Adventure Cycling Association

This article originally appeared in Cycling West, a print and digital publication about cycling in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, California, and Colorado.

An Alaskan bicycle tour has been on the bucket list for Julie and I for 15 years or more. Initially the plan was to ride the “North Star route” from Missoula, Montana to Denali National Park. That plan never rose to the top of our bucket list due to a bucketful of reasons. Julie and I are not yet ready to have a vehicle carry our gear, and we like to camp, so tours with vans and exclusively hotels were out. We have never been to Alaska, thus the thought of me pulling off the logistics in the manner that we are accustomed for an Alaskan trip seemed overwhelming to me.

In September of 2023 I got on the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) website to browse the annual self-supported bike trips being offered for 2024. The ACA is perhaps the only organization that has group trips in which the riders carry their gear with no van support (note that most of their trips are van supported). The Denali National Park trip popped up in front of my eyes. A quick consult with Julie sealed the plan with each of us paying a $200 down payment. The late June 2024 trip started in Anchorage and ended, 430 miles and 14 days later (11 riding days) in Denali National Park. In addition, Julie’s sister lives on the Kenai peninsula in Alaska. The bike trip would combine a trip to see her sister and brother-in-law.

I’ve been a member of the nonprofit Adventure Cycling Association since 1976/77 time period. I have used the maps produced by the ACA for many of my trips with Julie. The ACA produces great bike travel maps, and I expected the same professionalism for this tour.

Adventure Cycling Association Tours:

Julie and I were excited about doing our first commercial tour and doing it with the ACA. The website listed it as a road tour with some gravel. The technical difficulty was rated as “easy,” the terrain “mountainous,” and the difficulty rating of “5”, the most difficult. We assumed that the difficulty rating reflected the “mountainous” and “gravel” as there was no explanation for the rating. The tour was limited to 15 people including the leaders.

I should note that there are 2 aspects of ACA tours. There is a “Tours Team” a behind the scenes group and then there are the tour leader(s) that lead the trip.

We received a tour packet 2 months prior to our trip. A chat group was created enabling us to receive introductions from the rest of the group. I was happy to learn that many in our group had bike travel experience. Additionally, 5 of the 13 including me, were in their 70’s. One concern we had was a change in leadership for the tour 10 days prior to our departure.

For this trip we had 2 leaders, one an experienced tour leader and his assistant. Both leaders of the trip were excellent. They were very responsive to the concerns of the group. Because of their efforts the questions from the group were answered.

Anchorage:

Julie and I arrived in Anchorage at 4 AM Salt Lake time. The night flight was the only direct flight. We had visions of arriving in Anchorage with our bikes still in Seattle. Schlepping our bikes through the airport at that time of night was not pleasant. Plus, we needed two taxis to get to the hotel. The alternative was using Bike Flights. Julie informed me that both bikes would cost $600 to Anchorage and another $600 home. Perhaps I will take fellow bike traveler Matt Davidson’s advice and rent a bike in the future…

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Photo by Scott Ruff