July 24, 2006

North America’s Largest Cycling Organization Brings
30th Birthday Celebration to Denver/Boulder Area

Birthday Bash and mountain rides mark the 30th anniversary of Bikecentennial, the ride that revived bicycle travel in North America

What: Birthday Bash and bicycle ride
When: Saturday, August 12 from 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Where: Eben G. Fine City Park at 3rd St. and Arapahoe Ave.

Adventure Cycling Association, North America’s largest bicycling membership organization, with more than 42,000 members, will host the last of four "Birthday Bashes" in Boulder, Colorado on August 12 to celebrate 30 years of adventure cycling from Alaska to Florida.  The first three birthday parties – in Maryland, Seattle and Montana – sold out with more than 360 attendees.

The celebration marks the 30th anniversary of the famous Bikecentennial bike ride of 1976, in which 4,100 intrepid cyclists spun across America on the 4,248 mile TransAmerica Trail, which starts in Yorktown, Virginia and ends in Astoria, Oregon. The event sparked a renaissance in bicycle travel, helping spawn more than 400 bicycle travel companies worldwide, and encouraging many thousands of global citizens to use the bicycle to seek out personally fulfilling adventures. Bicycle travel has also contributed to the resurgence of bicycling generally which, according to the Outdoor Industry Association, is one of the most popular sports in America, with 87 million participants.

Speaking at the event will be Jim Sayer, Executive Director of Adventure Cycling.  Sayer formerly worked as a legislative aide to Senator Timothy E. Wirth (Colorado) and has spoken at many national gatherings on issues ranging from bicycling and alternative transportation to land conservation and community development.  In January, he delivered remarks at a national "smart growth" conference in Denver on Adventure Cycling’s collaborative effort with state and federal transportation officials to establish a U.S. bike route network, similar to those under development in Europe and Canada.

The Boulder celebration is designed to enable veteran and beginning cyclists to mingle and learn the latest about bicycling and bicycle travel – and also for past cross-country riders to reunite. Festivities will include a barbecue dinner, Bikecentennial movie booth, thematic tables, a photo booth, adventure stories, party gifts, personal stories about the life-changing dimension of bike travel, and a cake-cutting ceremony. The cost for attending the celebration is $35 and $20 for children 12 and under.  There will also be an optional free afternoon ride (at 1:30 p.m.) in the Boulder area organized by Rob Walton with Spring Creek Recumbent Bicycles.  For information on the ride, e-mail Rob at rob@comfybikes.com or call 970-221-4838. 

Adding to the spirit of the event will be the launch of a new Adventure Cycling ride called Great Parks South, a spectacular two week ride through some of Colorado’s gems, including the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde National Park, and Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, which soars to more than 12,000 feet above sea level, making it the highest continuous paved highway in the U.S.  (www.adventurecycling.org/tours/2006greatparkssouth).  Adventure Cycling has also organized two other new trips in the Centennial state, including its first family ride, in Summit County in August (www.adventurecycling.org/tours/2006parentchild), and two editions of a phenomenal mountain bike ride through the San Juan Mountains in the southwest part of the state (www.adventurecycling.org/tours/2006coloradoalpine).

For further information, go to www.adventurecycling.org, click on Parties & Gatherings, and go to the 30th Birthday Bashes. Or you can go straight to the source at: www.adventurecycling.org/partiesandgatherings/bday_boulder.  You can also call Becky Douglas, the event organizer, at 800-755-2453 x235.

We have an array of high quality bicycle travel photos from the original Bikecentennial ride to the present. Along with those photos, we have hundreds of images in our Open Road Gallery, which features revealing shots of cross-country riders, accompanied by inspiring personal stories. All of these photos are available in high-resolution digital format and available to news outlets. Contact Becky Douglas for access to these images.

Adventure Cycling Association is the premier bicycle travel organization in North America with more than 42,000 members. A nonprofit organization, our mission is to inspire people of all ages to travel by bicycle. We produce routes and maps for cycling in North America, organize more than 30 tours annually, and publish the best bicycle travel information anywhere, including Adventure Cyclist magazine and the Cyclist’s Yellow Pages.