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

Ecotopia Winter Meeting is happening!

Ecotopia Biketour December 25, 2024 December 25, 2024

hello everyone, missed us? —- some people have started to form an orga for ecotopia 2025. wanna be part of it? send an e-mail to info@ecotopiabiketour.net —- next year we’ll go to northern france! and possibly some surrounding regions/countries. —- there will be a winter meeting in vienna on the second weekend of january. please come if you want to do orga work! please only come if you know you have some capacities for orga work! —- Thursday 09. and morning of Friday 10. will be some time for arriving, hanging out, catching up —- 10.-12. will be days mostly commited…

Antiracism Reading Circle: Let’s learn together!

Ecotopia Biketour December 19, 2024 December 19, 2024

The Ecotopia Bike Tour touches by it’s nature on many aspects of life where people with racial privilege will have a different experience than those without, for example crossing borders, hitchhiking to the bike tour, dumpster diving, camping in places where people may not expect us… We also find that during the bike tour, we often lack understanding of each other’s struggles. While Ecotopia has the values of antiracism and “trying to be open for all” we also find aspects of our own biases back in how we organize. It should also be noted that the bike tour remains mostly…

day by day: RIGA — LIEPAJA

Ecotopia Biketour September 30, 2024 September 30, 2024

26.08 Riga, Fukusima Struggling with finding my way to Fukusima, but getting a reply quickly when I ask for help. Being welcomed by the only person I know there. Eating my lunch together with the food which is immediately offered to me, some couscous and pickled vegetables and mushrooms, while the question “Is it better to have diarrhea or to vomit while biking?” is discussed. People apologize for the imagery, and I say that I don’t mind and sharing related stories of my own. Eating pancakes with banana and peanut butter and chocolate paste. Repairing the roof of an overwater…

Kombinatas Fest and Back To Biking 15.08.-22.08.24

Ecotopia Biketour September 12, 2024 September 12, 2024

Our ecotopian experience started at Kombinatas Fest, in a north-east lithuanian campsite, the 15th of August. Getting there from Barcelona was a challenging experience on itself, taking into account our willigness to avoid planes. But we achieved it!! And realised that there is still much to be done in improving train connections, prices and bike users friendlyness. In that last aspect, there was one key ingredient that helped us a lot: bike sharing among the ecotopian group. Since the group was changing, there were two kind and cool people leaving two bikes that were incredible matching our sizes and expectations.…