Route 2010

Overview

The Ecotopia Biketour will move from Northern England, through France, Belgium, (maybe the Netherlands briefly) and Germany. See the rough route on googlemaps It will be about 1600km long, which is shorter than last year's and we'll take a little more time to do it (a bit over two months). Hopefully it's an improvement.

Places/events we are hoping to go to so far:

ENGLAND:

• Fri 25th June 6pm Critical Mass, London, England - starts from under Waterloo Bridge south (for those coming from continental europe & south-east england!)

• Sat 26 June - meeting/start point in the afternoon: somewhere in North Yorkshire tbc: people travelling from London go by train (we have 15 tickets from London to York booked already and will probably take a local train from there to somewhere), then hopefully just a short ride for everyone to the first sleeping place somewhere nearby

• Sun 27 & Mon 28 June - ride from North Yorkshire to York - approx 75km - we still need sleeping places on this section of the route - contact us if you have any ideas!

• Tues 29 & Weds 30 June - York, Towards Carfree Cities Conference IX - York [1] We'll participate in the conference "open day" on the 29th June, and then the 30th June will be our own workshop day led by Seeds for Change [2] There are also social events in the evening each day we are in York.

• Thurs 1 & Fri 2 July - ride York to Leeds - 45 km, or maybe ride one day, rest/visit/workshop or something the other day

• Sat 3 July - In Leeds for the UK Climate Camp gathering (meeting)

• Sun 4-Weds 7 July - ride Leeds to Huntington Lane Camp (near Telford) via Sheffield & Peak District - 200km

• Thurs 8 & Fri 9 July - two days at Huntington Lane Camp - [3] - for rest days, or optional visit by train to

Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales [4], or action that we organise

WALES:

• Sat 10-Mon 12 July - ride Huntington Lane Camp-Abergavenny - 130km - we still need sleeping places on this section of the route - contact us if you have any ideas!

• Tues 13 July - rest day, including some helping on the organic farm at Abergavenny Gaia Coach Institute - [5]

BACK TO ENGLAND AGAIN:

• Weds 14 & Thurs 15 July - ride Abergavenny-Bristol - 65km - or maybe ride all distance one day, start activities in Bristol one day earlier

• Fri 16 July - day of visits to local projects/organisations in Bristol

• Sat 17-Mon 19 July - ride Bristol-Portsmouth - 150km - we still need sleeping places on this section of the route - contact us if you have any ideas!

• Tues 20 July - take the ferry to France!

FRANCE:

• 22nd July - 1st August Camp Action Climat (french climate camp [6]) near Le Havre, France.

• Calais No Borders camp OR Lille

• somewhere near the sea, near border of France & Belgium

BELGIUM:

• 13th -15th August - Oostende, Belgium. Climate event: "Big Ask" for a climate law film making, political panel discussions and arts, big concert with Cold Cut as part of the "Energy Union Tour". GOOD PLACE TO JOIN THE BIKETOUR (Laura thinks so)

• 16th August Gent - Staying in a squat in Merelbeke!

(? action) *17th - 18th August Brussels - action against the brussels ring road?

(? possible) *19th - 20th August Nethen (30 km from Brussels) Permaculture festival www.festivalpermaculture.be

(? dates) *21-22nd August Hasselt, action with newly formed local Friends of the Earth group

NETHERLANDS:

(?maybe earlier) *23rd August - staying somewhere in the netherlands near Maastricht / Sittard / Geleen & meeting up with dutch people to cycle to the klimacamp!

GERMANY:

• 24th August - We will arrive to the klima camp in Borschemich-Erkelenz, Germany!!

• 25th August - Bike-action day with the klimacamp

• 21st-29th August [http:/www.klimacamp2010.de/ Klima Camp], Erklenz, Germany.

• Finish by riding to Cologne, where we will have a bit of evaluation, suggestions and planning for next year's tour .... and an ecotopia biketour 20th anniversary reunion party !

The list: Activist/Ecologist Events in (north-western) europe, summer 2010

How did we come to this proposal? We decided to evaluate all events, camps and gatherings together, instead of automatically going to an Ecotopia gathering now.

Here is a list of activist events on or near the general route(s) we are talking about, between June & August. List items in bold are the ones we think we will be able to go to. Add anything else that you hear about. The list can also be seen on an open edit google map at http://bit.ly/ceNwc6

• 21 May - 5 June, Solidarity bikeride making links between communities resisting fossil-fuel extraction, from Merthyr, Wales to Rossport, Ireland. [7] --> Maybe this could even link up with the ecotopia biketour ?!?!?!?!

• 12th June Naked bikeride, London, England [8]

• 19th June Naked Bikeride, Brussels, Belgium (to be confirmed)

• June (exact dates tbc) - UK National Climate Camp Gathering, probably in Leeds

• 21-25 June - Interference art/activism event being organised by Mark, London, England

• 23rd June - 24th August: Baltic Sea Info Tour, Nuclear Heritage [9] to raise awareness aginast radioactive polution of the baltic sea

• 25th June Critical Mass, London, England

• 26-27 June - Exmouth Exodus - SW England equivalent of Dunwich Dynamo (see below) [10]

• 28 June - 1 July Towards Carfree Cities Conference IX - York, England

• 2nd July - 28th Aug Otesha project starts cycling, Lands End, Cornwall, England

• 2-7 July - Tour de Elbe, international CZ-D ride from Decin /CZ/ to Magdeburg /D/ to promote Elberadweg

• 3-4 July - EuroVeloGex [11] followed by a 3-days cycling 5-7th July.

• 4-5 July - bikes not cars festival Amsterdam www.bikesnotcars.wordpress.com

• 1-4 July 2010 "Velorution Universelle" a big critical mass in Paris, France [12]

• 3 July - 15 August "AlterTour" tour-de-france for a non-doped planet, France [13]

• 1-6 july 2010 YOUPEC Geel, Antwerp, Belgium

• 8-11 July FOIBOS greenways conference, Budapest, Hungary

• 22nd July - 1st August Camp Action Climat (french climate camp [14]) near Le Havre, France.

• 23-25 July The Big Tent, Falkland, Fife, Scotland

• 25 July - 7 August - Tour de Natur (cycling tour middle of germany) www.tourdenatur.net

• 23-27 July Peace News Summer Camp, Oxfordshire, England [15]

• 24-25 July Dunwich Dynamo, London-Suffolk (east coast), England - 190km overnight bike ride, not really an activist event, but one of the biggest mass participation, not-sport, bike events in the UK [16]

• 25. july - 01. aug. Sieben Linden Sommercamp 2010

• 29th July - 4 Aug - Belgium Climate Camp, location unknown yet [17]

• 30th July - Critical Mass, London (& Brighton England)

• 1-21st August -Ecotopia, Flaeming, Germany [18]

• 4-9 August – Earth First! Summer Camp, Derbyshire, UK [19]

• 14th August - Oostende, Belgium. Climate event: film making, political panel discussions and arts.

• 20th-22nd August - Nethen, Belgium (30 km from Brussels) Permaculture festival [www.festivalpermaculture.be]

• 21st-29th August - Klima Camp, Erklenz, Germany [http:/www.klimacamp2010.de]

• 30. August - Pedal Power Day at Freestate Swomp Amsterdam http://swomp.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/pedal-power-dag-zondag-30-augustus/#more-920

• 27th september - 5th of october No borders camp, brussels. Probably interesting for people who want to travel on after BT.

• ongoing: Rossport Shell to Sea solidarity camp, Ireland [20]
• ongoing: (right now, at least!) Mainshill Solidarity Camp, southern scotland [21]
• ongoing: Major environmental in countries like Ukraine !

Dates not set yet:

• YFoEE Summer Camp, probably early August, Poland
• Reclaim the Fields [22] maybe Hungary, maybe Germany or Poland (near the border)..
• Peasant's activist camp in Brittany, France

Next Questions for the route: UK

We will be riding in the UK from 26th June to around 20th July, from Northern England to (probably) Portsmouth to take a ferry to France - at the moment what is needed most in the UK are co-ordinators, hosts for 1-2 nights and route testers for smaller 2-3 day chunks of the route along the way. The exact route will be determined by the people who come forward to do this, so please contact us if you'd like to get involved.

How to get to the start point:

• Some advice on taking bikes on trains between the UK and other European countries here: http://www.seat61.com/bike-by-train.htm The information is mostly suitable to people coming from the UK, but just read it the other way round!
• We need more ideas how to come to the tour, how to reach our starting point by cheap bike friendly transport on the surface, as there are the German wochenend ticket, mitfahrzentralen/ ride sharing, night train offers, the Czech bus student agency (do they take bikes?) Who wants to expand the list and fill it with details ?

Best ways to get from the UK to the continent:

• Mark has done some price research on all the possible route to France, Belgium & Netherlands http://bit.ly/dzeFXJ The cheapest ferries are the ones from Dover, and tickets get more expensive further away.
• School holidays in England and Wales start Fri 23 July so we should cross the channel before then to get cheaper tickets.
• We also need to consider using a bus/van if it makes taking bikes on the ferry cheaper
• It is possible to hitchhike ferries – we could reserve some days for it, so the whole group has time to give it a try. Who could check out, which ferries work well, how it works and stuff ?
• We could also ask the ferry company to sponsor us, give some free transport or at least a discount. Someone up for checking that out ?

Route questions for the rest of Europe

• who would like to coordinate the Biketour in Belgium, Netherlands and Germany? These are small roles, as the routes will be small in these countries!

For Belgium, google fietsroutenetwork or see http://www.fietsnet.be/routeplanner/ with 18000 km of bikeroutes in Belgium. And I'll ask around in my Maastricht web for Dutch contacts as it seems bt will go through south of limburg - Daniël.

Other Route Ideas

here is a list of the other ideas we had on the Route 2010. if u want to give one of them energy (for next year maybe!), or have other crazy ideas for 2011, please do so on the bt-org list or write to info[at]ecotopiabiketour.net

Proposal by Laura, partly based on Felt the heat!. Daniël added distances.

1. Eupatoria to Ecotopia (Black Sea, Ukraine to Chernobyl to the Ecotopia (1 - 21 Augus) in Germany)
   • minimal 2200 km (Sebastopol-Flaeming)
2. Tallinn to Berlin (ecovillages in all baltic countries - this could be adapted depending on what country co-ordinators could be found for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus....Poland, Germany)
   • Kaliningrad? (=Russia) -- Eiland 12:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
     1650 km.
3. Ireland to Ecotopia? in Germany, through towards car-free cities conference in York, England! (Which is 28 June - 1 July 2010, nice timing).
   • York-Flaeming is 1350 km, for that there is approx. 40 days without resting days
4. Switzerland to Ecotopia (potentially through Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic). This would include countries never before ridden through on biketour! Not to mention going thru some spectacular scenery at the start of the trip in the Alps.
   • 750-850 km
5. Switzerland to Spain,The EYFA climate camp in Spain! There would also be plenty of eco-villages/eco-projects/wwoof communities on this route.
   • Zürich-Barcelona is 1050 km
     EYFA camp @Barcelona is planned first week of July.
     climate action camp with large anti-GMO focus

   Maybe better the other way around? Or to Ecotopia 2010? Thats 1800 km. approx 30 days...

NOTE Kms are in minimum. aim is to make max. 50 km per cycling day. And biketour does not take the most efficient route. Also, it is good to plan one resting day every 4 days of cycling.

For England route, see the bikeroute plan.