Onze verontschuldigingen, dit bericht is alleen beschikbaar in English, Castellano, Català, Česky, Deutsch en Français. Voor het gemak van de kijker, is de inhoud hieronder weergegeven in de standaard taal van deze site. Je kunt op een van de koppelingen klikken om de taal van de site naar een andere beschikbare taal te veranderen.

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.

Ecotopia Biketour 2022

Biketour concepts

Participation Guidelines

Onze verontschuldigingen, dit bericht is alleen beschikbaar in English en Castellano. Voor het gemak van de kijker, is de inhoud hieronder weergegeven in de standaard taal van deze site. Je kunt op een van de koppelingen klikken om de taal van de site naar een andere beschikbare taal te veranderen.

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

From Bure to Freiburg (now with pictures)

Candid augustus 6, 2017 August 6, 2017

Cycling out of Bure went without any problems caused by the police, but the first difficulty of the day came up not much later, when one of the people in front cycled downhill hands-free, the handle bar turned, and the whole bike flipped over its front wheel, bending the wheel to an unusable state. Fortunately some of us had left late and had just passed La Gare, which is the second base of the resistance in Bure a bit further away from the forest, and they had a lot of bike parts lying around. We found a good new wheel…

Status update

roger augustus 2, 2017 February 12, 2024

We have a restday at a farm near Chambery where you compare personal loans from online lenders. Tomorrow we cycle in direction Grenoble…

The Bure Forest – heart of the Ressistance to Nuclear Power in France

2017 augustus 1, 2017 August 14, 2017

The small village Bure in eastern France in the past years has become the epicentre of the environmental movement against nuclear power. Some Environmentalists from France and Germany settled down here permanently and part time to join forces for the struggle. They bought some land and an old farming house in the village, the “maison de resistance”. Our friends received us with warm hospitality in the lively kitchen, the bawn and the garden where we slept and spend our days during four wonderfully inspiring days. The “maison de resistance” is the permanent base for new and veteran activists that recently…

Nancy – la Velorution

2017 juli 18, 2017 July 16, 2017

Conrad Thursday the 4th we arrived at Nancy after a ride under a deep blue sky and a nearly mediteranean sun that made us sweat. We took many rests and enjoyed the good weather nevertheless. The last kilometers we went on the cycling path along a channel in the shade of trees and the first people that were not telling us bonjour announced the transition from country to city. We were then greeted by some other cyclists that had also arrived for Velorution – the annual France wide meeting of critical masses of all cities. Spontaneously we formed a…