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

Campaigning for Sustainable Agriculture…Is that Criminal?

kate May 29, 2013 June 3, 2013

27.5.13 The trial against Belgium activists, now under heavy criminal charges for targeting a GM potato field in Belgium two years ago, has restated this week. On 9 May 2011, 400 activists attempted to replace a GM test filed with organic potatoes, in an act of civil disobedience to rubbish the destructive GM trial and highlight the long term damage this could mean for sustainable agriculture. 11 people, of the 400, were arrested (some with and some without probation) and are now under criminal charges without any of their witnesses having been heard. This conviction poses a dangerous precedent for…

Biketour Open Meeting in Berlin before the Critical Mass!

kate May 27, 2013 May 27, 2013

***JOIN OUR FIRST OPEN MEETING IN BERLIN, before the CRITICAL MASS ON FRI, 31-MAY*** To get started with regularly meetings of the “Berlin base”, we invite you to our first Open Meeting on May 31st, 17:00, at the circular courtyard outside the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Mariannenplatz, Kreuzberg. We will introduce the project, talk about ways to get involved, and share some picnic food that everyone contributes to, and maybe make a banner for the critical mass. Please bring some food to share and your bikes because we plan to join the Berlin Critical Mass at 8pm from Heinrichplatz. If you cannot…

May 1st: “Political (Holi)day” or “(political) Holiday”?

anonymous May 7, 2013 May 7, 2013

OK, we were some four to six thousand and they were maybe a hundred, and our noisy and chants of disgust filled the streets much more than their heroic songs could ever do. But: They marched. The Nazi demonstration took place in a suburb of Berlin, protected by german police. The sad thing is that in other places big masses of people crowding in the streets (also referred to as “blockading”) could prevent such events. With the sad impression in mind that we had been many, but yet to few, I went home after their march was over. To get…

Justice, beyond borders

biketour April 25, 2013 April 25, 2013

Some thoughts on this years theme from a participant from 2012 After learning about this year’s “boundaries, borders and beyond” theme through the winter meeting minutes, I took some time to reflect on it and write down some thoughts and ideas that might further a discussion on how to fleshen out the theme and make it more concrete. I think if one goes deeper into the theme philosophically, the real problem isn’t as much borders as such, but closed borders, borders that are not fluid. Where people live together there will always be borders one way or another – think…