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

What have I learnt from the tour?

sam September 3, 2012 September 19, 2012

As my month of sunkissed, intense Ecotopia draws to a close, I’ve found myself wondering: have I changed as a person? For better, for worse? The more I wonder, the clearer the answer: yes, Sam, of course you’ve changed for the better, Now you have a deep, hot, glowing tan. A tan over the forearms, and even on the underside of the forearms. A tan on the back, and the deepest bronze cresting your shoulders. A sunkissed head, neck, ears, nose, forehead, chin and cheeks. Even my enormous heart now appears more golden. And also my entire legs, because I…

The biketour in food form

alice September 2, 2012 September 19, 2012

‘It fills my heart when people can just eat what they want to and there is still food left at the end’ – João Taborda 2012 Cycling up a hill towards Valli Unite this evening, just after my first ripe fig which I have been waiting for for months, I realised that it’s been a while since I wrote something and I thought that I would spend a little time collecting my biketour memories so far, using our encounters with a vast variety of foods of all shapes and sizes to help me. Apples – We woke up one morning…

The Squats of Coordinamento Asti Est

Ben September 2, 2012 May 13, 2013

30th August – As the tours cyclists congregated outside a bar by Asti train station, a couple of our hosts for the evening arrived to take us to a large squatted building where we would eat and sleep. The building once belonged to the department of health but, left empty, it now houses twelve previously homeless families of Moroccan immigrants. We ate our evening meal with members of the association which initiated the occupation and were told we’d be eating breakfast at another squat in the morning where we’d also learn more about the project. In the meantime we had…

first days cycling italy..

taborda September 2, 2012 September 19, 2012

And now for another day by day update from the past week. although we have just realised that; 1. today is our two month birthday of starting cycling!!! Time for a celebration I think. 2. we only have one week left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! nooooooooooooooooooooooo saturday 25 august, after the the NO TAV camp general assembly, a big group of people tried to walk to the TAV construction site and were stopped by a police block which made us have to take a smaller path. We were heading to the Clarea protest site, where many tree houses and other resistance structures where some…