Maps and Exploration

Maps and how we use them have changed dramatically over the last thirty years. Those of you who can remember relying on paper maps during your travels will also recall your multifaceted relationship with them. Not only are they a symbolic talisman of where you’ve been, they’re also the key to where you could go and a story of optimism and forethought. In SRAM’s latest story, Joe Cruz talks about his 35+ year history with maps and bike travel, starting in the late 1980s when he phoned a bike shop in Moab to request a map of Canyonlands National Park. Two weeks later it came in the mail and would be the blueprint for his first bikepacking trip on the White Rim Trail…

“Maps crackle and scrape as they’re unfolded, they rustle like leaves of a tree of optimism as they are held down against gusts.”

“United States Geological Survey maps are a triumph of science and understanding, but they are also a legacy of displacement of cultures and instruments of possession and extraction. Who was displaced by colonization or industrialization? Who built the track or the road or path, who placed the stones just so? Maps have a history that they are sometimes reluctant to tell.”

Find the full story over at SRAM.com.

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