Cycling the Road to Freedom: A Journey along the Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad Bicycle Route was created through a partnership between Adventure Cycling Association and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Minority Health. Our organizations recognize the capacity for bicycle travel to build stronger cross-cultural relationships while promoting lifelong health through physical activity available to people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. The UGRBR traverses 8 states and 1 Canadian province, from Alabama to Ontario, following the water ways north as slaves might have done previous to the Civil War. The route demonstrates the use of cultural tailoring designed to get people physically active.
Our objectives are: to grow ...
About You
Contact Information
Title
Ms.
First name
Ginny
Last name
Sullivan
Your job title
Routes Coordinator
Name of your organization
Adventure Cycling Association
Organization type
Non-profit
Annual budget/currency
Annual Budget/Currency
Mailing address
150 East Pine Street
Telephone number
Telephone Number
Postal/Zip Code
59802
Country
United States
Email address
Alternative email address
Alternative email address
Your idea
This will be the address used to plot your entry on the map.
Street Address
150 East Pine Street
City
Missoula
State/Province
Montana
Postal/Zip Code
59802
Country
United States
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of tourist experience and educational benefit to tourists , Quality of tourism management by destination leadership , Quality of stewardship of the destination.
Organization size
Small (1 to 100 employees)
Indicate sector in which you principally work
Tourism-related business
Year innovation began
2003
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
History, Living culture, Nature, Adventure, Education, General tourism.
Name Your Project
Cycling the Road to Freedom: A Journey along the Underground Railroad
Describe Your Idea
The Underground Railroad Bicycle Route was created through a partnership between Adventure Cycling Association and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Minority Health. Our organizations recognize the capacity for bicycle travel to build stronger cross-cultural relationships while promoting lifelong health through physical activity available to people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. The UGRBR traverses 8 states and 1 Canadian province, from Alabama to Ontario, following the water ways north as slaves might have done previous to the Civil War. The route demonstrates the use of cultural tailoring designed to get people physically active.
Our objectives are: to grow ...
Innovation
What is the goal of your innovation? Please describe in one sentence the kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Create a bicycle route that honors the Underground Railroad while attracting under-served demographics to the health/recreation benefits of cycling.
Please write an overview of your project. Include how your approach supports or embodies geotourism or destination stewardship. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the map located on the competition homepage.
The Underground Railroad Bicycle Route was created through a partnership between Adventure Cycling Association and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Minority Health. Our organizations recognize the capacity for bicycle travel to build stronger cross-cultural relationships while promoting lifelong health through physical activity available to people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. The UGRBR traverses 8 states and 1 Canadian province, from Alabama to Ontario, following the water ways north as slaves might have done previous to the Civil War. The route demonstrates the use of cultural tailoring designed to get people physically active.
Our objectives are: to grow bicycling enthusiasts by reaching out to new populations; to develop working partnerships with affected communities to develop and promote the UGRBR route; to publish 2 kinds of maps – one suited for long-distance cyclists and one for novice or casual cyclists who want short day rides; and to generate visibility for the route, the Underground Railroad’s history, and for the many benefits of bicycling via outreach, promotions, and special events. We sell maps, provide tours and encourage other groups to use our route. CMH is involved in local initiatives, encouraging other organizations to replicate their work through innovative partnerships and active-based programs.
Explain in detail why your approach is innovative
Pairing bicycle travel with a historical theme is not entirely novel, however this self-powered exploration of the Underground Railroad makes this project distinctively innovative. The journey connects cyclists directly to history as they follow the relative path that so many took in their bid for freedom. Escaping slaves took thousands of different routes, so we used the slave spiritual, “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” as a starting point.
Also, our partnership with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Minority Health (CMH) is unique. CMH is dedicated to the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities and focuses on community-based interventions to empower people to take charge of their health.
We have shared cultural and technical expertise to bring this route to life and reach out to new cyclists, both nationally and in Pittsburgh. We have cultivated greater diversity in our cycling photography and magazine articles, increased our beginner-level tours, partnered with public schools to create educational and empowering tours, created shorter, day trip maps, and used more inclusive and accessible language. CMH promoted cycling in their Healthy Black Families project, founded a Pittsburgh Major Taylor Cycling Club, and have used health indicators on participants/staff to show the health benefits of cycling.
Impact
Describe the degree of success you have had to date. How do you measure, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the impact on sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How has it transformed or contributed to the power of place or demonstrated the sustainability of tourism? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?
No exact method of counting cyclists on the route exists. However we can look at several quantitative indicators. UGRBR map sales have exceeded expectation with 4,460 sold to date. Since 2006, Pittsburgh’s Major Taylor Cycling Club has grown from 19 to over 75 members. Two UGRBR tours were filled in 2007, with one tour running in both 2008 and 2009.
Qualitatively, we have successfully reached new demographics. On the event tours we have been delighted to see a wide diversity of families, ages and experience levels and ethnicities.
The route received unprecedented media coverage and support from local communities. Events with schools, local agencies, UGR organizations, bike clubs, advocacy groups, and museums/historical sites were integrated. Media coverage included National Public Radio, Smithsonian, USA Today, Detroit Free Press, Washington Post, Associated Press, and the special, produced by WPXI in Pittsburgh, “Biking Through Black History.” This attention impacts tourism related to the UGR and encourages historic site and story preservation.
The National Park Service Network to Freedom Program and National Underground Railroad Freedom Center support us, and with our Advisory Board, ensure cultural sensitivity and representational accuracy. We ensure route quality by creating map addenda based upon suggestions sent in by cyclists.
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your work, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
We utilized local expertise in route development, hundreds of contacts received a brochure and we are now distributing window decals to businesses. Communities are involved with planned events, by providing services and local know-how, and through casual interactions. We collaborate with On Line Computer Library Center’s WebJunction program to connect with community libraries (a welcome resource for traveling cyclists). We seek partnerships for tour events, interpretive information, and the day trip map projects. Cyclists share insights on our online forums and “Ride Registry.” Locals benefit from these interactions, the tourism dollars spent, and the limited environmental impact of cyclists.
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
Self-propelled travel is engaging, especially over great distances and at the mercy of the elements and kindness of strangers. Trip-planning and daily contact with locals offers authentic perspective, satisfaction, and motivation to progress further. The immersion in landscapes and with historical sites engages bicyclists physically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially as they progress, south to north.
We provide numerous resources on our maps and website – including bike travel know-how and UGR interpretive information. On our tours, we provide a “Before You Go” handbook, including recommended reading lists. We plan events, history lessons, and museums/historical site visits on the UGRBR tours.
Describe how your work helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues.
When traveling by bicycle, the traveler and local resident are more apt to interact. Barriers are broken due to pace and exposure, cultivating approachability. Often residents are curious or sympathetic when they see touring cyclists. As a result, there are usually dynamic exchanges on local issues, history, customs, and the how and why of traveling thousands of miles by bicycle. Because sites, services, local history, and geographical information are included on our maps and tours, we encourage touring cyclists to engage with local residents, serving as ambassadors for the greater bicycling community using our publications and programs.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
Route research was initially financed through a combination of membership donations and grants ($20,000 from REI, $10,000 from Bikes Belong). Staffing includes a route coordinator, cartography, sales, tours, and media/marketing. Since releasing the route in 2007, staff time has significantly reduced, however initial investment included:
Staff salary – mapping and outreach 70,600
Contract research on route and profile 6,000
Administrative costs 7,300
Travel 5,600
Postage 1,825
Promotional material 1,500
Printing 5,700
Telephone 1,260
Hardware 630
Miscellaneous 500
Software 350
TOTAL
101,265
Today, the route is financed through membership donations, and map and tour sales. For information on organizational annual budget, see www.adventurecycling.org/whoweare/annual_report.cfm.
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?
Once a route is established, ACA maintains it through a comment card feedback system. Valuable route, site, and service changes are first incorporated via online addenda available for free from our website. When maps are reprinted, updates are reflected. Route researchers are also sent out to develop alternatives to trouble areas, spurs into cities (such as Pittsburgh to Erie for the UGRBR), and connectors to other routes. We promote maps and tours to our members (44,500) and to a developed UGRBR press list. Potential demand, which ranges in the hundreds per year, can be met through map sales and tours.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
The main organizational barrier is staff time. With over 38,000 total miles of routes to maintain, our cartographers’ workload severely limits route expansion and replication of new routes with historical themes. UGRBR additions are carefully planned to integrate with the map addenda and reprints. Also our cartography department is currently transitioning from graphic map creation to GIS (Geographic Information System); which involves training and time. All of our existing routes will be converted to the database system over the next few years. This complication, in addition to other evolving projects of national significance, have stretched our work force and pushed our efforts to expand the UGRBR and develop other historical themed routes into the future. Another less controllable barrier is bicycle travel accessibility in terms of affording a bicycle, finding the time to recreate and accessing safe and encouraging places to ride. We know that as people gain experience, their confidence in taking bicycling to the next level increase. Beyond that, the public needs to know the route exists and they need the time off to enjoy it.
What is your plan to expand or further develop your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
We are expanding the route by creating spur routes off the main corridor. The first spur engaged the Pittsburgh Major Taylor Cycling Club for route planning and connected Pittsburgh to Erie, PA and a second spur, developed in partnership with Michigan Trails and Greenways, will travel through Ohio to Detroit and into Canada. Extended plans include integrating Chicago and Milwaukee with the aid of Active Transportation Alliance and local Major Taylor Cycling Clubs. These expansions will increase awareness and involve more UGR communities in the project, as well as attract more people to enjoy an active exploration of history.
The Story
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
As the New Routes Coordinator for Adventure Cycling Association, Ginny Sullivan is responsible for coordinating two major projects. Ginny’s work supports the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) efforts to define a U.S. Bicycle Route System. Ginny works in the Routes and Mapping Department on developing routes, including the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route. She is an ardent fitness advocate, a skilled and driven organizer, and highly personable outreach specialist who works with a wide variety of people and groups. Ginny holds a Bachelors degree in Communications from Montana State University and studied English at the University of Montana.
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.
Adventure Cycling Association (ACA), founded in 1973 as Bikecentennial, organized a TransAmerica bicycle ride to celebrate America’s bicentennial (drawing 4,100 cyclists in 1976). Now America’s largest bicycling non-profit with 44,500 members, our mission is to inspire people of all ages to travel by bicycle to explore the landscapes and history of America for fitness, fun and self-discovery.
Established in 1994 through a R.K. Mellon Foundation grant, The Center for Minority Health (CMH) is located in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. CMH is dedicated to the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities by the year 2010. CMH focuses on community-based interventions to empower people to take charge of their health.
In 2003 ACA conceptualized the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route (UGRBR) after a survey of the membership. Following the success of our Lewis & Clark Bicycle Trail (published in 2002); ACA knew that heritage touring was gaining popularity. More importantly, ACA realized that tracing a representative freedom trail would welcome a more diverse demographic to bicycle travel – for history, health, and recreation. According to the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), bicycling is the most popular outdoor recreation activity in America, however, cycling is not as popular in the South and African Americans make up only 6% of the cycling population. For CMH, the challenge to eliminate ethnic health disparities requires interventions that are scientifically sound and culturally appropriate. Lack of physical activity is a risk factor in several leading causes of preventable disease, and minority populations are especially at risk; blacks are 2-3 times more likely to develop diabetes compared to whites (CDC, 2004). For bicycling to grow, the bike movement needs to reach out with new, culturally relevant approaches – like the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route.
ACA worked with the National Park Service and UGR historians to conceptualize a route using the “Follow the Drink Gourd” song as a navigational guide to the Ohio River, a crossing point from slavery. From there historic sites took the route through Ohio. Buffalo, NY provides the crossing point to Canada and the terminus of the route at Owen Sound, a town originally settled by blacks. In 2006 an Advisory Board, representing spiritual, transportation, bicycling, health, human rights, education and media interests, formed and meets bi-monthly to review project planning. Calling themselves “Rock Stars,” the intrepid cyclists riding the inaugural tour (self-contained, carrying their gear) were treated to a more media and community attention than any tour since the 1976 Bicentennial tour. Another tour, fully supported (luggage truck and catered meals) with 87 cyclists, covered 250 miles ending at the 145th Annual Emancipation Day Festival in Owen Sound.
CMH has seen incredible growth with the Pittsburgh Major Taylor Cycling Club, working with inner-city schools to help educate and train youth. The club received bicycles and grant support from REI, Inc. and also partnered with WPXI TV to produce an award-winning 30-minute special that highlighted the route, cycling’s health benefits, UGR history, and safe cycling techniques.
Describe some unique tourist experiences that your approach provides. Be specific; give illustrative examples.
The long, difficult struggle to free enslaved people in the U.S. and to restore their human rights is an integral part of our collective history and identity. The Underground Railroad Bicycle Route (UGRBR) focuses awareness on this cross-cultural struggle, highlights the obstacles, triumphs, and bravery of Americans — both black and white — who risked their own safety for the freedom of others, and presents an opportunity to heal emotional and psychological wounds from the past.
Traveling under one’s own power, great distances at the mercy of the elements and relying on the kindness of strangers, provides plenty of opportunity to peek into history and reflect. Cycling past civil war monuments, murky swamps, and historically black churches in the South; crossing the Mason Dixon Line to find a bevy of safe houses and museums devoted to preserving the story of the Underground Railroad (UGR); experiencing natural landscapes that change dramatically as the route flows north.
Immersed in the route’s communities, culture, and landscapes, cyclists can engage with their surroundings and its heritage in a uniquely rich manner, gaining immense health, cultural, and spiritual benefits, with no negative environmental impact.
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
We are interested in local partnerships. which are critical in creating and distributing day trip maps. We utilized local cycling knowledge to map short loops along the UGRBR. One such map was produced and distributed, free of charge through grant support, by Brown County Tourism.
Making a portion of the route accessible to day trip cyclists, novices, and families expands a community’s knowledge and understanding of their part in this story. Experiential learning opportunities created through partnerships with health organizations, schools (such as the Bronx Lab School), churches, and youth groups will be beneficial.
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| UGRR 2_small.jpg | 10.4 KB |
| Interpretive.jpg | 189.52 KB |
| UGRR 5_small.jpg | 6.99 KB |
| UGRR Event Tour Group.jpg | 343.68 KB |
| UGRR Path.jpg | 142.15 KB |
| UGRR Tour Gals_small.jpg | 8.31 KB |
| UGRR Tour Group.jpg | 43.47 KB |
| UGRRoverview wCMH.jpg | 122.03 KB |
| Trip Photos-46.JPG | 108.23 KB |
 | 152 weeks agoChuck Har1117 said: In August, 2008 I had the privilege of leading a tour for a group of high school students from the Bronx Lab School on the Ohio portion ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 156 weeks agoCheryl Hargrove said: This project's focus on providing a unique heritage experience with an opportunity to increase exercise, targeted to a largely urban ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 157 weeks agoGinny Sulllivan submitted this idea. |
