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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

Winter Meeting Updates

Ecotopia Biketour December 28, 2023 December 28, 2023

Coucou! Our first Orga meeting is over and thought we could give you an update of some of the things that we have been discussing. This is a rather long post, as we have covered several big topics. Would be amazing if you had the time to read through all of it, but if it’s too much, here’s a list of the article’s content: – Route for 2024 – QINTAW start – Orga Structure – Conflict Resolution – The Use of Alcohol and Other Substances – Changing the Name …? Where to….? You’re probably curious where…

Beograd to Timisoara – a tale of wetness & warm hearts

Ecotopia Biketour September 26, 2023 September 27, 2023

I joined as a newbie in Beograd, finding a cheap bicycle and then trading up before the turnoff to our stay at the public camping area on War island, crossed by a pedestrian metal bridge manned by the military. (The understanding was that traffic ceased at eight o-clock but was later found to be for visitors and not campers like us. Meanwhile, it prevented us from joining a collective that was serving vegetarian pizza. Boo.) Beautiful site with beach, picnic tables, forest, and open grass at the merging of the Danube and Sava rivers. Internal rumblings of the group were…

Lljubljana – Zagreb

anonymous September 5, 2023 September 6, 2023

Soooo finally come some insights from the route Ljubljana-Zagreb. Yes, some things take time. After leaving the vampire-house and having an amazing bath in a beautiful spot by the Sava river, it took a few days to really feel like a group again. As it was my first time on the tour, I thought this was usual, but some fellow riders said it was a strange feeling of “in-between places”. Indeed, a big chunk of the group which was there from the beginning needed some time on their own after socializing so much and was planning to join again…

3 weeks with the Biketour in Romania

anonymous September 5, 2023 September 5, 2023

I saw that the blog wasn’t updated for a while so wanted to share my experiences of three weeks on the biketour in Romania. After a loooong train journey to reach Arad, I saw that the local trains from Arad all leave at either 5 in the morning, or 5 in the evening. Given that a journey of 150km was going to take 4.5 hours, which would then deposit me in the middle of nowhere in darkness, practicallity won and a got on a train at 5am heading for Brad. The train looked like it was 60 years old,had…