ADVENTURE CYCLING ASSOCIATION

We envision a future in which:
Everyone is aware of the amazing power of traveling by bicycle.
People are inspired to explore landscapes and cultures by bicycle for fun, fitness, and self-discovery.
There are national and global communities that inspire, empower and connect people to travel by bicycle.
Everyone has easy access to a national network of bicycle routes.
Barriers to bicycle travel are eliminated.
Everyone has the information and tools necessary to travel successfully by bicycle.
Bicycle tourism is a thriving part of the economy.

To fulfill this mission and achieve our overarching goal between 2018 and 2023, we will make the following transformational pivots and pursue five strategic goals :
We will move from expert to community in part by creating a digital engagement platform. This platform will transform our communication strategy from providing all information at once (for example, a cluttered website home page) to providing simpler pathways to discovery and engagement for new visitors while maintaining a pathway to more detailed information and interaction for our devoted members and subscribers.
We will mobilize and engage a large network of volunteers to help create and deliver bike travel experiences, contribute to route and service information, connect with the public, and advocate for better bike travel conditions.
We will offer a much larger palette of bicycle travel experiences, partly through more guided tours but especially through more DIY events such as Bike Overnights created and delivered by volunteers. We will also offer major participation events such as Bike Travel Weekend and Bike Your Park Day. These will be supplemented by larger “peak attendance” paid overnight events.
We will fully interconnect the Adventure Cycling Route Network and US Bicycle Route System, in the process connecting America’s major metro areas and foremost national parks.
We will transform the Routes and Mapping program into a “digital first” operation, with an emphasis on delivering routes and services through apps and web services, and will perform community-based service data collection and curation.
We will amplify our advocacy efforts to include an emphasis on safety, along with continuing to improve bicycle travel conditions, including improved access to parks, rail service and airlines.

Develop a top-to-bottom engagement funnel to draw in new visitors, more engaged subscribers, more members and a more diverse and connected bike travel community. Continue to fortify this community through better means of digital communication, existing tools (especially Adventure Cyclist magazine) and leveraged strategic partnerships.
Combine our guided tours program with the bike travel outreach program into a new program area called Bike Travel Experiences. Our “pivots” include: 1) Expanding the existing guided tour program, using our current tour types; 2) Increasing the number and level of trainings of our members and volunteers who organize and deliver thousands of DIY bike-travel experiences throughout the year and across the country; and, 3) Building on the success of our BTW/BYPD format by expanding it to two BTWs and one BYPD.
Shift our primary delivery vehicle from printed maps to a highly interactive, community-driven routes and services database with frequent updates delivered to our Bicycle Route Navigator app, as well as other distribution partners. Our “pivot” areas include: 1) Completing our transition to “digital first” by reorganizing staff, systems and processes to merge and standardize all route and service data into a spatially-enabled database for both the Adventure Cycling Route Network and the US Bicycle Route System. This will allow our own Bicycle Route Navigator app to “consume” this data, and we will secure our position as the premier bicycle route developer by making this data available via open web standards; 2) Exploring the concept of a paid monthly subscription to the BIcycle Route Navigator (BRN) app that gives subscribers access to every route we have, across the ACRN and USBRS. This allows a bicycle traveler to use any and all of our routes to easily plan and undertake their travel; and, 3) Developing a community-driven data collection program (or partner with an existing one) to power a rating system for essential bike travel services such as bike shops, campgrounds, restaurants, laundromats, and grocery and convenience stores.
Broaden and deepen our current efforts to create the best possible bike travel conditions in the United States, through development of the US Bicycle Route System, partnerships with state and national parks, improved bicycle access to long-haul rail and airline systems, and collaboration to promote bicycle tourism. Our “pivot” is a greater investment in advocacy for safe rural and suburban cycling conditions.
Maintain and magnify its role as the largest and most effective cycling organization in North America. We will continue to cultivate a growing and diversified financial base, a talented, well-trained and well-supported staff, and a culture dedicated to helping each other and achieving our mission. We will make special efforts to boost our organizational infrastructure systems, in particular information technology, and our volunteer corps and leadership.

Our most recent annual impact report is available on our website https://www.adventurecycling.org/about-us/annual-report/

In 2019, we reached 14,070 miles on the U.S. Bicycle Route System (in 27 states), and developed a model rumble strip policy to improve safety, and two new states adopted state park no-turn-away policies, bringing the total to 11.

We sent over 40,000 print, digital, and app maps to inspired cyclists, and 3700+ people installed our app. Participants rode over 500.000 miles on Bike Travel Weekend, and had about $14,500 folks cycling through state, national, city and county parks on Bike Your Park Day.