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Dear ACA Board Members,

I am a life member and at one time, (fall 2018-winter 2019), I was a candidate for the ACA board, having been nominated by then-board member Jeff Miller. I attended the September 2018 board meeting in Missoula, and was very pleased to finally get to see the iconic headquarters of ACA. I’d been a member of ACA back in the 1980s, lapsed, and was happy to return in the mid-2000s, at which point I also became the executive director of the New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition, a position I held for 8 years. I had to leave that role AND turn down the ACA board role as I had to return to Maryland in spring 2019 on an emergency basis to care for my aging parents.

I am now seeing that the current ACA board is selling the HQ building and find that quite distressful. In addition to all the points that Ginny Sullivan and Jim Sayer have made, I wish to elaborate on one specifically: it appears that you are selling off an ASSET in order to cover EXPENSES. That on the face of it is not sound financial decision-making. Those of us who have some level of expertise in real estate investment understand the long-term value that commercial and residential real property affords, and how leveraging it can buttress an entity during difficult times. Real assets should be used to generate income to cover expenses, not liquidated in order to cover them. What typically happens in a scenario that you have laid out in this plan to sell the building is that the assets just get burned up, and their leverage is lost forever.

This past spring, I was registered for and then had to drop out of an ACA-led trip along the GAPCO trail. I lost my entire $1699 payment, as I developed bronchitis outside of the refund window. I asked that these funds be donated to ACA, which they were. This is in addition to the amounts I donated back in 2020-2021 when I became a life member. I can tell you that the experience that I had as part of the group planning for the GAPCO trip this past spring was less than stellar. I understand that of the 13 originally registered, only 7 actually made the trip, with me being one of the dropouts. Our group had to set up its own zoom meetings because we could not get any kind of response from ACA’s tour department- for at least a month, if not longer. Someone finally answered our group email, but by that time, several registrants had lost faith in the organization’s ability to host this trip. This is the staff you think is doing well working remotely???? Did you know about this particular issue with that trip?

If I were on the ACA board, I would be rebuilding the home staff in Missoula into what it was before- a staff that exhibited camaraderie and excitement, felt loyalty for the organization and revered the founders and those who had come before them to build ACA into the largest bicycling membership organization in the US. Yes, ACA was once, not too longer ago, the largest and the best-run! ACA was who we as state EDs held out as the model for a national organization. Today, the staff comes across as a distributed group who interacts via email or text, and appears to harbor no entrenched loyalty or devotion to the organization and its history. 

I am truly amazed that you are staring down at projected losses for 2025 at the same time that you have, right in front of you, the perfect opportunity to rebuild what worked very well in the past. In summary, selling an income-generating asset is not the answer to digging yourselves out of a hole.

Sincerely,
Cynthia Steiner
Life Member
Annapolis, MD

Dear ACA Board, 

I am not a writer of critical letters. I was raised by parents that believed in fixing problems rather than complaining about them. What I am, though, is a fellow bicycle traveler and a recent seven-year employee of Adventure Cycling Association. As such, I am compelled to go against my nature to express a deep sadness upon hearing of the potential sale of Adventure Cycling’s home office at 150 E Pine St. Everything I learned, witnessed, and understood about the org and every bicycle tourist I had the pleasure of meeting in that time period leads me to believe that this is a mistake. 

I know I’m not alone in feeling this way, and I assume this is not the first or the last letter you will receive on this matter. I am also not naive about the challenging reality of running a membership-based bicycle nonprofit in 2025, or the current state of the org’s finances. I lived it, and I continue to hear about it from my ex colleagues and friends in the industry.

So, I will spare you the reasons against the sale. I’m sure you’ve heard and hopefully considered most of them by now. I choose to believe that it was a hard decision to make and not one made impulsively and in bad faith.

I will also spare you the blame-pointing and personal reflections on the misguided leadership decisions that contributed to the org’s continuing demise. I believe that every exit interview conducted over the last three years shares a common theme and speaks for itself. Having said all that, please allow me to attempt to change your mind by sharing my personal relationship with the headquarters and the transformational role it played in my life. 

In the fall of 2017, I accepted a graphic designer job at Adventure Cycling Association. This meant taking a significant reduction in my annual income, moving and saying goodbye to my family and friends, and trading my sunny Florida cottage for a studio apartment on the third floor of a 100-year-old building in a town I’d never been to and knew very little about. Nevertheless, I packed my truck and enthusiastically drove almost 3,000 miles to Missoula, Montana. This was one of the happiest days of my life.

Very few people understood this at the time. And almost all did once they came to visit and got the tour of my new workplace. My girlfriend teared up at the first sight of photos and bikes on the walls. My friends expressed envy and my parents were proud. None of them were cyclists but all of them almost immediately understood the allure. Every framed photo, every bike on the wall, every faded map and dusty bike bag was a testament to ordinary humans who at some point decided to finally answer that timeless call of adventure and transform their lives into a story worth telling. It was as clear to them as it was crystal clear to me that this was not an ordinary business in an ordinary office building staffed with ordinary career-minded employees. In this building, the walls actually did talk and the tales they told were uplifting, awe-inspiring, aspirational, and unforgettable. 

Yet the most exceptional thing about this is how unexceptional it all actually is. In my seven years at Adventure Cycling, I had the privilege of greeting a great number of visiting cyclists and getting a morale boost by re-experiencing the same wide-eyed reaction from every one of them, every single time. Their excitement and joy of finally standing in this bucket-list destination was almost always palpable and infectious. They understood that each person they met — from map makers, magazine editors, artists, writers, to various guided tours and membership service people — was in some way responsible for their journey. They would show their appreciation by purchasing from a store, donating, renewing or getting a life membership, or simply and sincerely shaking my hand and saying “thank you for all you do.” And all I had to do was stand there, offer them an ice cream, listen, and let the building’s secret sauce work its magic. 

And these reactions that any other organization or business would die for were just to the visible, surface-level parts of the building. Every now and then I would feel compelled by a supremely enthusiastic visitor or a motivated life member to pierce below that surface. I would lead them into the basement, or the attic, or open one of the file cabinets containing images of bicycle travelers frozen in time going back five decades, to reveal an entire world of bicycle touring history almost certainly not found anywhere else on the planet. Romance, sentiment, and nostalgia are the natural language of bicycle travel, and this stuff has enough megawatts of it to temporarily stop the heart of anyone that has sat on a bicycle seat for even a second. 

I’m sure you’re getting the idea by now or have been lucky to experience all of the above yourself while visiting the building. I sincerely hope so. If not, I’m happy to make myself available anytime for a quick tour. 

When I sat down to write this letter, it was all those people that first came to mind: the members or not-yet-members that I had the pleasure of introducing to this bicycle travel oasis that they traveled, sometimes a world over, just to see and experience for a brief moment on their journey. I thought of the founders and early volunteers, every Bikecentennial rider, every tour participant, every intern, every business catering to bicycle travelers on one of our routes, past and present staff, and every Missoulian who ever walked by the building and discovered that a world-renowned organization originated and was still operating out of their small mountain town. 

But most of all, I thought of every person currently packing panniers before their very first tour, perhaps with a dream of visiting this “bike touring mecca” they’ve been hearing so much about. That is a lot of people that care and a lot of people whose shoulders we are standing on. It is easy to get sentimental and overwhelmed by it all, but don’t you think we/you owe it to them to try harder to honor the bike travel legacy that inspires them and save this one-of-a-kind place? I ask this sincerely and without any illusions that there are easy answers. You know and I know the painful truth that much of the once pioneering work of Adventure Cycling is by this point a part of the commercial and somewhat saturated industry of offerings with many of the players in the industry doing it better, faster, and with more funding than the org will most likely ever have. 

So why not reimagine the building as a permanent bike travel visitor center with multimedia displays, traveling exhibits, talks, and leadership workshops all focused on celebrating bicycle touring and its history? Or maybe a research center dedicated to collecting, digitizing, archiving, and making available text, images, and other media related to bicycle travel? Perhaps a bike travel hostel and the world’s coolest and most desirable warm shower host? Donations only! Thinking outside of the box has always been one of the hallmarks of this organization, so why stop now? If you look around and make yourself open and vulnerable, you will find plenty of like-minded people willing and eager to help. Sounds just like a bike tour, doesn’t it?

The location of 150 E. Pine St started as a church. Until the day I left, my desk was in this original part of the building. I’m not a religious person, but I did find religion at this address in Missoula, Montana. I found it on the walls and in the basement, in the drawers and in countless conversations with my colleagues and the larger community of bicycle travelers. So I ask you today to please reconsider your decision to sell this special place. A heritage organization that loses confidence in its history loses confidence in itself and is doomed to failure and irrelevance. Make the harder decision not to sell and look for allies to help. Generations of future bike travelers are already forever grateful for it. 

Sincerely and very respectfully, 

Your friend, former staffer, lifelong fan, bicycle traveler, and one-time-only critical letter writer

Daniel Mrgan

To the Adventure Cycling Board of Directors,

We are writing as the four founders of Bikecentennial and Adventure Cycling (the Siples and Burdens) and former staff members who were primary leaders of the organization through 2022 (Jim Sayer, Sheila Snyder and Ginny Sullivan) and were instrumental in the significant growth of ACA and also the renovation and expansion of the Missoula HQ building.

Our main ask: POSTPONE the listing and proposed sale of the ACA HQ building. At present, and based on our current information, we think such a move would be a dangerous mistake and could catalyze a death spiral for Adventure Cycling. We ask that you postpone the proposed sale until you have provided us with your full analysis of the pros and cons of such a move, and engage in a full and candid discussion with us about the proposal and the future of the organization. We request that you get back to us on your decision by Sunday afternoon at 5 PM MDT. If you do proceed with the proposed sale on Monday, and if we receive inquiries from members, donors and other supporters about your initiative, we will have no choice but to share our opposition and our concerns.

Our thoughts: First, we want to say thanks to John and Nicki for emailing several of us regarding the planned sale. We appreciate the heads-up. However, we were stunned and dismayed that this decision was taken, and believe it would be catastrophic for Adventure Cycling. We are even more dismayed to know that this was decided, even though Adventure Cycling (per John’s email) is not facing a cash crunch and has enough resources for the near future. We strongly believe this is a decision — really a strategic choice — that should be left to the new executive director, in tandem with the board, because it will affect so many aspects of the organization’s identity and viability in coming years. We could write an extremely long memo and probably a few poems about our love for the building and why it is such a critical part of the organization, but let us hit on a few highlights:

Sacred Place: Adventure Cycling’s headquarters is a powerful symbol of the bicycling movement in America. No other bicycling organization has such a visual, inspirational property. It has  taken on the role of the organization’s home; it is in this respect a “Mecca” to many. Its loss would be unrecoverable, such as the destruction of a temple, church, or synagogue.

Oasis: The building is THE all-essential, comfortable, and welcoming site for all members, and the general public. It is the place that celebrates traveling cyclists’ stories; it is part museum, where traveling cyclists are photographed… a highlight of any trip across America, and the beginning point for many tours, dreams, and aspirations.You know as well as we do the grins that spread across visitors’ faces — especially cyclists’ faces — when they grab those handlebar door handles, enter the sanctuary, and head to the Cyclists’ Lounge for a cold one and an ice cream. You will not be able to come close to duplicating that experience in some rented place in Missoula, or anywhere else.

Members Matter: The building was fully paid for with membership funds and donations. It belongs to the members and everything possible should be done to keep the building for members and the public to visit.

Members Matter, Part 2: The pro-active sale of the building at this time, after five years of steady organizational decline and inconsistent leadership, would signal to members that the organization doesn’t care about members’ contributions or the history or culture of the organization. Members and donors teetering on the edge of renewal would see this as a sign to abandon ACA.

Members Matter, Part 3: The board has clearly forgotten how to use ACA HQ as a lever to boost membership and donations. We can tell you from experience that hundreds of people entered the doors of this building for the first time, and came out by donating to become a Life Member or major donor. They ALL came out a member because every visiting cyclist, even if they couldn’t afford to pay, were given a free membership, and many renewed.

Staff Matters: We know that, in the future, ACA will have some remote staff. However, if ACA is to have a central HQ, have one that the staff loves. If you look at the staff surveys over the years, there is real love, affection and loyalty to the history and excellent features of the building, from the vaulted ceilings and natural light to the cozy courtyard and artifacts and artwork. John McDermott wrote to say that ACA’s HQ will remain in Missoula; why on earth rent an inferior place anywhere else in town?

Lowest Cost Alternative:  The building is owned outright by the organization. There are no property taxes on the building. The monthly maintenance costs are relatively low. If the organization is planning, as stated in John’s email, on staying in Missoula and if there is no cash flow issue at this time, it makes no sense to begin paying rent, along with all the costs associated with storing and displaying ACA art and memorabilia. If the concern is that there are so few staff in the building, then the logical alternative is to rent out part(s) of the building and use that money to pay the monthly expenses as is done by several nonprofit organizations in Missoula. We know for a fact that a private engineering firm offered to rent the upstairs area and pay at least $4,000/month — nearly $50,000 a year which would more than cover expenses and provide future reinvestment opportunities. We have informally talked with other nonprofits in the city who would be thrilled to use such high quality space and facilities. There are so many win-win opportunities here, what is the board thinking?

Life Member Support: Even without the extra reinvestment dollars, there should be funds available to support the upkeep of the building. As Sheila reminded us, the Life Member Fund was created by the board to ensure the maintenance of the building. As of three years ago, that fund had over one million dollars in it. Also three years ago, a maintenance plan was created for the next 20 years and no major projects were seen as necessary at that time. What is the current status of the Life Member Fund and building maintenance plan?

The Future: It is shortsighted to say that because staff and programs have been cut over the last two years that the organization will not be able to rebound and grow and become a thriving organization again, better able to serve the growing number of cyclists in the world. Are you so afraid of the future that you do not believe ACA can re-grow its staff and programs, in Missoula and throughout the nation, with new leadership and creativity?

The Future, Part 2: It is shocking that the board wants to sell the building in the middle of your executive director search. Why on earth would you take this incredible, paid-for, irreplaceable Mecca and revenue generator and remove it from the mix before you select a visionary and effective leader who could leverage the building and its contents for the maximum benefit of Adventure Cycling and the bicycling community? The next director should have every opportunity to use this asset as part of their plans for the future; let them have that opportunity!

Our conclusion: There are other reasons why we consider the board’s move to sell the building so irresponsible and shortsighted. But let us end on a deeper note. Selling Adventure Cycling’s HQ and storing away all its magnificent, thoughtfully curated contents feels like selling a big part of the organization’s soul. Rarely in America do you find such a beautiful, purpose-built building, so aligned with a group’s mission and meaning, so designed to please and serve its membership, so welcoming to all who enter and revel in the spaces and exhibits. The board’s decision — and the limp explanations we have received in justifying it — signal a profound ignorance of the importance of the building and an utter lack of creative thinking about how it can be utilized in the future.

Please postpone the planned sale of the building and let us begin a productive conversation about the future of the Mecca of bicycle travel — and Adventure Cycling itself.

Sincerely,

Greg and June Siple, Dan and Lys Burden, Jim Sayer, Sheila Snyder and Ginny Sullivan

Hello Adventure Cycling Board,

I’ve learned you’re facing challenging times and have made what you think is a wise decision.

May I tell you a story? 

About 15 years ago I fell into bike advocacy backwards. I was a communications and media relations person who didn’t own a car. But I didn’t ride a bike either. You see I grapple with some tough health challenges that meant I thought I couldn’t ride anywhere useful. The bus and walking worked for me. I could no longer afford a car.

But I was part of a team that one a marketing contract for the City of Long Beach California which had just been granted a lot of money (by bike standards at the time) to help make the city more bike friendly.

And they’d hired a crazy guy from Texas to be the city’s Mobility Coordinator. His name is Charlie Gandy. For six months Charlie walked his bike with me whenever we’d meet up to talk about this brand new (to me) world of bike advocacy. We bonded over our love of good storytelling and getting those stories in the press.

You may have heard of the rise of Long Beach as a bike-friendly city. We had a lot of great story tellers for a time, including photographers, videographers, and media pitch people like me.

I ‘ll be honest, I’m writing because I’m friends with Jim Sayer on FB. But I’ve interacted with your org over the years.

This quote from your email newsletter broke my heart and baffled me:

“We are not bringing in enough new members because Adventure Cycling’s brand is perceived as older and pavement-centric and our programming is not well aligned with growing bike travel types (e.g. gravel, trail) and event trends (e.g. meet-ups and bike summits).”

Perceived? So what are you doing about it?

You have one of the most known and respected names in the bike-related world. Why can’t you serve both the older members and this new emerging markets? 

Why couldn’t your iconic beloved office host other types of like-minded advocacy orgs and defray your challenging costs? If it’s going to take time to sell the building why not reach out and see? Maybe you can save it. Or maybe you can simple make some new stronger allies who know how to communicate with younger generations.

When I got into bike advocacy I kept scratching my head at the mostly male dominated sporty tribalism that seemed to shun anyone who couldn’t keep up. Why would you shun your growth market? People who used to ride, or don’t ride yet?

I certainly couldn’t keep up. But Charlie convinced me I could ride a bike again and I did. For about a decade in Long Beach I rode no more than 4-5 miles but it got me where I wanted to go on time. It took him 6 months to get me on a bike again. I hadn’t ridden in over 25 years.

When I started to complain about the lack of women in top positions in bike advocacy and being featured as speakers at conferences Charlie told me to stop complaining and do something. I launched PedalLove.org.

Charlie is now 67. I’m 61. I still have those health challenges, more than ever. Charlie grapples with being ADHD and at times depression. When the bike advocacy contracts dried for Charlie and my work could be done from anywhere we pivoted and relocated to WA state.

A year ago this month Charlie decided to launch his legacy goal: a state-wide hiking and biking trail across Texas. It’s called the xTexas Trail Project.

I agreed to help him by creating the website and doing the media/social media but only if he included horses and horse people, my original love.

Guess what? We launched under BikeTexas (which he founded 30+ years ago) and the response has been overwhelming in its positivity. We have almost 1,700 email subscribers in a year, from zero. People started sending donations immediately. We have people writing in daily to volunteer. We have 20 land owners who want the trail to go across their property. We have over 20 fantastic media placements (most of which are earned media).

Why am I sharing this? Because it’s time to tell yourselves and your constituents a new story. 

Charlie was skeptical about horses. Guess what? Horse people are the most enthusiastic participants of the xTx AND they are the door to opening up conversations with big private ranches that can no longer support just grazing cattle for possible access across their lands.

We live in scary times. I know that. I have no idea what the future holds but I know that the bicycle is a tool for optimism. 

Why not embrace gravel biking, trail biking, meet ups and bike summits. Your name says Adventure Cycling. Why not embrace a new adventure?

Best wishes for a sustainable future.

Melissa Balmer
Founder PedalLove.org

To the Board of Directors
Adventure Cycling Association
June 21 2025

I am writing to you as a Life Member of Adventure Cycling and as a former 25-year employee, first as Publications Director (1975 to 1980) and then Executive Director (1981 to 2000).

I was astonished to learn yesterday through an email forwarded to me by a former Adventure Cycling tour leader that the Board of Directors plans to put the organization’s headquarters at 150 E. Pine up for sale.

As has been expressed in a letter — with which I concur — already sent to the Board by a group of co-founders and former staff members, this is a colossal mistake on the part of the Board. The headquarters building is an important symbol of the national organization. It has become synonymous with Adventure Cycling’s legacy and strong community roots in Montana’s “Bicycle Town” of Missoula. It has a national identity, and for years has been a landmark destination for cyclists from across America and around the world.

The headquarters building was acquired and remodeled with strong support from the Bikecentennial / Adventure Cycling Life Members, major donors, and the membership at large. It belongs to the members of the organization.

I can speak to the strong member support for the acquisition of the headquarters building, because I was the executive director charged by the then Board of Directors to form a building search committee within the staff, catalog the available properties in Missoula, and finally recommend the choice: the property at 150 E. Pine Street (then the home of the First Church of Christ, Scientist denomination). For the costs of renovation to office spaces I was able to successfully obtain HUD 312 loan funds; with additional months of bureaucratic red tape we received a code compliance matching grant that covered the independent construction inspections required when using HUD funds. In other words, it wasn’t a cake-walk.

The First Church of Christ, Scientist leaders agreed to carry the note with payments we were able to handle within our operational budget. We then created a Life Member program to bring in monies to pay off the building note eight years early, saving thousands in interest payments. The organization has thus enjoyed the full use of this building free and clear for many years. Yes, there have been maintenance upkeep costs; yes, there have been additional renovations, which I can’t speak to as they were done after I left the organization in 2000. But these renovations were paid off years ago.  

Now to the question of the building being half-empty because much of the staff is spread across the country. This is another aspect of the Board clearly losing its way. How is the organization made stronger because it no longer has a cohesive staff working together in a single location? How has this “made us more representative of the country as a national organization,” as was stated in an email I received?

This organization has thrived in the past because it had strong staff leaders who attracted a core of enthusiastic people dedicated to bicycling, and, more importantly, dedicated to the members who saw the value in having a national organization supporting bicycle touring. Today, visiting cyclists often can’t even get a tour of the building if they don’t arrive in Missoula on the correct days.

I deduce from the email I received that Adventure Cycling has experienced a declining membership in recent years. And it’s no secret that there has been a succession of executive directors since 2020. A declining membership and staff turnover do not, to my mind, make selling the headquarters building a rational choice. Essentially, the organization is back to where it was in both staffing level and budget level when I departed in 2000. That’s not a disaster level; we ran an excellent program with that size of staff and budget from the time we acquired the headquarters building and into the early 2000s under new leadership.

If the headquarters building is sold, monies will be received, they’ll be dispersed to maintain staff and programs.  And then what? Two or three years down the road the money will be gone, the building will be gone, and the organization will continue its death spiral.

It may interest you to know (as you may not have much of a grounding in the organization’s history) that Bikecentennial once before faced extinction. It was in the spring of 1977, in what should have been a highlight year, as we’d just come off the very successful summer of 1976, with some 4000 cyclists taking tours on all or major portions of the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail. Late in ’76, the decision was made to evolve from an event (the Bikecentennial tours) to an ongoing organization. We headed into 1977 with new projects and lots of willing and able staff members. By April of 1977, the financial implications were clear: nearly the entire staff of 35 would be gone within two weeks.

The then program director, David Prouty, was named Bikecentennial’s second executive director and handed the task of dissolving the organization. He was left with two staff to handle the mail, phone calls, and the few trips that had been sold for 1977. David enlisted former staff to help sell vehicles, desks, typewriters, and whatever else remained in the rented headquarters building; co-founder Greg Siple and I were offered contract work to continue the organization newsletter, the BikeReport, and create occasional publications.

Then David discovered the key to survival. He attended a three-day seminar on how not-for-profit organizations could use direct mail. I doubt any seminar has had a larger impact on a struggling not-for-profit. Direct mail was the predominant factor in the return of the organization. Slowly David was able to re-hire a few staff members, and eventually signed a lease on a new headquarters space, removing us from the decrepit old hotel that had housed the organization since 1974.

I mention all of this because when it looked like Bikecentennial would surely fold, a few committed, enthused staff members, working closely together, brought the organization back from the brink. We have been a resilient organization in the past. And we didn’t have the resources, the history, the legacy, and need I say it, the headquarters building, that the organization enjoys today.

It is the duty of the Board to consider the desires of the Life Members, the major donors, and the wider membership in making such a momentous decision as selling the headquarters that has become more than just a building housing organization staff.  It’s time to step back, get strong staff leadership back into Missoula and the headquarters, attract staff who are enthusiastic about the goals of the organization, and move forward.

If this Board of Directors is not up to this task, then the Board members should step aside and let the membership select a Board that is enthusiastic about the future of the Adventure Cycling Association.

Sincerely yours,
Gary D. MacFadden
Former Executive Director — Bikecentennial/Adventure Cycling Association