Some of the best bikepacking is in big, wild places. These places deserve protection. We believe that public land conservation and access go hand in hand. By protecting public lands from unsustainable, destructive forces, we maintain ecosystems, support local economies, and ensure there will be a future for bikepacking and recreation. We also believe that you can’t love what you don’t know. By facilitating the human-nature connection through bikepacking, we believe we are encouraging a connection that will inspire a conservation ethic and action. We support federal, state, and other land managers as they increasingly recognize the link between conservation and recreation access.
We advocate for continued public ownership and increased protections for public lands, and to prevent harm from development and extractive industries. We support designations that protect public lands while not adversely affecting appropriate access for bikepackers, whether those designations may be National Park, National Monument, Wilderness, Special Recreation Area, or something else.
We also advocate for bikepackers’ access to public lands. But we recognize that healthy landscapes are complex and interconnected webs of competing interests, including the geography, ecosystems, watersheds, and human communities in a region. As such, we are willing to prioritize the health of a larger landscape over immediate bicycle access if needed.
We believe public land management requires respect, compromise, and cooperation. We also believe public land managers should take the latest science into account when considering access for human-powered travel. We will partner with land managers and organizations that support public lands, and we will speak up to protect and facilitate access to appropriate bikepacking destinations.
We recognize that bikepackers ride on land stolen from Indigenous groups, and that our current public land designations are rooted in problematic historical perspectives, which can perpetuate racism and the erasure of BIPOC people. We believe landscapes cannot be whole without Indigenous voices in land.
Examples of our work:
- Successful passage of the Biking on Long Distance Trails (BOLT) Act in 2024 as part of the EXPLORE Act, a package of bills to improve and expand access to the outdoors. We are now co-leading a coalition with IMBA and People for Bikes that is engaging in the prioritization process for BOLT trails, more info coming soon!
- Advocacy for protection of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments that were reduced by President Trump in 2017 and restored by President Biden in 2021. We continue to actively advocate for public lands that are at risk to an unprecedented degree.