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Ecotopia Winter Meeting is happening!
by Ecotopia Biketour 2025 27 Dec '24

27 Dec '24

hello everyone, missed us? ---- some people have started to form an orga for ecotopia 2025. wanna be part of it? send an e-mail to info(a)ecotopiabiketour.net ---- next year we'll go to northern france! and possibly some surrounding regions/countries. ---- there will be a winter meeting in vienna on the second weekend of january. please come if you want to do orga work! please only come if you know you have some capacities for orga work! ---- Thursday 09. and morning of Friday 10. will be some time for arriving, hanging out, catching up ---- 10.-12. will be days mostly commited to orga work special focus will be on: - re-evaluation of last year, especially internal conflicts + learnings from this - reflecting on ebt being a very white group & orga + a workshop on antiracism within our group - how to incorporate antiracism into ebt 2025 as a core focus - starting to plan the tour ---- the 13th will be for some more hanging out (if you have the time) and leaving. by 14th everyone should have left or made other plans with our hosts (write us about it!) ---- if you wanna come send and e-mail including your day and time of arrival. also tell us if you want to get your travel refunded! we'll send you the adress & instructions about the space then. ️ ---- see you soon!

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Re: Flyers & Posters
by Alexandre 04 Jun '24

04 Jun '24

Nice job!!! :) On Tue, Jun 4, 2024 at 10:41 AM <2024(a)ecotopiabiketour.net> wrote: > dear bikeborgs and ecotopians! > > flyers and posters are now ready to print. if you want to print and > distribute some in your circles or maybe just to hang a poster in your > room - feel free to do so. any distribution is very welcome! the files > for the flyers are attached, another mail with the posters will follow. > > big thanks to jonas goonface (who is an artist that you can find online > too) for the beautiful poster designs! > and i did the flyer - i apologize for bad editing skills when we filled > in the speech bubbles for the translated versions. > > these are the translations that we have: english, finnish, estonian, > latvian (only via online translator), lithuanian, polish, russian, > belarussian, ukranian, french, german, italian. > > if you do lay out the finnish version of the flyer somewhere, please > also print the bypaper ("FLYER_BYPAPER_SÁMI") and put it next to the > pile. sadly, we didn't manage to get a sámi translation but we still > want to warmly welcome all sámi people who would like to join the tour. > > also sadly we failed to get a proper latvian translation - we reached > out to the community but not to our projects in latvia - what a mess-up! > so the one we're sending out now has been translated with an online > translator. do let us know if there is something seriously wrong or > weird about it. ^^ > > all the best, > mint (he/they) and the rest of the > orga_______________________________________________ > Biketour mailing list -- biketour(a)eyfa.org > To unsubscribe send an email to biketour-leave(a)eyfa.org >

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Registration now open!
by 2024＠ecotopiabiketour.net 02 Jun '24

02 Jun '24

Hi everyone! we had a problem with the registration form, some of you might have noticed. now it has been fixed and the registration is working and open! so please do register if you're planning to come to the tour. :) it's not a must to register, but it helps a lot with organising, especially in communication with our hosting projects. you can register almost anonymously, put a name that you want and leave any field free that you don't want to fill in, or don't know yet what to put. the only thing that is needed is a working e-mail and your consent to having read the guidelines. there is also more detailed info online now! check out the "projects/events", "route" "QINTAW start 2024" and "how to get there" pages on our website under "2024". we are still looking for a host in vilnius! let us know if you know something. see you in the summer!

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challenging white ecotopia!
by 2024＠ecotopiabiketour.net 14 Mar '24

14 Mar '24

dear ecotopians - especially dear black, brown, indigenous, asian and migrantized ecotopians, ---- for a long time the ecotopia biketour has been quite the white environment and it mostly is that way still. this doesn't mean that no BBIPoC or migrantized people have joined ecotopia in the past or have been/are part of the tour and orga, of course. but they have usually been a minority or even just a single person. some of our PoC friends feebacked that they were hesitant to join or didn't come to the biketour because our group was so white. we would like to acknowledge, challenge and change that. ---- there are many reasons for this exclusion, most of which have to do with structural and individual/casual racism. it also has to do with the history of cycling and climate activist communities in the past and today. it also has to do with how we are organized and how difficult it can be to make a community that is constantly changing places, people and structures into any kind of a safer space. ---- but we are sure there are ways to open up more space, as we know there are just as many enthused cyclists in BBIPoC and migrantized communities as there are in white ones. we also draw hope and motivation from seeing how tools like the QINTAW start have changed the biketour structures. ---- so there are some steps we want to take to make the tour more welcoming and safe to you as a person and less dominated by white voices overall. we already have a few concrete ideas that we will talk about more and hopefully put into action during the ecotopia orga month and some others we still need to work on and discuss more. ---- one thing that we want to invite you to right now is to make your voice be heard by the broader ecotopian community. throughout the next months leading up to ecotopia biketour 2024 we would like to have more regular blogposts and we want a big portion of them to adress and challenge ecotopias whiteness. some of these posts will be written by us, reflecting on our values and structures and educating each other about racism and critical whiteness. ---- for other posts we invite you to write us and share your perspectives in your own voice. you can write about anything you want. feelings like anger, frustration, exhaustion, fear and sadness are just as welcome as joy, love and jokes. you can tell us about what keeps/kept you from joining the biketour, any good, bad or mixed experiences you had while on ecotopia or in other travelling and bike communities, anything you want white people to finally understand or anything you would like to tell your communiti(es) about cycling and being with a group like ecotopia. of course, you don't have to write about any of this or anything related to racism at all. some of us are motivated to work on more educative and explanatory blogposts and it's not your responsibility to make ecotopia a less racist or less white space. so write about anything you want! any format you choose is welcome, be it a poem or a drawing or a shortstory or a long essay or whatever else you choose to express yourself. ---- you can send your contribution to info(a)ecotopiabiketour.net and put "suggested blogpost" into the subject of the email, so we know where to put it. ---- let's start some change - careful with each other, dangerous together!

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Ecotopia?? Tell us what you think about our name
by . 26 Feb '24

26 Feb '24

Hello! Ecotopia?? One of the topics that came up during the meeting in December 2023 was about the name of the biketour. More specifically, if we want to change it. The name has a lot of history – it was first used as a name of a bus tour and later gathering from many years ago, starting in 1986, then a biketour was attached to the gathering in 1990, and then the gathering stopped happening in 2008, and since then there is just the biketour! This isn’t the first time we have discussed the idea of changing the name. It has already come up a few times in meetings over the last years, but the decision to change it was never made. When we discussed the idea in the last meeting, we came to conclusion that the organisation group is too small to make this decision and we want to ask more people what they think. The main reason we discussed, as a reason to change the name, is to have something that reflects more of the values that we try to practice. Sustainability and the environmentalist approach are still main points on our agenda, however some felt like the name “Ecotopia” can give the impression that we are only that. And since many eco-/sustainability-/climate movements in Europe are very white, ableist and cis/heteronormative, we worry that the name “Ecotopia Biketour” paints that same image instead of the intersectional approach that we want to have. The biketour has changed a lot over the years and has a wider focus than just environmental issues. On the other hand, we are quite widely known under the name Ecotopia, we have lots of connections and it’s easier for us to receive funding, while we have this long history. As a small group we couldn’t reach any decisions or concrete ideas, so we want to ask all previous participants, current participants, hosts, friends and community, what you all think. Below is a link to a poll where we want to hear from you what you think. Here is the poll <https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/7LwFw7T5WvS620tZMpnY22UcjIk2L4SvxKIv…> https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/7LwFw7T5WvS620tZMpnY22UcjIk2L4SvxKIv…

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Spring meeting 2023
by Ecotopia 26 Feb '23

26 Feb '23

Spring Meeting We will have a second physical meeting to prepare the biketour, *24-26 March 2023 *– location will be one hour from Berlin by public transport If you want to join the meeting, please get in contact <https://www.ecotopiabiketour.net/about/contact/contact-form> with us to learn about the exact location. In this meeting we want to make some final decisions about the route, start preparing the transportation of our equipment to the starting point, establish the communication and registration of participants and create and spread promotion material. Anyone who is interested is welcome to join the meeting. The idea is to have discussions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is possible to arrive on Thursday evening and leave on Monday morning. Sleeping places will be organized, it will probably be needed to bring a sleeping bag and mat. We don't know yet, how much possibility we have, to refund travel costs. There also is the possibility to join any discussions online. If you want to join some or all discussions, please let us know. Greetings

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Spring Meeting 2023
by Ecotopia 26 Feb '23

26 Feb '23

> > Spring Meeting > > We will have a second physical meeting to prepare the biketour, *24-26 > March 2023 *– location will be one hour from Berlin by public transport > > If you want to join the meeting, please get in contact > <https://www.ecotopiabiketour.net/about/contact/contact-form> with us > to learn about the exact location. > > In this meeting we want to make some final decisions about the route, > start preparing the transportation of our equipment to the starting > point, establish the communication and registration of participants > and create and spread promotion material. > > Anyone who is interested is welcome to join the meeting. The idea is > to have discussions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is possible to > arrive on Thursday evening and leave on Monday morning. Sleeping > places will be organized, it will probably be needed to bring a > sleeping bag and mat. > > We don't know yet, how much possibility we have, to refund travel costs. > > There also is the possibility to join any discussions online. If you > want to join some or all discussions, please let us know. > > > Greetings

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Forwarded Message about Circle Books 2018 & 2019
by ecotopiabiketour2022 13 Aug '22

13 Aug '22

Hey people, Jenny here, I forward you a message from annaobst(a)gmx.de . "Hejhej to everyone (hope this massages are going to everyone, who attended in the biketour. The biketour of this year wanted to make the library smaler, that they carry with them. For now I have the circle books of the year 2018 and 2019 und Berlin. If people are interested to have and keep them, I am happy to send them somewhere. Otherwise I will keep them for a while and if I need more space to give it to the recycling ;) Hope you get this massage - because I like to write simple stuff a bit complicated hehe. Good bike and see you on the road! Lingelingeling ;)"

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Biketour along Rhine
by 2022＠ecotopiabiketour.net 06 Jun '22

06 Jun '22

Hello everybody We received a nice mail with an invitation for a biketour in the beginning of July along the Rhine between France and Germany. I would like to share it with you: French-German committed bike trip "Tour du Rh(e)in": join us from July 5-15, 2022! - You want to be on the road with young people (18-30 years old) living in Germany and France in the summer of 2022? You've always wanted to explore the Rhine Valley or want to get involved with sustainable alternative initiatives? 400 km in 10 days seems like a pretty good distance to you? The Tour du Rh(e)in is an engaging, transcultural, participatory and inspiring bike trip for young adults. Through this collective bike trip we want to : share, learn through the collective, promote a more meaningful way of living, realize our longing for a more positive and inspiring world through action. Together we want to create the tour and ride from July 5 - 15, 2022 along the Rhine River on the French-German border between Freiburg and Strasbourg. We will discover collective places and initiatives as well as cities on both sides and also take action ourselves to have a positive impact on these places. We will stay close to nature, at initiatives or at campsites. In short, the Tour du Rh(e)in means crossing borders and getting active in a group by bike. It is meant to be a space for collective experimentation, opening the field of possibilities. Your ideas and wishes are more than welcome and we are looking forward to you! The project is organized by two associations for political education, Bapob e.V. and Les Balladin.es and we will interpret throughout in German and French. In total, the participation fee is between 150€ to 200€ according to self-assessment. Solidarity contribution 75€. Included are accommodation, meals, travel expenses and program. More information on request. If interested, contact us at: audrey.houillon(a)gmail.com or nolwenn_talec(a)posteo.de Audrey for the bapob e.V. http://www.bapob.org/ All the best wishes you, Falda from the biketour collective

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Ecotopia Biketour 2022: Amsterdam–Marseille (first 3 weeks LGBTQIA+ and FLINTA only)
by Ecotopia Biketour 2022 23 May '22

23 May '22

Ecotopia Biketour is a self-organised, international community that has been organizing an annual 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. Ecotopia Biketour is for anyone interested in traveling by bike, community life, DIY, an ecological lifestyle, and/or learning by experience. If this sounds good to you, feel welcome to join us! The start of the tour (the first 3 weeks, 3rd to 24th July) will be reserved for LGBTQIA+ and FLINTA . Please see more about this below. We are usually a group of 20–40 cyclists. Most people join for between 2 weeks and 2 months and are participating for the first time. We rarely cycle all together; some people go ahead in the morning and mark the route with arrows on the road. People then follow in small groups at their own speed and rhythm. We support each other and keep distances at a level that everybody and everybike can manage. Don’t worry if you have never travelled by bike before. We attempt for a non-hierarchical environment by rotating responsibilities, sharing skills and respecting personal needs. People can sign up for daily tasks (cooking, pulling a trailer, marking the route, etc.), but everyone can decide individually how much they want to do. We gather as a group in a circle every few days to talk about how everything is going and to collectively make decisions. We aim to create a non-discriminatory environment, where discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation, class, race, age, ability or religion is not tolerated. We cook communally with portable stoves, carry all our equipment ourselves, try to buy local and organic food, and we dumpster-dive where possible. We suggest a donation of 3–5 € per day to cover food costs, but people who cannot give this donation are also welcome to join. In 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 detailed plan with what projects and festivals we'll visit can be found on our website. As mentioned above, the beginning of the tour (3rd to 24th July) will be a tour for FLINTA and LGBTQIA+, while hetero cis men are asked not to join this part of the tour. This way we hope to achieve a fun and empowering Biketour experience that avoids one-sided cis hetero masculinity. Also the idea is to develop the collective to make it more equally organised and inclusive towards people of different gender identities and sexual orientations, instead of the imbalance in favour of hetero cis men, which has been a pattern on the tour and the orga the last years. To explain the abbreviations: FLINTA stands for Female, Lesbian, Intersex, Non-binary, Transgender and Agender. LGBTQIA+ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual and those whose identity and orientation is not accurately captured by those mentioned before (+). If you want to join us, find more details and a registration form on our website. If you have some questions or have recommendations for projects, groups and events for us to visit on the way or would like to help preparing the tour, please write to info(a)ecotopiabiketour.net or join our mailing list on our website. We hope to see you on the tour :) The Ecotopia Biketour Collective https://www.ecotopiabiketour.net/

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