Photo by Samantha Sauri

Photo by Hubert d’Autremont

My name is Sarah Swallow (she/her). I am a thirty-five year-old, Euro-American, cis woman, and one of six kids in a loving middle class midwestern family. I was homeschooled until I was eleven and then was educated through the private Catholic school system until I attended the University of Cincinnati, Ohio where I earned a bachelors degree in history.  My identity and the privilege that comes with it influences the opinions, learning and unlearning that you will experience in my stories, projects, and routes. I share this information to welcome you to this space, and to encourage you to experience it just as you are.

These days, home, as I consider it, is in Durango, Colorado, Tucson, Arizona and anywhere I pitch my tent, or park my camper for the night. These lands where I live, and ride are the ancestral lands of the Ute, Pueblo, Tohono O'odham, Yoemi, Chiricahua Apache, Shawnee, and Hopewell Peoples.

I enjoy all forms of riding a bicycle, but my favorite disciplines are bike touring/bikepacking, adventure, and gravel riding. I especially enjoy all of these disciplines when I am researching and test riding new routes to share with my community.

I use the bicycle as a tool for well-being, community connection, and relating to the natural landscapes I travel through. As a representative for the sport, event organizer, route developer, storyteller, advocate, and consultant, I share the knowledge I gain from my experiences with others through various projects. Prior to this, I worked in and managed bike shops for 10 years and owned and operated my own shop, Swallow Bicycle Works, for five years.

I have been a professional cyclist and brand ambassador for eight years. My brand partners are Otso Cycles, Ride with GPS, SRAM/Zipp, Fizik, and Ombraz. I am a co-founder of Radical Adventure Riders, the researcher and developer of the Sky Islands Odyssey Route Project, the founder and director of Ruta del Jefe, and the founder of the Outdoor Ambassador Collective. I also contribute to The Radavist, Bikepacking.com, Lonely Planet, and other media outlets.

I don’t take this job and lifestyle for granted and am constantly switching things up to make it sustainable for the long haul. While pursuing it has come with its challenges, I feel grateful for all of it and the opportunities I am afforded daily. This life also connects me with some of the best humans on this planet, many of whom have been my support system for the high and low times. Without them, I don’t know where or who I would be, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have them by my side.

If you have made it this far, welcome to the journey. I am really glad you are along for the ride. 

Please get in touch if you would like to become a partner, commission a story or a route, collaborate, have questions or simply looking to get inspired.

I first met Sarah a little over a year back after I had been commissioned to make a film about her event the Ruta Del Jefe. Named after the famous jaguar that inhabited the area the event takes place in, namely the Sky Islands of the southern Arizona borderlands. It is one of the most biodiverse regions in the USA, and it is facing numerous environmental and humanitarian issues, from the threat of mineral extraction to the unnecessary deaths of migrants crossing the border. The goal of the event is to raise awareness for the region, and in the lead up to the inaugural event I spent several days interviewing a series of experts from a range of different organisations, each working to protect an element in the region. With a route that can only be described as breathtaking the event highlighted for me the ability of sport to showcase a region under threat, as well as bring together all of those with an interest in protecting the area under one roof to further educate and inform the racing participants. It was that event that really helped focused the mission of thereabouts as that of using sport to help people understand the world. This is only one bow in the plethora of Sarah Swallow and so we sat down with her to better understand how she came to view the bike in the way that she does and how she plans to use it to keep fighting for the issues she cares about. You Can watch the Ruta Del Jefe film here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnJHFxFjMrc Watch our other films, read our stories and much more over at www.thereabouts.co Music is from Outskirts written and produced by Builders Tea @builders_tea_ Instagram: @hereorthereabouts