Your May 2026 Member Newsletter
Hello,
Welcome to Bike Month! Like Christmas for cyclists.
I’ve been racking up the miles in preparation for my Drop-in Ride on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route in July. I love planning new routes on unknown forest service roads and riding them to see what adventures I encounter: a ghost town, downed trees, snow drifts. A “road” that I might reclassify as a washed-out gully. But also good friends, picnics in the sunshine, wildflowers, laughter at the ridiculousness of it all.
At the office, we’ve chosen Bike Month to celebrate all things bike advocacy.
Ellie, our Routes and Advocacy Coordinator, and our staff and volunteers have been hard at work seeing through improvements to the USBRS, signing on to efforts that improve cycling infrastructure and safety, partnering with like-minded orgs to give our voice more power, and joining the (less newsworthy but immensely important) meetings where decisions get made. We’ve also created an Advocacy Hub with clear opportunities for our community to take action.
I hope you’ll take some time this month to discover all we’re doing in Advocacy.
- Here’s a deep dive into the four areas of our advocacy work right now
- Here are highlights from our attendance at the National Bike Summit in D.C.
- And here are five advocacy issues every cyclist should care about
Prefer conversations over blog posts? Join this month’s Campfire Chats. On May 20, Ellie and Haydin will share a behind-the-scenes look at their time at the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. You’ll get the scoop on what they talked about with lawmakers and what policies and issues are top of mind right now in the bike advocacy space.
Campfire Chats is a new member benefit, and the May Chat still has space! Our goal with these Chats is to create a small group environment conducive to conversation, so feel free to be on camera, speak up, and share with your fellow members in celebrating advocacy this Bike Month!
Regardless of whether you’re riding this season or have registered a Drop-in Ride, you can still drop-in on the anniversary fun through our dot-watching map.
Dot-watching is the armchair version of a bicycle adventure. Up to 50 of our 1,000+ Drop-in Riders will be carrying a GPS tracker during their trip. As they pedal along, their location updates live on our dot-watching map throughout the 2026 riding season. You open the map, find the live dots, learn more about their progress, and watch them move across the landscape in real time: through mountain passes, along river corridors, across the wide open spaces that make these routes worth riding.
Where are they right now? Did they make camp yet? What does that stretch of road look like at dusk? It’s a low-key, oddly meditative way to experience a bike journey from wherever you happen to be.
Right now, three groups are live on the map, en route to the TransAmerica Trail.
One is Together We Ride. Rich Segal and his wife are riding in honor of their oldest daughter Leora, who is 25 and has multiple disabilities and epilepsy.
“Our family has been organizing a charity walk for the last ten years to raise awareness about epilepsy and to raise funds for epilepsy research,” says Rich. “The walk is called ‘Together We Walk.’ In that spirit, we have entitled our ride ‘Together We Ride,’ and we are using the ride to raise epilepsy awareness. We have made our own custom jerseys, which have been a great conversation starter. We have talked about the prominence of epilepsy and the challenges it creates with the many people we have met along the way.”
Follow Together We Ride on our dot-watching map and read about their endeavors to raise awareness about epilepsy on their website: togetherwerideny.org.
Be sure to follow along all season long on our dot-watching map, as other groups, individuals, and our Drop-in Ride Ambassadors start their epic journeys.
Some of you have been waiting for a long time for me to announce this, but …
Finally! You can gear up with your favorite standard ACA-branded offerings, 50th Anniversary special edition merch, throwback Bikecentennial ‘76 designs, or very fun route-specific goods. And we’ll have new designs dropping throughout the year.
Besides being excited and having already clicked out of this email to check out the goods, I’m sure you’re asking yourself what took us so long.
Well, we implemented a new print-on-demand shop integration. It’s a total shift in how we fulfill orders, and it’s important you understand the why and how.
Instead of us guessing what you want and stockpiling a bunch of merchandise at our headquarters, we’ve partnered with a third party to print and ship the order directly to you when you order it. This means we can offer you more styles, designs, and sizes because we aren’t ordering in bulk and sitting on inventory that doesn’t sell. It’s more sustainable and reduces risk to the organization.
It does have some downsides.
- It might take a little longer to receive your purchase (5-10 business days).
- If you purchase maps and branded merch, you’ll have two different shipping costs since we’re still fulfilling map orders from headquarters.
- We can’t accept returns unless the item arrives damaged or defective.
That means no returns for fit issues. Please order according to the size chart listed on each apparel page, and read our return policy.
We’re new to this whole print-on-demand world, and no returns is a policy we put in place to protect our bottom line during a time when we are scrutinizing every line item and budget expense. To help give you peace of mind, I ordered a few samples and tested whether the size charts are accurate. And they are!
(And while it’s not exactly hot tea season any longer, I can attest to the extreme coziness of the sweatshirts and sturdy cotton of the t-shirts.)
We’re so excited to get these fun, new items in your hands. I hope you like them. Feel free to let me know! And thank you for your patience and support as we try new things.
Since I’ve been long-winded already, here are quick updates.
🚴 Limited seats are open on Epic Great Divide, Red Meadow Ramble long weekend, and Crater Lake Inn to Inn guided tours.
💌 Y’all have stepped up your support meaningfully this year, and we’re already a quarter of the way to our annual fundraising goal. Thank you so much!! 👏
📩 If you’ve been intending to chip in, please donate here. If you are 70½ or older, making a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) from your individual retirement account is a great way to give—and it may also benefit you come next tax season.
📸 As you ride this season, don’t forget to submit your stories and photos to our content-gathering campaign Adventure Cycling is Everywhere, so we can show the everyday impact of bicycle travel far and wide.
✅ USA Today selected Adventure Cycling to be in the running for Best Bike Tours, and you can show your love for ACA Guided Tours by voting every day through the end of May.
In my effort you leave you satisfied and full this Bike Month, here are two different types of bike trip chronicles for you to enjoy after a long day in the saddle.
“TRANSAM — Cycling Coast to Coast on the Trail the US Loved First” is a new book written by British journalist and Adventure Cycling member Paul Dunt, who rode the TransAmerica Trail with his friend Terry Wooller, in 2014. Released this year to coincide with the trail’s 50th anniversary, the book mixes history and humor to describe a transformational journey across the backroads of America. The pair encounter chasing dogs, forest fires, and tornadoes (all things other TransAm riders will intimately understand). But more importantly, the book explores whether the reason for creating the TransAm 50 years ago — to unite the country — still holds true today.
Intriguing question indeed!
Member Dave Fotsch recently responded to my call in the last member newsletter to share your adventures. A regular Substack blogger, Dave sent me the tale of his recent jaunt on the challenging Northwoods Route, which hugs Lake Superior through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. As a life-long cyclist from Boise, Idaho, with a passion for long distance touring, Dave does a great job documenting aspects important to any bike traveler: road conditions, detours, cell service, services, accommodations, weather, roadside attractions, and, of course, food. He even includes a daily mileage log. Dig in to his story and enjoy.
Email me back to let me know how you’re celebrating Bike Month this May, and maybe you’ll be featured in June!
Keep the rubber side down,
Jess
