Your March 2026 Member Newsletter

Mar 11th, 2026

    Hello,

    It’s here! It’s here! Ring the bells. Round up the town crier. Beat the drums!

    Our newest route, the Golden Gravel Trail, is live on our website!

    I am very excited about this route. Recently a journalist with Cycling Weekly asked me why, and this is (sort of) what I said:

    1. It traverses a wide variety of ecosystems and terrain, both unsung and iconic.

    You get to ride through the oldest mountains in the U.S. (the Ozarks) and the San Raphael Swell (The Wedge being my favorite part). You get fast gravel miles in the open plains (unless there’s a headwind) and slow mountain passes in the Rockies and Cascades. You get to feel your way along the very backbone of the American West like never before.

    2. Amy made it, so you know it’s good.

    Amy Wally has been a cartographer with Adventure Cycling for more than 10 years. She knows what it takes to make a great route, a safe route, an exciting route. She kept you in mind with every hour she spent clicking through Google Street View or conversing with route researchers. Here’s a video talking about how she makes a route.

    3. It’s ambitious! And our longest route since the Northern Tier in 1984.

    Today, the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route is far and away our most popular route, any way you measure it. It’s scenic, dirt, and away from the roar of speeding cars. I know we still have a ton of pavement-loving cyclists here, and we’re still making paved routes. (Klamath is 65% paved.) But we hadn’t made an epic dirt route since 1998. It was about time. And in celebration of our 50th Anniversary, we went big.

    4. It’s free to download and ride! (But donations after check-out are welcome!)

    As a present to the incredible support of this community for the last 50 years, we’re giving it away.

    👏You made this possible!👏


    Initial responses to the route tell me I’m right to be excited.

    So far, we have over 800 rides registered as Drop-in Rides, and over a third of those are on the Golden Gravel Trail. (BTW, only a few days left to register your Drop-in Ride and be entered to win one of three bikes and other fantastic prizes!)

    We’ve had journalists reach out and write stories about the route, and I expect the calls to keep coming. Here are just a few published articles:

    And within one day, we had more than 💥3,000 downloads💥 of this free digital route. That’s absolutely wonderful. We celebrated the launch yesterday with pie.

    Me, Amy, and Leah after pie time
     

    I’m so grateful to our members. It’s only through your financial support that we can keep ambitious routes (paved and gravel) built and maintained. It’s our mission in action, empowering more and more cyclists to discover the transformational change of bicycle travel.

    If you’d like to chip in now to help us design the next great Adventure Cycling route, please donate!

    Following our recent trend of giving lots of very cool stuff away to our supporters, I have two testimonials from winners of our year-end fundraising campaign.

    Members and donors, Glenn and Diana won a Bedrock Sandals gift card!


    “As folks who do not win things, this is exciting for Glen and me. He has been a member for many years and even though we don’t ride any longer (health issues got in the way), we have been cyclists for over 45 years. We actually met about 41 years ago on a holiday bike ride and are approaching our 38-year wedding anniversary soon. We’ve spent many years on recreational bike tours and our hearts are still there. We continue to support Adventure Cycling and its mission so others (and maybe us, again) are able to enjoy the feeling of the road, nature, and the camaraderie of like-minded enthusiasts.“
    –Glenn and Dianna R., Simi Valley, CA

    Member and donor Jon won a very nice Ritchey wheelset.


    “I am an avid cyclist and rode over 3,300 miles last year, including over 1,000 miles on four solo tours. I plan to use these beautiful wheels to ride many, many more touring miles on my beloved Surly Travelers Check and locally on my classic old Airborne Zeppelin. So glad to be part of ACA — thank you for all your advocacy and support.“
    – Jon G., Jupiter, FL

    Thank you so much to all of our donors! I would equip you all with new goodies and gear if I could.

    Which reminds me, and I’ll only say it this one last time!

    The deadline to register your Drop-in Ride and be entered to win bikes and gear is March 15. Don’t miss out!

    We need your input!

    Adventure Cycling staff, Ellie and Haydin, are headed to Washington, D.C., March 23–26 to join our advocacy partners and friends at the League of American Bicyclists for their annual National Bike Summit.

    They’ll have a filled week of meetings and Lobby Day on Capitol Hill. But on Thursday, March 26, they get to attend educational sessions, and they’d love your help deciding what to attend.

    Here’s how you can help: Vote for your top three sessions.

    Ellie and Haydin will attend what they can based on your input, then share key takeaways when they return. If you need more information, review the schedule here.

    We appreciate everything our members help us do.

    In fact, we had an incredible turn out for our Guided Tours Survey: over 2,000 respondents! Your answers about your preferences, hopes, goals, and feedback will help us shape the future of our Tours program, including planning our 2027 guided tours.

    Our annual members survey will be hitting inboxes a little later this year (just too much going on!) but we’re excited to get it out to you. As always, your participation is vital to understanding what members need from Adventure Cycling.

    Until then, feel free to send me pictures and stories of your currently riding adventures! I’d love to include them in a future Member Newsletter.

    Happy tailwinds,
    Jess