The Underground Railroad Bicycle Route, running from Mobile, Alabama, to Owen Sound, Ontario, is the second in a series of “heritage routes” Adventure Cycling Association has developed. The first was the Lewis & Clark Bicycle Trail, completed in 2003. To create this route, Adventure Cycling partnered with the Center for Minority Health at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. The Center for Minority Health, which advocates innovative ways for people to incorporate exercise into their lives, found the idea of tying together bicycling and the Underground Railroad to be an appealing one.
Additional partners in developing and promoting this new heritage route included Seattle-based Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) and Bikes Belong, the national coalition of bicycle suppliers and retailers working together to put more people on bicycles more often. Both of these organizations contributed major financial support for the project.
Unlike our other routes—the Great Divide and Pacific Coast routes, for instance—the guiding principal for mapping this new route was more symbolic than geographical. That’s because enslaved blacks striving to reach freedom in the North followed scores of different corridors, providing a countless number of routing options. Consider that known routes to freedom crossed the forty-first parallel as far west as the Missouri River in southwestern Iowa and as far east as the New York City area, and you can imagine the nearly endless options we faced when choosing the route. (Ultimately, we decided to “follow the Drinking Gourd” as far north as the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio rivers; see Field Notes for an explanation of what this means.)
Adventure Cycling and the Center for Minority Health share a twofold goal in creating and promoting the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route. First, we want to provide twenty-first century Americans with an opportunity to learn more about one of the most challenging cultural struggles in our nation’s history. And second, we wish to promote the joys and health benefits of traveling by bicycle. By its very nature, bicycle touring is an activity that can be enjoyed by individuals of all ages, walks of life, and cultural backgrounds. We believe this new heritage route—whether enjoyed for a day trip, a week’s adventure, or an even longer ride, will provide the spark to introduce ever more people to this wonderful mode of travel.
