrance onto the island, and make your way to the lot, located on some tennis courts near the caravan camping area on the island (#41 on the Sziget map). The service works like a coat check: The bike is tagged and you'll get a receipt, and the volunteers will record the number of your festival entrance wristband along with the bike's ID data: colour, type and serial number.

Check your bike, but don't lose your number!

Volunteers from the Hungarian Cyclists Club tend the lot throughout the festival. At any time, three three of them are on site while a paid festival security guard is always nearby.

The bike parking lot holds 1,000 bikes, and during last year's event, a total of 5,000 bikes were looked after during the full festival period.

The cycling club has helped organise Sziget bike parking for several years, and has been leading the effort since last year's event. According to club Communications Manager Kornél Myat, the club as well as the Sziget organisation offer the service because it's part of their philosophy to support environmentally friendly bicycle transport. The 18 volunteers who staff the lot over the course of the festival also do it because they get free entry passes.

These days, the cycling club is not only providing cycling services at the Sziget Festival, but at a host of other summer events in Hungary, including Balaton Sound, the Hegyalja Festival, the Campus Festival in Debrecen and the Bánkitó Festival.

Cycling rocks!

If you're planning on seeing Iron Maiden at the Sziget Festival Saturday, you might consider heading out early to catch the world's first bicycle-powered rock tour.

A collection of musical acts from San Francisco have banded together for a European tour that's entirely human powered. Riding under the banner "The Pleasant Revolution Bicycle Music Festival," they transport themselves, their gear and their stuff by bicycle. They even bring their own sound system -- a special, energy-efficient digitally programmed one that runs on pedal-powered dynamos.

As the tour website explains:

More than a bike tour or music festival, this is a new movement for an evolving culture of transportation cycling, renewable power, and greener music/community events.

According to site, at least five different acts are involved, ranging from folk funk ensembles to classic singer/songwriters to a guy called CelloJoe. One or more of these is scheduled to perform at 5 p.m. at the Sziget's Civil Jatszótér stage. For audience participation, you can get on one of their exercycles and help juice the amplifiers.

Rolling with the Sziget

It's that time of year, again: The Sziget Festival opens tonight on Hajógyari island on the north side of town, bringing a flood of young revellers from across Europe for five nights of rock and roll. With daily tickets going for HUF 10,500 (EUR 42) a pop, I'll likely give it a miss. However, such is the magnitude of the event — approximately 80,000 people attend annually — that there's no escaping its impact.

Among other things, the festival's front door sits smack dab in the middle of the Buda-side bikeway. During the past year, the Buda quay has been closed to motor traffic and has become a de facto bicycle expressway. Now that the Sziget's on, the segment of the quay by the event entrance has been closed down and turned into Sziget "terület". That means cyclists riding the quay have to take a small detour (which actually traces the "official" Euro Velo 6 route). The blue line in the map shows the detour.


I'm not one to complain about the Sziget disruption. I figure the opportunities for fun and good music are worth the temporary inconveniences that it causes. Also, the Sziget organisers were really in on the ground floor of the Budapest bicycle renaissance: they started offering on-site, guarded bicycle parking for festival visitors 10 years ago -- at a time when the local Critical Mass was just a twinkle in Gábor Kürti's eye.

According to Sziget employee Ákos Dominus, the free-of-charge bike parking was used last year by 800-1,000 vistors a day. That's up from 200-300/day just five-six years ago, he said.

Sziget festival angers, charms cyclist

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Oh brother. I realize that I've been duped by the Sziget Festival's slick communications. In my previous post, I praised the organisers for having a free-of-charge, attended parking facility for bicycles. Somehow, this little gesture distracted me from the bigger picture, which is that the Sziget's ticket booths at the main entrance completely block the main north-south bike path on the Buda side.

I don't know why I forgot to mention this -- I commute everyday between Budapest and Szentendre, and during the week of Sziget it becomes virtually impossible to get past the Filitorigat HÉV stop due to the logjam of humanity coming on and off the island. No exageration -- the line of people between the HÉV stop and the festival entrance fully occupies about 200 metres of the path, and the few times I tried to get through it with my bike, it took an eternity (well maybe 15-20 minutes -- but that's a hell of a long time to bike 200 metres).

Anyway, I hate being a crank -- especially as I know the Sziget Festival has been barraged by cranks from the day it started back in the early 1990s. Still, this is a serious inconvenience for those of us who commute on this path on a daily basis and I felt I should at least raise the issue just to make sure organisers know it IS an issue.

So I sent a non-cranky note of complaint, and two days later I got this thoughtful, non-cranky reply.

Dear Greg,

Thank you for contacting us.

I see what you are talking about. The problem is, that there is no other place where we could put the ticket offices (we can not build them on the highway, can we?). Unfortunatelly the bicycle road is by the bridge where our visitors comes in. So even, if our tents would not be there it would be a big problem to cross the junction with the bike, as people are crossing it non stop.

However, the bikers still can use the road in this junction. And than return to the bicycle route. (The police has closed the Jégtörő street for cars but not for bikers.)

There are 3,5 days left.... So please have patient. It will be over soon.

Thank you for your understanding.
Best wishes,
INFO

This note is really nice. My only quibble would be its unconscious, car-centric prejudice: "We can not build them on the highway, can we?" If it were up to me, that's EXACTLY where I'd build them. Afterall, the only thing the highway is used for is cars -- and I think I speak for about 9 people when I say -- who gives a damn about cars?

But other than that, this was an exceptionally conscientious reply and I'm inclined to drop the issue right here. For the week of the festival, I'm taking a detour out onto the highway, Route 11, which is very busy (read "choked with motor traffic") but I already ride on it for part of my commute so it's not a big deal.

Incidentally, the option that INFO suggested in his/her reply is a good one. Jégtörő út is the name of the quay road next to Filitorigat. With it being closed to motor traffic, it makes a convenient and scenic way to cycle between the festival and downtown Budapest.

Anyway, looks like with a little understanding, biking and rocking can still go hand in hand.