Radlkeller retrospective: Finding community on two wheels
A search for a bike in Munich led to the Radlkeller, a community workshop where cycling, repair skills and friendships flourished in an unexpected way. JYMer ‘24 Audrey Maxim-Rumley (Wesleyan University ‘25) recounts her München summer semester experience.
I came to München with a 50-Euro bill quivering in my pocket, waiting to be spent on a bike purchased on Facebook Marketplace. That bill disappeared long ago, likely into the Aldi cash register, but the dream of having a bike for some fun rides realized itself in a more profound way than I expected.
The U-Bahn and I are not friends. I like having my own two wheels that move in time with me, not me and the U-Bahnfahrer*innen and every commuter and tourist deciding to communally sweat in a speeding box. I wasn’t sure I would be able to find someone who shared this opinion, so during my search for a bike back in late March, I figured I would find a bike and exist in my bicycle bubble by myself.
Then, fellow JYMer Corinne told me she had two bikes and I could have one for free. Ancient (now we know she has been rolling for over 70 years), with three speeds and a flat tire, but with the promise of "Torpedo" written clearly in paint, I claimed her for the next few months.
However, despite my love for bikes, I was hopeless when it came to actually taking care of them. Not trusting myself to fix the flat tire by myself, I asked Corinne if she knew a place to get it done for me. Bellevue di Monaco, she answered.
That name evoked boujee qualities that were out of my price range, until she mentioned that Bellevue is a community bicycle workshop that is targeted towards people who are not from Germany and that makes bicycle repair accessible and affordable to anyone willing to put in a little effort of their own.
I thought the place sounded cool, but wasn’t sure I would have the guts to go on my own. Then we had the Munich by Night Tour during JYM orientation and we both saw the entirety of Bellevue. Corinne and I promised to come back, at least to fix my tire.
I spent four months in Munich and the idea of tallying up the hours I have spent at the Radlkeller, as it’s known, is daunting. I thought I would come to München and stay up late clubbing, but instead, my late nights were Tuesdays, when the workshop was open to the public.
After our initial visit, Corinne and I started showing up weekly, even when one of our bikes was in perfectly good working order, just to learn how to fix other people’s bikes. Markus, the most vocal of the bike mechanics, called us the "zurückhaltende" Americans and had incredibly high expectations for what we were able to achieve with just a smidge of advice and some German bicycle Fachvokabular.
Somehow, we survived with a smattering of utter confusion and many missteps. Bikes got fixed, got broken and got fixed again and we stayed up too late talking about health insurance, languages, cultural differences and of course, bikes, with a middle-aged German Bauengineur (Markus), a revolving group of Ukrainian teenage boys and a Somali four-year old with more sass and ingenuity than I thought possible in such a small frame.
Through the Radlkeller, with the aid of Corinne and Markus, I, along with fellow bike enthusiasts from Afghanistan, France, Ireland and many more countries, found a true community in a foreign place, centered around a deep sense of adulation for the best use of metal and rubber I know.