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

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…

Difficult Times – Helsinki to Turku 01.07.-06.07.2024

Ecotopia Biketour July 19, 2024 July 19, 2024

i think we like to keep it fresh and lighthearted here on the blog. and it’s true that even the more difficult periods of ecotopia are aften funny or at least make a good story when you look back at them. to quote a good ol’ proverb: bad news make a good story. but let’s not make it sound prettier than it was this time. the first two cycling days were HARD, chaotic and utterly exhausting. one person had a bad bicycle accident in helsinki on the day before we started and looked r o u g h, wounds and…

TeleGram channel of Ecotopia

Ecotopia Biketour July 19, 2024 July 19, 2024

Hey, so there it is, better late than never maybe. In the future it might get multi-lingual t.me/EBTecotopiabiketour This channel is notoriously late, chaotic, neglected. It’s actually better to come check out than to read. Smtms we don’t have enough internets (or electricity), sometimes too much of it, and anyway it’s mostly meant as ‘counter’ to ‘social’ media.

Finding Solace in Solis – Helsinki 25.06.-01.07.2024

Ecotopia Biketour July 14, 2024 July 14, 2024

i feel as though my brain cells are rotting and expanding at the same time. the crew we have and the company we keep know how to get things done, are nerds in various topics, and together our skills are (almost) endless. but we do not forget to also have fun and laugh and to communicate across culture and language our weird senses of humour. in the north of helsinki we were greeted so warmly and with such hospitality by some of the people from solis who generously hosted us in their garden for a week. we were fed fresh…