British Columbia has some of the world's most spectacular cycling terrain: rail trails through mountain valleys, coastal routes along the Pacific, wine country roads, rainforest paths, and gravel that goes on forever. What it has been missing is a provincial organization to help turn these remarkable cycling assets into a coherent, connected, and world-class visitor experience.
That's what the BC Cycle Tourism Society is building.
We are incorporating in spring 2026 as a new nonprofit provincial cycle tourism organization working to build the marketing, standards, partnerships, and policy environment that can help cycle tourism and bikepacking thrive across British Columbia. Our goal is to grow cycle tourism as a meaningful economic opportunity for rural communities, tourism organizations, local businesses, and BC as a whole.
BC Cycle Tourism Society grew out of several organizations already working to make cycling, trails, and active transportation stronger in British Columbia: The BC Cycling Coalition, Trails BC, GoByBike BC, and Let's Go Biking. The Society is building an Advisory Council with regional knowledge and sector experience.
We look to places like New Zealand and Québec as models: jurisdictions that invested in coordinated route networks, destination development, and visitor information, and built cycle tourism into a recognized economic driver.
Heather Piwowar is a Vancouver-based cyclist with 25 years of touring experience. She is an Adventure Cycling Association tour leader and the planner behind all the family bike trips. She joined the founding working group in 2025 as a Director of Trails BC and proposed the business model that became the Society.
Before founding the BC Cycle Tourism Society, Heather co-founded OurResearch, a nonprofit that builds open research infrastructure. Unpaywall and OpenAlex, two of its core tools, are used by millions of people across research, journalism, and public-interest communities. Heather holds a BS and MEng from MIT and a PhD in Biomedical Informatics.
More bios coming soon, directors still being confirmed.
Colleen MacDonald is the author of the Let's Go Biking website and three BC cycling guidebooks: Vancouver, Okanagan, and Vancouver Island. A Board Director with the BC Cycling Coalition, she is passionate about promoting cycle tourism across British Columbia. She loves exploring and discovering great places to ride, walk and roll — in BC and around the world.
More bios coming soon, advisors still being confirmed.
BC Cycle Tourism Society uses AI tools — particularly Claude (Anthropic) and ChatGPT (OpenAI) — to synthesize information, refine ideas, and compose text. It has enabled us to accomplish a lot quickly with a very small team. We bring our deep cycling, bikepacking, tourism, nonprofit, and local expertise to every interaction.
BC Cycle Tourism Society benefits every day from open resources, including for example: Vancouver's open data portal, OpenStreetMap, publicly shared Ride with GPS routes, Creative Commons–licensed photography, and the publicly filed bylaws and constitutions of fellow BC societies. We're grateful to those communities, and to the contributors, advisors, partners, and volunteers who have shared their time and expertise with us directly.
We believe in giving back, both to build trust and to help others learn from and build on what we've done. We will be making our documents, data, and code open as we go. If something would help you that you don't see here, please reach out.
If you are a cycle tourism coordination organization, or are interested in getting something like BC Cycle Tourism Society running in your province/state/country, say hello, let's share tips!
The cycling routes and communities featured on this website are located throughout what is now British Columbia, on many First Nations territories, including unceded and treaty lands. We acknowledge the enduring relationships, rights, laws, cultures, and stewardship responsibilities of First Nations in these places. Read our full land acknowledgement →
BC Cycle Tourism Society is incorporated as a BC nonprofit society. We're looking to connect with communities, tourism organizations, cycling advocates, route stewards, Indigenous partners, businesses, and others who see the potential for cycle tourism and bikepacking in BC.
If you want to be part of this, we'd love to hear from you.
