What bt is

The ecotopia biketour is an eco-mobile action community on its way to or from ecotopia. Some 10 to 50 bikers from different backgrounds - nationality, age, language, experience - cycle together towards ecotopia, doing actions on their way and meet up with environmentally minded people and groups. They carry all equipment for camping on their bikes and trailers. It is a totally chaotic tour, with constantly changing sleeping places, group composition and food quality, but with some common things like: consensus based decision making, all tasks divided between the participants, a sleeping place every night and breakfast, lunch and dinner for a participation fee calculated in ecos and collected by sigmund, our magic hat.

1:) sleeping places

The basic BT sleeping place includes some space for tents. As nothing more is really needed, we made the experience that we can organize our sleeping places during the tour, during the day. This is nice sometimes - it strengthens the group feeling when people work together to find the place and to make up for its downsides.

Basic features which should not miss with any organized sleeping place are drinking water supply, a fire place to cook and wood in reach.

also appreciated by participants are hot showers/sauna, a lake/ place to swim, toilets, a roof, a breakfast room, a kitchen equipped for big groups, some contact and exchange with locals, an action, internet facilities, information about the surroundings - bike shops, (eco)markets, where to get products from local farmers, tourist traps ...

Another type of sleeping place is schools and sport halls, which have quite some facilities. Make sure, there is place for a cooking fire!

We try not to pay for the sleeping places, or if get big reductions, as we are an ecotopoor with poor people from eastern europe joining. 2 euro/person/night seems an ok price. except we decide to support that project we are being hosted by -then we like to pay more ~ if we can afford it.

2:) food

We buy our food on local markets or from farmers we pass by, as eco as possible and cook on wood fire, if we do not have access to a big kitchen. Nothing to organize for that, except that a local group might ask beforehand for food donations...

3:) registration

People come and go on biketour. Only some of them register, and only some registered people come. Plans change... it is hard to get a proximate number to count on - 10 to 50 is quite accurate.

4:) the route

We do prefer quiet asphalt roads in a beautiful scenery, slightly downhill. ~50 km per day. And take this serious. A day with 30 km is very nice to fluff around and enjoy the not cycling sides of life. Do less on action days and none on resting days, where we should have 2 per week. not that there BT can not do more, it is good to get people to go over their borders sometimes, but a slow pace gives more time for the nice things of biketour, the brakes and workshops and a deeper picture of the sleeping places. If u can not find a sleeping place to cover that 90km hole between those 2 very nice ones, just leave it open to the group to find one. If people want to cycle more, they are always welcome to do that on their own account.

5:) consensus

We experiment with consensus based decision making. We do that since years, and we think that all decisions should be based on consensus. But we do also know, that none of us learned this in school and that there are certain human qualities which take care, that we will always have decision makers and people sitting quiet in the circle. cultural and language barriers, human group behavior, gender specific behavior, highly motivated or very lazy people and the constantly changing group structure are standing against our try, but we think, it is important to train our communication and decision making skills and be patient during long morning circles, try new structures and experiment with the whole thing to live an alternative to what governments present as democracy.

6:) local involvement

We want to bring an exchange between the biketourers and the locals. Good sleeping places are organized by local groups, who need help with some action or want to present their project. a possibility to present ourselves is always appreciated, and some party/concert/dancing make some people happy. But note that BT is totally chaotic and famous for its ability to be late. Great if local people join us for some days, or at least for the campfire or the pub. To get more local integration of the tour it is also important to have a good national outreach for participants, so that there are quite some people speaking the local language on the tour.

7:) organizing community

Usually we do have a international coordinator in the center and he should have the overview. This year no one was willing to take the job, so we gave it to the WHEEL instead. This is a body meeting every second week via skype, a forum to exchange between all active parties, and for all the lazy bums to give their two cents.

Then there are the national teams with their national coordinators, sometimes several in a big country. Those work on their national route and stuff, but also together on the common international stuff. And there are some veterans, who help out organizing or can at least be asked for advice.

It is so cool; there is a strong international biketour community. It is just not so visible via internet, works more with personal knowledge. Some people like cycling more than typing. But we have 15 years of history and lots of people have been enthusiastic about BT during this time. It is a prelude to a nice friendship, and you can travel Europe surfing BT-couches.

8:) money

Sometimes we are very lucky with funding, but generally we are the poor type. Asking for free entry or reduction everywhere, as we are a big international group with poor eastern europeans and should get everything for free. On the other hand there are really nice project on our way and we want them to profit from our stay. Not only through the higher media interest, but if possible by leaving some money. But even more valuable are friendship and inspiration exchanged between participants and locals.

9:) conclusion

There is quite some magic happening around biketour, chaos everywhere, things not working out, being different than expected and a lot of improvisation. But in these rooms, this not organized part, which people have to cope with together, will be filled with the nicest minutes and be the time, when friendships grow. Leave place for creativity, BT itself cost a lot of time and energy per day, trust in the biketour ability to work things out herself:]