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

Green Action Zagreb and the BIC POP!

kate August 28, 2013 October 25, 2013

.In Zagreb we were warmly hosted at Green Action, Zelena Akcija / Friends of the Earth Croatia, who welcomed us with a party with some of the local activists dealing with local migration and environmental struggles. Over the few days there we held an info exchange with local migration activists, visited two of the nearby politically active squats/ free shop, and made full use of the in-house DIY bike kitchen at Green Action. . . . There some of us also took to the streets, to ask some of the locals or people who would talk to us, their view…

Screengrabs of Slovenia scenery

syl August 26, 2013 August 26, 2013

I am leaving the bike tour today to travel on my own for two weeks. It has been an interesting journey, there were amazing memories such as dancing to a band called Bi Patriot? in a slovenian town near the Austrian border, playing bumper cars without electricity, many Radlers, interesting workshops and more. Anyway, I am uploading a screenshot of my facebook photos, the majority of them are from Slovenia, with the town of Maribor up the top, following the river from Maribor, and crossing the mountain pass into Austria and the view looking towards the Alps into Austria.

Grenzen bürokratischer Ausrüstung und Bewegungsfreiheit

grenzblog August 24, 2013 October 6, 2013

Da haben wir sie: Unsere eigene erste einschneidende (Staats-)Grenz-Erfahrung auf der Tour! Nicht, dass es in groesseren Gruppen nicht zu erwarten waere, dass irgendwer irgendwie geartete “falsche” Papiere dabei hat und beim Grenzuebertritt Probleme hat. Was nur verwunderte, war die Art des heute aufgetretenen Problems: Es handelte sich naemlich nicht um vergessene, verlorene oder nur noch wenige Tage gueltige Papiere auf der Seite unserer Teilnehmenden, sondern um einen unglaublichen materiellen Missstand am Grenzuebergang: Dort fehlten doch tatsaechlich die richtigen Stempel!!! Die Geschichte geht so: Am kleinen Grenzuebergang zwischen Slowenien und Kroatien in Dobova/Harmica ueberqueren diejenigen von uns, die EU-Dokumente haben,…

Ecotopia Biketour in KLEINE ZEITUNG

BTcoord2013 August 21, 2013 August 25, 2013

A Newspaper Article about us just appeared in the local pages of KLEINE ZEITUNG: http://www.kleinezeitung.at/kaernten/voelkermarkt/3385125/radtour-europa-stopp-leppen.story