On the heels of a very successful 2018 Tour des Trees in Ohio, TREE Fund announced that next year’s Tour will be held from September 15 to September 21, 2019, with a planned hub in Nashville, and a route that will take riders through Kentucky and Tennessee. ISA’s Southern and Kentucky Chapters will jointly be collaborating with TREE Fund on the 27th annual staging of TREE Fund’s most important community engagement event.
After three particularly long Tours in a row (580, 560 and 620 miles), future route designs will have a target distance of ~425 miles over five full days of riding, slightly shortening the travel commitment required to participate in the event. Next year’s opening check-in and dinner will be on Sunday afternoon/evening, September 15, with a closing dinner celebration on Friday the 20, followed by check-out and bike shipping on the morning of Saturday, September 21. A full route announcement will be made in December 2018, and registration to ride the Tour will open in early 2019.
Full-time riders will again commit to raising $3,500 for research and education programs, with Tour expenses (including six double occupancy hotel nights, 16 meals for each rider over the course of the Tour, Tour apparel, plus ancillary support and program activities) defrayed by TREE Fund’s generous corporate partners. This structure will again allow funds raised by riders to be fully applied to TREE Fund’s next year budget for new research and education awards, payments on multiple year research grants, and/or endowment gifts to fund future research or education. Part-time and virtual Tour options will again be available.
Longtime Tour Director Paul Wood of Black Bear Adventures will be returning to plan and manage the 2019 Tour, and he has been engaged for 2020 and 2021 as well; TREE Fund is in the early planning and conversation stages for those years, with a focus on the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains regions of the country.