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

Bologna to Venice

Ben September 29, 2012 September 29, 2012

We had been intending to reach Bologna on Thursday for the special market that takes place at the squat we’d be staying at but we had changed our plans and arrived on Friday instead. As luck would have it, there was another of these special martkets taking place elsewhere in Bologna and we mananged to get a couple of people to come over to tell us all about it. Basically these markets bring together consumers and local non certified but nether-the-less organic small farmers. They mostly make use of squatted spaces for the markets and are part of a growing…

Ecotopia Biketour e Critical mass a Venezia by Raimondo TV

taborda September 25, 2012 May 13, 2013

Daniele Pernigotti made a nice video on the Critical Mass to Venezia and the Ecotopia biketour arrival. Thanks to Daniele and Raimondo TV

Beyond our Backyards international meeting

taborda September 23, 2012 September 24, 2012

While the Ecotopia Biketour and the 3rd International Conference on Degrowth are over, the chance to put degrowth into practice continues at the next International meeting of BoB – Beyond our Backyards. BoB is an open network aimed at developing structures and processes for exchanging experiences, learning and advancing knowledge through action research. The second meeting of this network will be held in Can Decreix, where the biketour stayed for some days in July, from 29th September to 4th October 2012 Volunteers are also needed to make it happen and are welcome anytime from now. Enjoy a nice place to…

Another week full of warm hospitality while cycling in italy…

taborda September 20, 2012 September 20, 2012

monday 3 september, we planned to leave early and got up on time, but the rain (that had been falling already for 3 days) was strong. We decided to delay our departure and got invited to join the lunch with the Valli Unite family :D. After lunch, with a grey, but dry, sky, everyone on the farm warmly waved us goodbye and we had a fresh afternoon cycling to Castel San Giovanni where we camped on a field with a small shed that ended up being our kitchen and dinner room when the rain started again. tuesday 4 september, after…