November 1, 2007

Adventure Cycling Association Honors Bicycle Travel Award Winners

Winners include a “crazy guy on a bike” and a tiny New Mexico “Pie Town”

Missoula, Montana — Adventure Cycling Association, North America's largest cycling membership organization, is pleased to announce the winners of its 2007 Pacesetter, Bike Shop, Trail Angel, and Volunteer awards.

“Adventure Cycling’s national awards program recognizes the ‘above and beyond’ contributions made by individuals and organizations in America to improve conditions for bicycle travelers,” said outreach and education coordinator Becky Douglas. “These awards are celebrated by the bike industry, cycling groups, local communities – and especially by the many thousands of traveling cyclists who benefit from the selfless actions of these award-winners.”

The 2007 June Curry Trail Angel Award goes to Toaster House hosts Nita Larronde and Don Kearney, and Pie-O-Neer Café owner Kathy Knapp from Pie Town, New Mexico. Pie Town is a huge highlight on Adventure Cycling’s Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. The term “Trail Angel” refers to a generous individual, group or town encountered during a bicycle tour that makes the traveling bicyclist’s journey easier, or in some cases even possible, by helping the adventurer simply as a form of goodwill. Pie Town is on Adventure Cycling’s Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (which will have its 10th anniversary next year), and hundreds of cyclists have found a place to rest and a sense of camaraderie with Kathy and the folks at Pie-O-Neer Café. Nita Larronde and Don Kearney have been providing complimentary lodging, supplies and generosity to traveling bicyclists for almost a decade at the Toaster House. These fantastic establishments in Pie Town – which has a population of about 65 and is located about 100 miles southwest of Albuquerque -- have helped to renew and reinforce bicyclists’ belief in the kindness of strangers.

The 2007 Pacesetter Award has been presented to Neil Gunton from St. Louis, Missouri for providing a place where people can find and share information about bicycle travel. Neil is the mastermind behind crazyguyonabike.com, known throughout the bicycle travel industry as one of the best bicycle travel resources available, with content contributed from people around the globe. “As the founder, programmer, webmaster and editor of crazyguyonabike.com, his efforts help to inspire others to ride their bikes.” said Douglas. It started with his own online bicycle travel journal that he created in 2000 to document his personal bicycle adventure across America. After creating the code for it, he realized he could offer this user-friendly service to others, and opened the site to public registries in 2001. Now crazyguyonabike.com hosts 1,800 online journals, enabling thousands of people to share their bicycle travel stories with friends around the globe. He manages the prolific forums with civility and clarity, and shares articles, gear reviews and classifieds in an organized and useful way. And he does all of this for free. Neil’s contribution to bicycle travel is evidenced in the almost 200,000 photos documenting thousands of individual cycling adventures around the world. (We should also note here that Neil has the distinctive honor of receiving more nominations than anyone else for an Adventure Cycling award.)

The 2007 Sam Braxton Bike Shop Award goes to Bicycle Outfitters from Seminole, Florida for their support of the active bicycling lifestyle. The staff at Bicycle Outfitters patiently and proficiently guides customers through the process of gearing up, fitting bikes and choosing routes. As Marci Moore, a member of Adventure Cycling, proclaimed in her nomination, “This shop specializes in getting people on bikes for life. These guys are terrific and they have in a way saved our lives. We are healthier and happier. They change lives everyday by helping people at all levels embrace cycling for a lifetime.” Bicycle Outfitters is committed to getting more people excited about bike travel and go to incredible lengths to achieve just that.

Adventure Cycling’s 2007 Volunteer of the Year Award goes to Chuck Harmon from Dublin, Ohio for his outstanding volunteer efforts leading to the success of the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route. The Underground Railroad Bicycle Route honors the bravery of those who fled bondage and those who provided shelter. This route travels from Mobile, Alabama to Owen Sound, Ontario, and passes points of interest and historic sites along a 2,028-mile corridor. Chuck helped to research the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route in Ohio, is a core Advisory Board member, and has helped to coordinate events throughout the region. Ginny Sullivan, New Routes Coordinator for Adventure Cycling Association, noted that, “Chuck Harmon has been an invaluable resource to Adventure Cycling and our new Underground Railroad Bicycle Route. Without his dedication and support, we would not have the amazing network of connections across Ohio that we have today.” Chuck has given countless hours of volunteer time to inspire others to travel by bicycle, and we acknowledge and applaud his dedication.

Adventure Cycling is always on the look-out for bicycle travel heroes. If you would like to know more about past winners and how to nominate your hero, click on http://www.adventurecycling.org/outreach/awards/index.cfm.

Adventure Cycling Association, a 501(c)(3), 43,000-member nonprofit, is America's largest cycling organization. Dedicated to inspiring people of all ages to travel by bicycle, Adventure Cycling’s services include bicycle-route development and mapping, publishing (including Adventure Cyclist magazine and The Cyclist’s Yellow Pages resource directory), and a guided bicycle travel program. Adventure Cycling’s route network in North America comprises 37,121 miles of mapped, on- and off-road bicycle routes. For more information, visit www.adventurecycling.org.

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