In the year 2022 we will be cycling for 3 months in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France. We will start on the 3rd of July in Amsterdam with one-week of preparation camp. Then we cycle south towards Marseille and spend the last weeks along one of the most beautiful coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. A more detailed plan with what projects and festivals we’ll visit on what days is available on our Route Page.

As mentioned above the beginning of the tour (3rd to 24th July) will be a tour for FLINTA and LGBTQIA+, while hetero endo cis-male persons are asked not to join the tour. In this way we hope to achieve a fun and empowering biketour experience, which avoids one-sided masculinity. Also the idea is to develop the collective towards being more equally organised and represented by different gender orientations, instead of the imbalance towards the cis-male side, which has been a pattern on the tour and the orga the last years.

To explain the abbreviations: FLINTA stands for endo cis-Female, Lesbian, Intersexual, Non-binary, Transgender and Agender. LGBTQIA+ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersexual, Asexual and those whose identity is not accurately captured by the before mentioned orientations (+).

We hope to see you on the tour :)

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, write us via the contact form.

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

Info event in KTS Freiburg – 21.02.2020 at 20.00

michal February 15, 2020 February 18, 2020

Come and meet the Ecotopia Biketour collective! We will announce where we are going to cycle in 2020, show some photos and tell something about the history of the bike tour and try to answer your questions. There will be something to eat and you can talk with different people who did the tour.

Tall Bike Tour

Ecotopia Biketour February 6, 2020 February 6, 2020

At the end of August 2018 I built a Tall Bike and cycled it 250km from Copenhagen to Växjö, to start my studies. Here’s a spoken word-esque account. Bike touring by yourself on a tall bike (with no spare parts and minimal tools) is two things: 1. Astoundingly beautiful. 2. Existentially terrifying. I saw the tops of trees flickering copper, gold and crimson silver in the sun and happened upon a goth’s picnic on some forest roadside. They looked embarrassed for me, having heard me singing moments before. There was tarmac melted into long cracks in the road…

July 2019, Scotland. Daily ecotopian life.

Poulou September 11, 2019 September 11, 2019

It’s 8am, 9am, or sometimes 1pm, when the Ecotopians open their eyes. In this country, no stifling heat propels them out of their tent at dawn. This piece of cloth becomes a morning shelter when the soft sound of the drops striking the roof echoes tirelessly. Despite this “flic floc” melody from the clouds and the resulting temptation to stay warm; body against sleeping bag or body against body; every morning their souls find the energy to face the greyness awaiting outside. Ziiiiip, the entrance opens, and the senses marvel. Their ears are glad to hear the voices coming from familiar…

It’s cold and wet

Ecotopia Biketour August 11, 2019 August 11, 2019

It is said that it is not good to believe in cliches. For this reason we went to check what is said about Scotland. From Edinburgh to Glasgow, we had numerous chances to taste the lovely weather of this amazing country! When it was not raining, we were cycling uphill and downhill over and over again with the wind pushing against our unperturbed smiles. Only to arrive somewhere to cook under the tarp accompanied by the ceaseless choir of millions of midges. We were wondering why last year we were around 40-50 ecotopians and this year we were not more…