Slowly the humanity is being allowed little by little to sniff around again outside their caves. As if spring was blossoming outside, neighbors are getting awaken from a long nap and sticking out their necks through the door frames for the first time in a while. Whoah! Things we were watching behind windows are actually tangible. Grass is wet, earth is cold, flowers smell. Tiny kids are crazily invading parks, running around trees and thanking their luck to be not any more in front of the screens. Elders can promenade again, sitting on benches to take their precious sunbathing and wind breeze therapies. Industrial workers are called back to the factories way too soon for them to be out of danger, local business owners are making inventory with concern and the tourism sector is pushing governments to go back to normality soon enough to be able to take profit from the high traveling season.
There is a light at the end of the dark tunnel of confinement. Prophets say nothing will be the same after Covid-19, brokers say economy will crash, hackers say Wall-E Disney Pixar movie lifestyle is closer than we thought, transcendentalists are sharpening their flint spears and upholstering their wild boar skins from their wardrobe, and ecotopians are anxiously greasing their chains after more than two months cycling up and down the hallways of their hideouts. We consulted our astrology constellations and herbal traders of confidence and they just agree on the next summer still looking very uncertain.
We are concerned on the difficulty of the global situation, and we want to express our condolences to all victims of Sars-Cov-2 and/or of the economic violence consequently developed. We are also aware of the pandemic situation Europe (alongside the rest of the world) is suffering and the social responsibility every one of us has in order to take care of the commune health. Due to the possibility of borders between countries being still partially closed in Summer, or maybe just Schengen Zone from outside, we believe it will be impossible for Ecotopia Biketour to be inclusive for all the possible participants. This uncertainty also paralysed our cooperation with social and ecological initiatives and gatherings in the proposed region and made it difficult to plan our visits. For these reasons, we are not going to do the international bike tour this summer. We want Ecotopia Biketour to live through the coronavirus, but as the rest of the population, we must also adapt to the actual situation. And we really know how to adapt to limited situations.
For these reasons, we want to propose that ecotopians will not be centralized in one specific bike tour but take a different form in every place they will be able to gather and it will depend on the conditions of every region or country. Some examples: imagine a Portuguese boat tour in international waters where Irish citizens can join; or as it might be quite free to move inside Switzerland, a Swiss bike tour can take place; suddenly the border between Italy and France reopens so people can converge into one group; maybe in some other place a Critical Mass can be organized; or there is some social distant friendly Rainbow happening somewhere; or a Paella and Sangria gathering in Estonia; or some anti-global-warming strike is taking place in Lapland. We want flyers and posters of Ecotopia being shared everywhere. The Ecotopia Biketour website will be available to update different local calls to action. Our mailing list can work in order to help ecotopians to join the local initiatives, or to discuss further plans. The Biketour blog will be open and willing to share those many different faces and materialisations of 2020 summer experience. And from time to time we will gather in online circles to keep networking, streaming skill-sharing workshops and social media bonfires to keeping growing all together. Soon we will update exactly all the tools we have and that are available to use.
Here are our recommendations for ecotopians to make a local bike tour happen:
- Send an email to our general mailing list or the participant list of the year you joined with your bike tour proposal and that you are looking for other people to join you.
- Write in this pad https://pad.rankenste.in/p/Border_situation_update_2020 about the traveling restrictions in your region to help others to connect.
- Use this map tool https://facilmap.org/ to start planning the tour.
- Use our jitsi server (an open-source platform for making video/voice group chats) https://jitsi.rankenste.in/ to meet online people interested in your tour.
- Use our pads (open-source shared online documents) https://pad.rankenste.in/ to gather useful information (you can make as many pads as you need).
- When you are confident enough that your tour or one that you want to join is going to happen, you can share it with us so that we can post it on our website under 2020-Local bike tours.
- Write a nice blog post(s) that can be shared or published on our web page when you are already rolling!
We hope that you have been inspired to make this summer no less spectacular than the last one, so keep on rolling!