Flavia Chen (Chair)

Flavia Chen was a daily bike commuter but new to touring when she pedaled from Boston, MA to Seattle, WA along the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier route in 2012. Since that ride, Flavia has become increasingly attuned to both the infrastructure that enables cycling and the extent to which the sense of freedom and independence engendered by biking depends on community support. Paying forward the immense generosity she received on her cross-country trip, she participates in local bike advocacy, hosts cyclists as part of the Warm Showers network. An interdisciplinary public health researcher, Flavia’s professional expertise lies at the intersection of genomics, data governance, ethics, and policy. She has significant experience in project management, grant writing, policy, and stakeholder engagement. Issues of representation and equity are core to her work, and she hopes to leverage her perspective on population and environmental health in service of the ACA’s mission during her tenure on the Board. Flavia received her MPH from the University of Washington’s Institute for Public Health Genetics and her BA in environmental studies and history from Bowdoin College.

Maria Elena Price (Vice Chair)

Maria Elena Price (known as M.E. by many of her friends) co-owns ExperiencePlus! Bicycle Tours, an international bike touring company founded by her parents in 1972 and a longtime corporate member, sponsor and lifetime member of Adventure Cycling. Maria Elena manages the company’s stateside growth and development from its headquarters in Fort Collins, Colorado while her sister manages the European operations in Italy. Maria Elena holds an MBA from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She grew up as a tour leader running trips for her parents at the time in Italy, Spain and S. America. She hopes to pedal more in the USA in the coming years. In 2011 Maria Elena and Monica Price were both selected by National Geographic Traveler to be listed in their Top 10 Guides in the world feature. Active in the Adventure Travel Industry and motivated to continually consider how tourism impacts the world, in 2016 Maria Elena was honored to join the Adventure Travel Trade Association’s Advisory Board for the next 5 years.

Marin Byrne (Secretary)

Marin Byrne is the lead fundraiser for the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, building on a long career raising philanthropic resources to support a variety of mission-based nonprofit organizations. She has extensive experience in both grantwriting and working with individual donors, and has served in leadership roles in multiple nonprofits during times of significant transition. She says, “I love fundraising because I don’t just find money that allows great things to happen in the world; I also get to help people live out their values through supporting causes that are meaningful to them.”

She’s been happiest on two wheels from a young age, and rides year round in her hometown of Minneapolis, MN. After watching her friend Patrick race the Tour Divide in 2010, she became obsessed with the idea of riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. She brought this dream to fruition in 2019, with a solo northbound trip from Antelope Wells to Banff, which also led to a GDMBR tattoo (please don’t tell her mother). Now a solid convert to the power of bicycle travel to transform lives, the thing she loves most about being an ACA member is talking to anyone who is willing about plans for their next bicycle adventure, be it overnight or across the country.

Noel Kegel (Treasurer)

Noel is president of Wheel & Sprocket, a nationally-recognized, family-owned bike shop serving communities in Wisconsin and Illinois. Empowering and supporting bike travel and advocating for better bike infrastructure has been at the core of the company’s DNA for over thirty years. In high school, his first job at Wheel & Sprocket was to provide mobile mechanical assistance to dozens of organized rides and tours each summer — it was through those experiences across the backroads of the Midwest that Noel learned the real joy that riding brings to us all. Noel firmly believes that bikes make the world a better place, so in turn, part of his responsibility is to work to make the world a better place for bikes. Noel is an avid bike traveler having rolled over roads and ruts, over mountains and through valleys in over thirty countries but loves calling Milwaukee, Wisconsin home.

Scott Edwards

Scott Edwards is Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Curator of Ornithology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. He came to Harvard in December 2003 after serving as a faculty for 9 years in the Zoology Department and the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, Seattle. His research focuses on diverse aspects of avian biology, including evolutionary history and biogeography, and disease ecology. His fieldwork has taken him around the world and he particularly enjoys making connections with and learning from scientists in diverse cultures. He has spent much of his career trying to make environmental science more accessible and inviting to BIPOC students in an effort to diversify the field. In 2019, he won (with Rich Kliman) the inaugural Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Access Award from the Society for the Study of Evolution, a major scientific society focusing on evolutionary research and education.

Scott has been a bicycle enthusiast since his time in college, spending two summers co-leading trips for students in New England and Europe for the Student Hosteling Program in Massachusetts, and cycling solo around the Big Island of Hawaii and down the north coast of California. In the summer of 2020, Scott undertook a ~3800 mile, 76-day solo, unassisted bicycle ride across the US, meeting lots of interesting people and landscapes, and is now eager to help ACA fight for better bicycle infrastructure and access across the United States.

Brian Pachtman

Brian’s love of cycling started while living in San Francisco. Being on two wheels within a more populated area quickly changed to a need for adventure outside of the city limits. He spent 4 years working for Backroads as a guide and Regional Support Specialist in areas such as Hawaii, Death Valley, California Wine Country, Switzerland, and Croatia. Brian was fortunate enough to spend time on the hiring and training team that molded guides into the service experts that Backroads is known for. That role truly shaped not only Brian’s love of seeing the world on a bike, but also helping others along the way.

Following Backroads, Brian obtained his MBA in Investment Finance and Entrepreneurship from Babson College in MA. He knew that service to help others remained important and opened up a fitness experience in Boulder CO along with a fitness consulting company. Building a community of like-minded individuals that were ready to support one another was extremely rewarding for Brian. That experience shaped how Brian thought of start ups, marketing, and customer service. Following an exit, Brian then partnered with three others to purchase an insurance agency in Bedford PA. He was there for 8 years as CFO/COO. The love of the bike has never left Brian as he continues to travel the world on two wheels. Brian is honored to be on the board and helping others with their adventures. Whatever way that means to them.

Steve Resnick

Steve Resnick is a technology executive with decades of experience creating digital products that drive impact. He is a hands-on leader who stays current on digital strategy and execution across web, mobile, and emerging technologies.

Inspired by Bikecentennial as a kid, Steve became an avid cyclist who enjoys long-distance bicycle travel at a slow pace. He has planned self-supported bike trips for friends and family throughout North America and Europe, and has ridden Adventure Cycling’s North Star Route from Missoula, Montana, to Denali, Alaska.

In 2015, Steve approached Adventure Cycling with the idea of offering its routes and data through a branded mobile app. Working closely with ACA staff and leadership, he built and helped launch the Bicycle Route Navigator. By 2024, the mobile app had generated significant sales of digital routes and supported cyclists navigating over 25 million miles.

Steve brings a focus on innovation and digital execution to the board. He is excited to help the organization embrace new travel preferences and trends as the next generation of cyclists discover the transformational power of bike travel.

Audrey Snyder Welsh

Audrey’s (she/her) relationship with Adventure Cycling started when she was a child through bedtime stories of her father’s 1980 Bikecentennial trip. Inspired by his adventure and the community he made along the way, Audrey set out to pursue bike touring at a young age to mirror her father’s journeys. At 16, she completed her first cross-country bike tour where, at her trip end, she was surprised by her parents and her father’s bikecentennial trip mates. It was there when Audrey experienced the power of bike touring and the value of the journey, not the destination. Many tours later, Audrey later became a bike guide with Overland Summers for three seasons to pass down her love for bike touring to over 100 young riders (ages 8-16). Additionally, she was employed to assist in training bike guides to lead their own bike tours. By the summer of 2018, Audrey and her partner biked Adventure Cycling’s North Star route where she was able to experience her first official ACA guided tour, aside from being a frequent purchaser of their maps. So far, Audrey has logged over 15,000 miles loaded as a solo tourer, bike guide, and trip participant on both paved and gravel routes.

Aside from Audrey’s bike knowledge, Audrey attained her Master’s in Business Administration with a focus on Global, Social, and Sustainable enterprises. Her interests lay in how business can be a force for good and accelerate systemic change to better our people and our planet. Through this passion, Audrey has developed over three businesses routed in social and environmental impacts. With experience in Start-Ups, Audrey understands all aspects of business development and capitalizing on strategic plans to prioritize the Triple Bottom Line. Audrey is excited to bring her knowledge and lived experience to the Board through the perspective as a younger Board Member. Additionally, Audrey hopes to be a thought-partner in developing initiatives to engage young riders and support ACA and it’s staff into this exciting period for the organization!

Lael Wilcox

After growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, Lael Wilcox started riding bikes in her 20s to get to work. This quickly became riding all over town and then across the country. After seven years of traveling by bike all over the world, she started bikepack racing– setting records and winning races on Adventure Cycling Association’s Great Divide Mountain Bike Route and the TransAmerica Trail. She’s been ultra racing around the world since 2015. For her, the most exciting aspect is that women can compete against the entire field and go for the overall win. Her favorite way to prepare for a race is to bike to the start– she’ll often ride thousands of miles from home to get to a race.

Lael is passionate about getting more women, girls and people of all kinds out on bike adventures. She organizes a middle school girls mentorship program, women’s adventure rallies, and women’s adventure scholarships.

This summer, she is going after the Guinness World Record for circumnavigation– riding 18,000 miles around the globe with the goal of beating the current women’s record of 124 days.

For Lael, no time on a bike is wasted. It’s the best way to learn about the world and share meaningful time with others. It’s the most fun way to travel.