About

Ecotopia Biketour is a self-organized, international community that has been organizing a yearly bicycle tour in different regions of Europe since 1990. During the tour we visit environmental and social projects and practice forms of activism and sustainable living. We cook communal vegan food, practice consensus decision making, and share skills by doing workshops. One of our core values is to create a non-discriminatory environment. Participants are asked to give a voluntary contribution of 3–5 € per day to cover food costs, but if you cannot afford this you are welcome to join for free! Ecotopia Biketour is for anyone interested in travelling by bike, community life, DIY, an ecological lifestyle, and/or learning by experience. If this sounds good to you, feel welcome to join us!

We try to make the tour as inclusive as possible for any level of fitness or experience with bike touring. We cycle a maximum of 30–70 km per day (depending on the hills), and on average half of the days we stay in a place without cycling. Our experience is that almost everyone can manage this, but there is the possibility to shorten the distances if we discover that it is too much. People cycle in small groups or alone, at whatever speed suits them, and many people like to take it slow and take lots of breaks. A detailed route plan for the day is shared in the morning, arrows are drawn with chalk on the road at every turn, and if you get lost you can always call the Biketour phone. If you have a shitty bike, you will not be the only one, and we enjoy supporting each other if something breaks. We make sure that the last people to leave carry a toolbox, a phone and a first-aid kit in order to assist if anything goes wrong on the road.

Read more about what the Ecotopia Biketour is. If you would like to get an insight into the organisation or just ask a question, contact us.

Biketour concepts

Participation Guidelines

Because we all have different visions of life and diverse personalities, Ecotopia Biketour has developed a set of basic values which helps all of us to create similar expectations from this project.
> participation guidelines
> awareness

Self-Organisation

As we oppose any leadership or hierachical structures, the Biketour is organised in an open way where everyone can be a part of.
> how it’s prepared
> consensus
> circles

Online Tools

We try to use free and open-source software as much as possible in the preparation process. The same goes for sharing photos and videos in the group.
> online-tools
> photo-sharing

On the road

Everyone should be able to cycle with the Biketour. Therefore we keep distances low and have scouts going ahead who mark the route. Everyone can follow the signs on their own level of speed. Any tasks like scouting, cooking or pulling a trailer are shared.
> on the road
> tasks & rota
> trailers
> wildcamping

Food

All communal food on Biketour is vegan and cooked with wood on our mobile rocket stove.
Whenever it’s possible we go dumpster-diving and buy food from local farmers and small shops.
> veganism
> rocket stove
> dumpster-diving

Activities

We plan and make many activities on the tour: skill-sharing, helping at projects, joining actions and protests, bike-fixing and other events.
> skill-sharing

Latest blog posts

A Small Review On Bike Stands

Ecotopia Biketour August 22, 2024 August 22, 2024

The last day of leaving Estonia was when my two year old Ortlieb paniers broke apart and I had to tape them. I hope to get a refund but WTF they claim to be so reliable… This is not the first of my technical material to be broken on this biketour, and here we enter the main point of this blogpost: the bike stands. There are two schools of biketourers: One which bikes lay against trees, and the other where, after a fancy backwards move of the cyclist’s leg, the bike stands elegantly in the middle of the field, like…

Trails and Tribulations of the Tallinn Triple Trip Tour (Tallinn-Haapsalu)

Ecotopia Biketour August 7, 2024 August 7, 2024

I arrived in Tallinn by bus on the 18th of July, first day of the non QUINTAW part (which is something we might talk in another blogpost). Back then I was young, excited to start that new adventure of cycling through this unknown paradise we like to call The Baltics, I was so naive… Okey, the Tallinn experience was indeed thrilling. We were hosted for five or so days in the Anarchist Social Center of the city, Ülase 12, by the most sweet, lovely and caring hardcore coloured mohawk haired gang of punkies. They were making us dinner every day!…

Missing the Flixbus to Tallinn – Europe in a nutshell

Ecotopia Biketour August 3, 2024 August 3, 2024

Passed the despair of missing the only direct Flixbus from Berlin to Tallinn (22h), Galina and I decided to make new friends. If you ever feel lonely in your travels, Flixbus stations are the right place to make new friends: you share the frustration of your bus being delayed, the joy of being able to fit your bicycle in the back, you get to chat about the place people are leaving or the one they’re going to -I even managed once to convince the person sitting next to me to book an appointment with a therapist (it took more than…

Sleepover Time, Bicycle Repair and Prison Abolition – Turku 06.07.-09.07.2024

Ecotopia Biketour July 29, 2024 August 1, 2024

we arrived in turku fashionably chaotic and one day late during the afternoon and evening. a very sweet person from ABC showed us around. if you have never been to a bikekitchen: imagine a place that is only about bicycles. there were wheels hanging from the ceiling in all sizes and shapes, some empty bicycle frames scattered in between. on the walls hung front forks in shiny metallic colours like garlands, stood shelves with front racks, backracks, tubes, gears, tools and more parts. some cables sticking out over here, piles of boxes with screws over there. Turun Pyöräpaja (Turku Bike…