Your January 2026 Member Newsletter
Hello,
Welcome to 2026! For some, a new year can be a meaningful marker — a moment to reset, establish new habits, or commit to a grand adventure. For others, it’s the time to relearn writing the date.
But for Adventure Cycling and its members, it means something momentous: 50 years of impact. Fifty years of creating the most trustworthy routes in North America. Fifty years of guided experiences. Fifty years of chronicling trip reports, gear reviews, and tales from the road. For Bikecentennial riders, that’s 50 years of commitment to life-changing adventures.
Because of your support, it is nearly impossible to count the number of cyclists touched by our programs over the last half century, whether directly through a map sale or indirectly through the stories we all tell. But if I had to guess, I’d ballpark it between 250,000 and 500,000 people.
Those lives changed because of you. Adventure Cycling is 50 thanks to you. And we have so many more cyclists with whom we want to share the challenge, joy, and fun of bicycle travel.
Our 50th Anniversary is both a celebration of your support — of the life-changing adventures you’ve ridden and wanted to pass onto others — and a launch pad to connect with cyclists who need bicycle travel in their lives.
When I first started working at Adventure Cycling more than seven years ago, I wrote a paragraph for the website that I still believe in today:
“We believe that adventure, whether small or large, can be transformative. To live a life of discovery, we must unplug, break from our routines, feel the wind on our brows, and welcome opportunities to feel awe and wonder. A bike is the mechanism to get you there. Through inspiration, empowerment, and connection, we open the door to adventure for everyone.”
Our small staff has done tremendous work to create 50th Anniversary events that open the door to adventure for everyone.
In fact, around 350 members, tour leaders, Bikecentennial riders, life members, and staff just wrapped up our Jubilee in the Desert kickoff event a few days ago.
Members participated in 10 rides along Tucson’s The Loop shared use path, 10 hikes to view Tucson’s amazing desert flora and fauna, and six socials to connect with each other.
Life Member and Bikecentennial rider Dreux DeMack had this to say about the gathering:
“Celebrating 50 years of bike travel and Bikecentennial with Adventure Cycling at the Jubilee in the Desert was like coming home to friends and family, some you knew and some you had never met. Making connections with new friends, finding common stories of bike travel experiences and pedaling the Tucson, Arizona bikeways immersed all of us in a blanket of kinship and inspiration. The Jubilee was an exciting way to kick off the 50th anniversary of Adventure Cycling in 2026 that will encourage members and others to seek their own stories on the road and beyond with Adventure Cycling’s bike tours and journeys we all create as we Pedal Forward!”
Dreux and others chronicled the event on the Facebook group Bikecentennial 76 & Adventure Cycling’s 50th Anniversary Celebrations.
So many of you pitched in to make the event run smoothly. We want to particularly thank our resident Tucson member and volunteer, Kent Bauman, for managing so much of the stuff related to the event, and our lead volunteers for their support: Dimitri Anifantis, Steve Charnon, Nicole Charnon, Tony Docal, Brielle Wacker, Marin Byrne, Kelly Hannegan, and Arthur Brown.
Thank you to all our volunteers, donors, and attendees who made it possible!
We hope the event gave the participants some much-needed face time to swap old stories and ride and hike together to create new ones.
If you enjoyed your time there, please share a little about your experience as part of our Adventure Cycling is Everywhere campaign. Your story will help us showcase the decades of joy and community that Adventure Cycling creates.
The biggest gift we’re giving our community to celebrate 50 years of support is the Golden Gravel Trail.
Cartographer Amy is working to bring this 3,804-mile bikepacking route to Ride with GPS by March 10, 2026 (for free to the bike travel community!). So you’ll have everything you expect from an Adventure Cycling epic — a well-researched and planned route, detailed riding conditions, bi-directional narratives, elevation profiles, weather charts, points of interest, bicycle-related services — just in time to plan your Drop-in Ride.
Covering eight states on 70% unpaved roads, it will rival the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, but with even more diversity of terrain and landscapes. It’s also the longest route we’ve mapped since the Northern Tier.
I’m particularly excited that the route stops just north of my hometown at Salt Plains State Park in northern Oklahoma, a destination for bird watching, gypsum crystal digging, and fishing. While most cyclists might prefer to skip over the plains, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the incredible gravel, the quiet roads, and the hidden gems of the route’s Oklahoma section. (For a little related self-promotion [because when have I ever been above that?], you can read about my self-made bike trip through northwest Oklahoma online, which first appeared in the February 2022 issue of Adventure Cyclist.)
I hope you’ll give the Golden Gravel Trail a try as part of the final leg in our 50th Anniversary stool: Drop-In Rides.
A modern DIY twist on Bikecentennial, Drop-in Rides ask you to join the party your way: your section, your timeline, your group (or solo). And we have perks, giveaways, and how-to articles to help you Drop-in where you can.
Our partner Otso Cycles is kindly giving away a Fenrir Ti to one lucky Golden Gravel Trail Drop-in Ride registrant. Built specifically for bikepacking, the Otso Fenrir was Sarah Swallow’s bike of choice for the route, and it could be yours, too.
And if Golden Gravel isn’t your style, Drop-in Rides also include the Great Divide and TransAmerica routes.
Registration for any Drop-in Ride is free, but we do ask you to know which route you’re riding, your planned start date, and your experience level/riding style. If you’d like to ride with a group but don’t have one yet, never fear; go ahead and register, find your group on Companions Wanted or elsewhere, and add a group name and group members to your registration later. There’s no time limit on when you can register (except, maybe, after the 2026 riding season), but if you’d like to be considered for our giveaways, March 15 is the registration deadline.
If you’re like, “That’s nice and all, but where’s my merch?” Never fear there either. This month, we’re spinning up designs, connecting the e-commerce technologies, and making merch available in our store by the end of the month. Think of it as cascade of merch: we might not have it all available at once, but we’ll get new designs posted as we make them.
And finally, since we can’t do this without you, the experienced bicycle traveler, Adventure Cyclist magazine is rounding up the best bicycle touring tips and tricks from our readers.
So whether you’ve been riding for one year or 50, if you have a packing tactic you swear by, a secret camping strategy that’s never failed you, or a motivational mantra that’s seen you up one mountain pass after another, we want to hear about it. Submit your advice by February 16, 2026, for the chance to see it in print!
As always, Adventure Cycling staff is a small, dedicated group of cyclists who want you to have the best 50th Anniversary celebration possible. We’re currently planning an event for our TransAm Express Tour as it passes through Missoula in June, as well as a series of online events where we can swap expertise and build confidence to take on the next adventure. Topping it off, Andy’s busy travel schedule means he’ll be reaching out to members and donors local to his travels throughout the year.
2026 is going to be a doozy. With any luck, I’ll find some time to ride my bike and feel the impact of our work on a personal scale. I hope you do, too.
A few housekeeping items to tie up your January newsletter:
Donors. Wow. Holy cow! You really brought our year-end fundraising across the finish line. We can’t thank you enough for your incredible support. Your donations directly fund our daily work and our major programs like route development, advocacy partnerships, and improving your membership experience in-person, online, and on the road. It’s thanks to our donors that we can confidently face the road ahead. We hope you might consider joining us as a Century Circle monthy donor today, even if you pitch in a small amount.
From us to you: Thank you.
Lastly, as you have heard, in response to procedural concerns raised by a small group of members, we’re conducting a second vote on the Adventure Cycling headquarters building sale with enhanced procedures to ensure all members have confidence in the process. Even if you already have voted, you must do so again for it to count.
You should have received an email with your credentials yesterday. If not, check your spam and promotions folders in your email inbox, and then send us an email if you’re still experiencing issues: questions@adventurecycling.org
The deadline to vote is January 20, 2026, at 11:59 PM Mountain Time. We continue to encourage members to vote FOR the building sale to allow Adventure Cycling to invest these resources in securing our mission for the future.
I’ve added topics to our FAQ, which you can find if you scroll down on the vote page. I hope this helps shed light on any questions.
If you missed yesterday’s member meeting, you can watch the recording here. You can also review the chat and Q&A transcripts. And if you wanted to speak but didn’t get a chance, you’re welcome to post to our Forums or Facebook page.
May 50th Anniversary winds blow only at our backs,
Yours,
Jess Zephyrs
