We all have different visions of life and different personalities. This page includes the beliefs and practices of the Ecotopia Biketour. These values and practices are aspirational, and always under construction. They’re meant to rather live in our hearts and minds and not written in stone as stiff dogmas. There can be tension between values, and often, compromises are necessary in practice. We describe the values and practices here to create similar expectations of the Biketour, and have common values to base our collective decisions on.
We also know we bring patterns of oppressions from our outer lives, that have infected us, to the tour. For instance, we are against, say, sexism, but in the sense that it’s our job to be eradicating and unlearning it, than in the sense that we could guarantee we’re already there and it can never pop up.
It’s important to our community that participation in the tour is open, without background vetting, requirement to belong to any clique nor an exam. In both distant and near past we’ve had controversies, problems, conflicts and crises and miserable embarrassments (Holding Ourselves Accountable). The failures should not be pushed aside but dealt with and motivate.
We want our values to be more than just advertisement. By making and being the tour, we call and commit to work towards living up to our own values.
The Biketour is aiming to be a non-hierarchical community, and there is a collective responsibility to realize this principle. Decisions are made and problems are resolved by practicing consensus. Many people who come on the Biketour are not experienced with working this way, so please bear in mind that it works best if people concentrate on the discussion and make constructive proposals for concrete problems. We try to keep a balance between working effectively as a group and respecting everyone’s personal preferences and freedom.
Ecotopia Biketour is self-organised It is prepared by an open group of former participants and anybody who wants to help out. On the tour, there is ideally no difference between organiser and participant. The people who prepared it try to share their knowledge with other participants so that all of us know how to keep iketour going. Everyone is welcome to help out with organising the iketour. Get involved
On the tour, . Everyone can choose when/if they want to pull a trailer, keep the communal money, or do the cooking.
The Ecotopia Biketour is multi-lingual. It is a collective responsibility to make sure everyone understands and can be understood and, if possible, alternating the language used in circles (). In the past, English has most of the time been the dominant language on the Biketour, but we encourage multilingual communication so as to include those who do not feel comfortable communicating in English.
SAFER SPACE
On the Biketour we aim to create a non-discriminatory environment, where discrimination based on perceived or actual gender or sexual, class, race, ability or religion is not tolerated. The Biketour, like anywhere else, is not a place free of discrimination, but it should be a place where discrimination discussed in an open and constructive way. We encourage people to be willing to listen and learn. Although everyone can join Ecotopia Biketour, it is not open to people who show persistent oppressive behaviour. The Biketour commits to supporting and promoting the safety of participants from all kinds of oppression and discrimination.
Privacy must be respected: towards other participants and the projects and groups that we visit. Photography and filming should be cleared with all participants before hand, and no photos or videos should be uploaded, sent or published on the internet without the explicit consent of all the people depicted.
Because the group can be diverse, participants should be considerate of their different experiences and backgrounds, and varying involvement in activism, which influence their values. e are all working towards finding what values work best for the Biketour community and society at large.
INCLUSIVENESS
We care about being an inclusive biketour, especially to those for whom society is usually non-inclusive. We can have different periods during the biketour that are more accessible for different kinds of people, like the childish weeks in 2026, and the QINTAW start in 2022-24. If there is a specific period, this will be announced beforehand.
The Biketour aims to provide opportunities for non-formal education. Here as well, everyone is encouraged to take an active role in making this aspect of the Biketour a success. If you think that you could give “workshops” on a specific topic or share an ability, you are more than welcome to do so.
In the “Ecotopia style” of touring, the distances are kept low for accessibility, We support each other with preparing and fixing our bikes.
SUSTAINABILITY
If we can’t find enough food in the bins or in the wild we choose to support local farmers/small shops because industrial farming and supermarket chains produce many social and environmental problems. Please buy food in small shops or directly from local farmers! Small is beautiful.
JOINING THE BIKETOUR
We encourage to avoid planes for joining the Biketour. We alternative means of transport
In bigger groups, people need time to get to know each other and joining participants need time to adjust to the group and learn about the self-organisation processes that we share among us. Therefore stay with us for a minimum of 1-2 weeks to become an active member of the group, although shorter stays are also welcome.
These guidelines have evolved from more than 35 years of experience, and the thousands of participants that have taken part over those years … we are always open for new ideas and suggestions to improve this process – to make the iketour experience an example of the social and political and well as social values we all share.
