An interview from the field, detailing the Adventure Cycling Association’s forthcoming 3,700-mile route, which traverses the US from Oregon’s coast to the Mississippi River.
Rue Kaladyte
2025 has been an exciting year for the establishment and promotion of new long-distance off-road cycling routes in the U.S. One such example is Orogenesis, a 3,500-mile trail that traverses North America from the Canadian-US border to the tip of Baja California.
Orogenesis: The first attempt at the world’s longest mountain bike trail
The 3,500-mile trail traverses North America from the Canadian-US border to the tip of Baja California, but it’s brand new and has never been ridden in its entirety.
Claiming to be the world’s longest mountain bike trail, the project was first incubated by the non-profit organization Bikepacking Roots and then developed by the Orogenesis Collective, which later became an independent non-profit. Escape Collective has been reporting on (via articles and podcasts) adventure cyclist Kurt Refsnider’s attempt to be the first rider to complete Orogenesis in its entirety, while also scouting and conforming map lines along the way.
The Golden Gravel Trail (GGT) is another massive cross-country off-road cycling route that was announced this year. Established by Adventure Cycling Association (ACA), in part to celebrate the non-profit’s 50th anniversary, the 3,700-mile GGT traverses eight states from the Oregon coast to the Mississippi River on Missouri’s eastern border.
Navigating through what the ACA calls “soul-stirring diversity of America’s most iconic terrain,” the GGT is designed to be a more cycling-friendly cross-country trail than the long-established 5,000-mile Trans-America Trail (TAT/TransAm), which caters more to dual-sport motorcycles than bikes.
And similar to Refsnider’s scouting mission ot Orogenesis, adventure cyclist Sarah Swallow has spent the past thirty-some days as one of the first to pedal the new Golden Gravel Trail.
Since the route has been primarily mapped and driven by vehicles thus far, Swallow – an accomplished route builder and event organizer – is working with the ACA to evaluate the trail from a cyclist’s perspective before it’s made publicly available in 2026.
In the following wide-ranging interview (which is buttressed by photojournalist Rue Kaladyte‘s stunning imagery from a visit she and partner Lael Wilcox made in September), Swallow explains why the ACA developed a safer alternative to the TransAm, how trails like the GGT play into the ACA’s overall goals, her experience along the way, her bike and gear choices for the adventure, what it’s like as a professional adventure cyclist that gets to do things like scout trails for a living, and much more.
Josh Weinberg: First, what is the Golden Gravel Trail?
Sarah Swallow: The Golden Gravel Trail is a dirt road route designed by Adventure Cycling Association (founders of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, and the TransAm) that spans 3,688 miles [5,935 km] and 234,032 feet [71,300 m] of elevation gain from the coast of Oregon to the Mississippi River. The route is inspired by the dirt road dual sport motorcycle route called the TAT, which I rode in 2015.
JW: How long has GGT been in development, and what are ACA’s goals for it?
SS: Adventure Cycling Association started working on the Golden Gravel Trail in January 2025. It is still in development and set to be launched and available for free on Ride with GPS in January or February 2026.
The goal for the GGT is to create an East to West (or West to East) dirt road route across (most of) the U.S., a safer alternative for those riding the TransAm, and a similar alternative for those who love the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.
The goal with the routing is to make an accessible, predictable, and enjoyable backcountry route and to make cross-country/state travel through bikepacking and touring more accessible and approachable to more people.
JW: You are in the midst of a significant endeavor to ride the lengthy trail. What in your previous experiences brought you/prepared you to embark on such a long ride?
SS: In 2015, I, along with my partner at the time, became the first cyclists to complete the Trans-America Trail (TAT), a dirt-road dual-sport motorcycle route spanning 5,000 miles from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to the coast of Oregon. That ride took us just under three months to complete. Since then, I’ve done extensive long-distance tours ranging from one month to several months in locations around the world, usually once or twice a year for the past decade.
Among these rides were the 2,300-mile Great Divide Classic in 2021 (the COVID alternative to the Tour Divide that year) and the 1,700-mile Baja Divide in 2017. In addition, I regularly scout, develop, and maintain routes – whether by publishing new ones or by providing feedback and resources to improve existing ones.
JW: Zooming out a bit, what does your professional work as an adventure cyclist typically entail?
SS: I wear many hats as a professional adventure cyclist. Through content creation, articles, route guides, resources, product development, photoshoots, rides, and events, I share my approach, experiences, and knowledge as a non-competitive adventure cyclist with over 20 years of experience in the cycling industry and tens of thousands of miles ridden around the world.
For me, the bicycle is not just a tool to explore the world, but also a way to connect more deeply with myself and the places I travel through. Partnerships with outdoor brands make this work possible.
JW: What are your goals along the way? Are you formally scouting? Do you have reporting responsibilities back to Adventure Cycling?
SS: My goals are to ride as much of the route as I can within my capacity and timeframe, to promote the route, and to share what the surfaces and overall experience are like in order to inform and inspire others to ride any or all portions of it. I’m also here to validate and scout the route, providing feedback for improvements.
This post is for paying subscribers only
Subscribe now
Already have an account? Sign in
Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope