Booklet/Tasks

On the Biketour we usually organise daily tasks using a rota (Australian/American: roster), so a plan where everyone can sign in to do a certain task a certain day. Usually people decide themselves when they want to do what and how often (as different people have different needs, some are more exhausted from cycling and living in a group than others), but it is good to have some guideline written down every how many days one should sign up for what task.

Here are some suggestions for daily tasks that have been used in the past. This is not a fixed list but can be used as a reference when deciding about the rota on the tour.

Short-term/day tasks

Cooking

The Cooking Team makes sure that enough food is acquired (bought/dumpster-dived) and prepares it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On cycling days this usually involves passing by a shop on the way (sometimes making a detour), as we can usually not carry food for multiple days, so we need to get food every day. On rest days this involves asking locals about food sources and possibly cycling to a near town.

The Cooking Team can be split up into separate teams for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but often it has been one team for the combination dinner+breakfast+lunch (because this can be bought at once). Lunch can be prepared during breakfast or even during dinner, and people pack it into tupper-ware boxes for the way.

The Dinner Team should try to arrive early to be able to start cooking. It can team up with the trailers to carry the bought food.

Cooking is a delegating task: The Cooking Team can always ask for help to dumpster-dive, to get food, to make a fire, to chop vegetables.

For a group of 20 people, a Cooking Team of 3 people is a good size.

Cleaning

The Cleaning Team washes the pots and pans after each meal, makes sure that things are stored in a waterproof way for the night, and packs the trailers in the morning. Packing the trailers should be a priority, as they will be slow but need to arrive early.

Sometimes, the Cleaning Team also washes everyone’s dishes, as this is more hygienic.

For a group of 20 people, a Cleaning Team of 2–3 people is a good size.

Dumpster-Diving

The Dumpster-Diving team finds out about supermarkets on the way and possibly makes detours to go dumpster-diving there.

Scouts

The Scouts find out about the best possible route (sometimes also several days in advance). They take maps with them and are the first ones to leave in the morning. They mark the route drawing arrows on the street using bricks or chalk, or sometimes laying arrows out of stones, branches, pine-cones or trash. It can also make sense to mark other things on the way, such as water sources, swimming places, fruit trees or supermarkets.

If people are catching up with the Scouts, it is fine to ask them to help drawing arrows.

The Scouts should make a route announcement in the morning and/or draw/write the route on a piece of paper so that people can copy it.

The Scouts should take the communal phone. They can use it to call the project if they get lost on the way there, and people can call them to ask about the route if they get lost.

On wild-camping days, the Scouts need to find a good spot to camp. The Scouts should call the Tail in the afternoon/evening to see how far behind people are, to avoid going so far that people will arrive in the night. On the wild-camping spot should be space enough, a place to get water (a public tap or a house to ask) close by, trees to find firewood, and it should be easily accessible for everyone, including people who pull the trailers. If there are people living close by, it is better to ask them if it is okay to camp there.

The Scouts will be the first ones to arrive at the sleeping place. Thus they can already make some preparations for the camp, such as collecting firewood.

The Scouts should be 2–3 people.

Tail

The Tail carries the bike tools and the first-aid kit and always stays behind the last people (unless they are fine with becoming the new tail or the after-tail). If someone gets stuck, they help them to fix their bikes or to find another solution. The tail carries the second communal phone, in order to be in contact with the scouts and to be called if someone has a problem.

The Tail should be 1–2 people.

Trailers

We have three communal trailers that need to be pulled. Make sure to check which trailers your bike can pull (not every bike fits every kind of attachment). You can also switch with someone else half-way if you want.

Multiple-day tasks =

Project coordinator / day facilitator

• Cleaning
• Cooking
• Dumpster-diving
• Scouts
  • Criteria for sleeping places: Water, firewood, space, ...
• Tail
• Trailers

Long term/period tasks:

• Project coordinator / Day facilitator
• Blog
• Money
  • Properly document expenses!
  • Keep receipts
• Welcome

Other tasks:

• Circle facilitator
• Emotional support / Talk-to person
• Activities/Actions/Games planner
• Wake-up call

Cooking

From 2012

Breakfast and Lunch team: 1. Be the first to wake up 2. Maybe restart the fire for tea/coffee 3. Check if there are left overs from the day before and decide what you need to buy (ask previous breakfast people how much milk, cereal, bread, spread, vegetables and fruit you need to get). 4. Try to buy healthy, local, organic. It's good to do this the night before if you have time :-) 5. Write down how much of everything we needed and communicate this to the next group 6. Try to make the breakfast start around 20 minutes after the wakeup call.

Dinner team : 1. Make a fire/light the rocket stove 2. Create a central waste collection point 3. Find more people to help to chop up the delicious vegetables 4. Cooking:try to use the most of every fruit and vegetable (lemon peel tea anyone?) and make sure there is enough for eveyone. 5. Done! The dinner crew shouts “food” try to notice if someone is missing and save them some food 6. If you learnt some cooking tips communicate them to the next group (e.g 1kg of pasta per person is too much...)AND think about contributing your special recipe to the Biketour recipe notebook After meal-time cleanup team: 1. clean up 2. Inform the breakfast and lunch people about any leftovers. Don't throw food away! You can make a tasteful leftover paté with toast for breakfast. 3. Figure out who is taking the trailer the next day and make sure they know who the food people are.

Tidy up after each meal. It is important to stay healthy and leave places better than we found them. Help pack things into the trailers so that the trailer people can leave early with the dinner crew. Clean all the jars and separate all possible waste at rubbish collection points – it is your task to dispose the garbage in a sound way :-)