We believe that bicycles are powerful vehicles for personal and community development.
Who are we?
We are Laura Crawford and Russ Roca. In 2009, we founded The Path Less Pedaled as a way to share stories from our own travels-by-bicycle. As we traveled, we began to see the ways in which bicycle travelers can positively impact the communities who host them.
The more we learned, the more we shared - as public speakers, as advocates, as video producers, and as advisors to a wide variety of bicycle tourism initiatives - helping to build a richer understanding of bicycle tourism and what contributes to its success. Laura’s experience coordinating the development of the U.S. Bicycle Route System from 2017-2020 also provided first-hand experience working with government entities to accommodate people on bicycles.
Through our YouTube channel, we regularly reach a community of over 150,000 individual cyclists eager to travel and explore new places with their bicycles.
In 2021, we launched Bicycle Travel Advisor to provide information and support to communities, organizations, and public agencies developing bicycle tourism projects. We are committed to helping communities be authentic and self-sustaining in their tourism efforts, and helping transportation agencies understand the role that public roadways play in bicycle tourism initiatives.
Why bicycle tourism?
In 2011, at the counter of the coffee shop in Twin Bridges, Montana, Bill White described bicycle tourism to us as “gold flowing down the river... all you have to do is reach out and pick it up.” From Bill White’s Bike Camp to the Oregon Scenic Bikeways to the Tanglefoot Trail in Mississippi, we have seen communities come together behind the idea that welcoming bicycle travelers can bring economic and community development. What was a wild hair of an idea in 2011 has grown to become an established tourism strategy.
For us, bicycle tourism is a low-investment, sustainable way to bring new people into an area, while maintaining and bolstering the character that makes a community unique.