Ecotopia Biketour is a self-organized environmental and social activist bicycle tour that has been cycling through different parts of Europe each summer since 1990. On our way we visit social and environmental projects and groups, to learn about their struggles and visions, to exchange knowledge, to create connections and to support them by participating in actions or doing some physical work. Read more about what the Ecotopia Biketour is.
Ecotopia Biketour 2017 will go through Germany, France and may be to Switzerland and eastern Spain. A more specific route will be announced on the website as soon as it is decided. If you have some recommendations for projects, groups and events for us to visit on the way or would like to help preparing the tour, write to 2017@ecotopiabiketour.net. Read more about Ecotopia Biketour 2017.
Latest blog posts
Drawings
Hello world, this is Lukas writing to you. I’ll show you some drawings I made on the tour. I tried to find myself some trash to transform into art. Like old books or any piece of paper. “Out of trash!” As cycling is somehow the main thing on the biketour, I wanted to do drawings of this as well! So I had to draw while cycling… It was quiet a challenge because of the bumpy roads and the always moving models. www.lukasseite.wordpress.com
Free Riga!
We reached the our first host in the latvian capital shortly before midnight after our hardcore cycling day. It was the Kreicbike-workshop. A place where loads of crazy custom- and freakbikes are built. Also motorized ones. It was an impressive place with tons of tools and equipment. They were also related to Radi Vidi Pats, the other freakbike-workshop we were visiting earlier in Liepaja. Unfortunately, here we didn’t feel as well as we did there. It was not a very comfy place to sleep and to hang out. And we were facing sexist and macho behaiviour by the guys using…
2 days, 180 km, 3 punctures, 1 thunderstorm
After having survived the hippie-festival the biketour was heading Riga. We had 2 days to make the ~170km. Quiet tough, regarding that normally, we do normally between 40 and 80 kilometers per day… But we had a good road and not really any questions about the way. Just all the time along the coast. Never ending pinewoods on both sides of the road, every now and then a tiny village. Just cycling and cycling and cycling, meeting others having their break aside the road or on the beach, passing them, meeting someone else pulling a trailer, having a break and…
Biketour-Inventary
On the long cycling days… you might find yourself talking about anything and everything with your companions for the day. One topic that came up was STUFF. some people seemed to have just 2 bike bags and nothing else, some people have entire trailers for their pet (see past posts with the dog!) whilst some people seemed to be balancing half a dozen stuff sacks on their racks (ahem.. me). A few of us made comparive lists of our personal equipment and decided to publish them – this could either be read as a packing list guide (or, what not…