This is a reply to Wally (and please forgive the hijack):
Dude, those are harsh words. I worked at ACA for almost five years and was the one who got Jeff's stuff in their store. I also happen to be the editor of the sample issue you describe as "terrible ... dated and worthless." Granted, I wish they would do more for us dirt-riders, but the fact is that the majority of their membership are road tourers. As a nonprofit membership organization, they respond to the demands of their membership, plain and simple. Until those of us who love riding the great unpaved start speaking up, ACA will continue to focus the majority of their resources on traditional road touring (which can include rugged around-the-world tours, et al, and which has a long, storied heritage that is worthy of any cyclist's respect). Just because you don't do that type of riding, does not mean it's "worthless."
That said, ACA does encompass backcountry touring. Their magazine was one of the first to cover Roman Dial's Alaska trips back in the 1990's, the June 2010 issue includes an epic, 10-page Pugsley/packraft feature by Eric Parsons (
www.epicdesigns.com), and my stories and gear reviews in
Adventure Cyclist have been been at the forefront of ultralight bikepacking in the national media. ACA also created the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, the first and longest mtb route in the world, and recently rerouted it to include British Columbia's wild and wooly Flathead Valley, thanks in large part to the efforts of Matthew Lee. They also hire me to shoot the start of the Tour Divide, put up my web gallery from the event (
www.adventurecycling.org/gdrgallery2009/), offer those images free (!) to any media that wants to use them, and send out press releases to national media announcing the start and completion of the event. They've also distributed press releases to the larger bike industry at Interbike promoting ultralight, off-road touring. And, of course, they host stuff like this —
www.adventurecycling.org/features/ultralight — on their website.
No other organization or magazine does 1/10th as much to promote modern bikepacking.
As for the sample issue you despised, it contains 1) a piece on the new National Bicycle Route System, a new federally recognized route network that ACA has been working on for years that will link every major metro in America and be the largest cycling route network in the world; 2) a feature on North America's "Ten Top Tours" that focused on road riding (B.C.'s Gulf Islands, Texas Hill Country, Lake Champlain, northern New Mexico, etc) but also includes B.C.'s Flathead Valley, the Cassiar, and high-altitude Colorado mining routes; 3) a story about a self-supported couple riding across Norway to explore their family history; 4) my story about riding Idaho's rail-trails with my 10-year-old son; 5) a road-oriented piece, "Touring 101," designed to help newbies get started, and 6) a great essay by Willie Weir (who's done multi-day rides in more countries than most of us will ever visit in our lifetimes) about how getting out the door can be the hardest part of a trip, but is always worth it.
You might think that's worthless because there's no "how-to ultralight bikepack" stories, but I think it's actually a nice balance of high-quality content jammed into 32 pages and designed to appeal to a broad-spectrum of riders. I'd love to have an epic bikepacking story in every issue, but keep in mind ACA is a big-tent organization dedicated to promoting and supporting bicycle touring, or multi-day riding, in all its forms. Touring is exploding in popularity all over the world, and ultralight off-road riding is just a tiny niche in the larger touring community. ACA will continue to support and encourage bikepacking, but it needs more riders stepping up and getting involved to take to the next level. (It would also help if
Adventure Cyclist received better submissions from bikepackers. When I was an editor there I received a lot of great story proposals from people doing epic rides in all corners of the globe, but few of them were what people on this message board would consider "bikepacking.")
As for the membership director, she's one of the nicest people I know and a dedicated mtb-tourer. She leads a woman's mtb group in Missoula and hosts traveling cyclists in her home all summer. I would be shocked if she was "very snotty" to you — I've never heard her be that way to anyone, ever. Unless you were rude to her first, and then, well, I'd be snotty to you, too.
If you want to go around bad-mouthing an organization that gets people riding bikes, gets them traveling on bikes, and advances the cause of cycling in America, that's your prerogative. But I suggest your efforts would be better spent joining ACA and telling them you'd like to see a greater focus on off-road bikepacking. I've been encouraging them for years, but they need to see that there's a demand. With Jason on the board and me continuing to contribute to the magazine, there's never been a better time.
Aaron Teasdale
digaaron at gmail.com
