Meet the Team

Sarah Swallow - Founder & Director

Ruta del Jefe was founded by Sarah Swallow, an adventure cyclist, route developer, storyteller, facilitator, and life coach based between southern Arizona and Colorado.

For more than a decade, Sarah has traveled by bicycle across the United States and around the world, using adventure to connect more deeply with people, landscapes, and communities. Through these experiences, she has come to believe that traveling by bike offers a perspective that is difficult to gain any other way. Moving slowly through a landscape, experiencing its terrain and ecosystems firsthand, and engaging directly with the people who call it home creates opportunities for understanding, empathy, and connection that cannot be found from a distance.

Sarah's work spans route development, event production, storytelling, advocacy, and leadership within the cycling and outdoor communities. Through Ruta del Jefe, she brings together her passion for adventure, education, conservation, and the borderlands to create experiences that help participants engage more deeply with the places they travel through and the communities connected to them.

Sarah serves as the event's founder and director, overseeing vision, partnerships, fundraising, programming, route development, and participant experience.

Supported by a Community of Collaborators

While Sarah leads Ruta del Jefe, the event is made possible through the collective efforts of volunteers, nonprofit partners, educators, artists, sponsors, local businesses, and community leaders throughout the borderlands.

Each year, dozens of individuals contribute their time, expertise, creativity, and resources to help create an experience that is welcoming, educational, impactful, and community-driven. From route support and logistics to workshops, storytelling, meals, music, restoration projects, and fundraising, Ruta del Jefe reflects the contributions of many people working toward a shared vision.

We are especially grateful to our nonprofit partners, whose work helps shape the event's educational foundation and provides participants with opportunities to learn directly from the people working on the front lines of conservation, restoration, Indigenous food sovereignty, humanitarian aid, environmental advocacy, and community resilience throughout the borderlands.

Ruta del Jefe is not built by one person or organization—it is a community effort rooted in collaboration, shared purpose, and a belief that meaningful experiences can create lasting impact.