Saskatoon Cycles April 2025 Newsletter
Bike Valet 2025
The anticipation is already building for the 2025 season of the famous and venerable Saskatoon Cycles Bike Valet!
Planning is well underway. Events are booking up fast, equipment is being organized, volunteers recruited, and this year’s Valet Coordinator, our very own board member Jory Cadman, is hitting the ground cycling to make sure it all runs smoothly.
We’re hoping to have a HUGE, fun season of festivals and events, but an integral piece of the Bike Valet is YOU, our volunteers. By keeping the Valet a community-driven and supported service, operational costs stay lower and we can be more accessible to more venues. Join us and help build the Valet’s reach!
If you’ve volunteered for the Valet before, you know how much fun the shifts can be and how quickly they’re over. (It’s why we get so many people returning, year after year.) If you’ve never “worked” a Valet shift before, why not make 2025 your inaugural year? You’ll get a free t-shirt and guaranteed smiles of appreciation from patrons who like having their wheels watched over by people who care.
Our first venue of 2025 is coming up fast: Kaleidoscope 2025 (previously Art in the Park) is on Sunday, May 4th from 1PM to 7PM. There are still spots open for volunteers, and this will be a fun venue to check out before or after your shift: kids’ art in a park, food trucks, and many other activities.
If you can’t make it to this venue, please visit our Bike Valet page and find an event and date that works for you. Signing up is easy, and you’ll be contributing a great service to the community.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE BIKE VALET SHIFT CALENDAR FOR 2025 (SO FAR)
Spring BYXE Week 2025!!!
BYXE Week is BACK SOON to a Saskatoon near you!
The Spring 2025 edition runs from Saturday, May 10th to Sunday, May 18th, so mark your calendars now!
In partnership with the City of Saskatoon, we have a lot of activities lined up to get people of all ages and abilities out on their bikes enjoying the rich cycling culture of our city. We’ll have:
- A Slow Roll (with refreshments at the end) to launch the week (May 10)
- The legendary Tune-Up Tent, for quick bike adjustments (May 11)
- Bike to Work Day, the BYXE Week Crown Jewel, with LOTS of fun commuter stations (May 15)
- The Third Annual Great Saskatoon Bike Passport Adventure (with a grand prize of $600 in gift cards from Bruce’s Cycle Works) (all week)
- Our ever-popular Scavenger Hunt (all week)
- The always fun Social Media Contest (all week)
- Prizes, prizes, prizes
Start gathering your friends, planning your routes, and dusting off your wheels, because this year is going to be BIG.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE BYXE WEEK PAGE WITH ALL THE DETAILS!
New Board of Directors Spotlight: Arika Block
As a non-profit, Saskatoon Cycles relies heavily on the efforts of its volunteer board. Our Board of Directors bring a range of perspectives and skill sets to the organization, contributing what they can without pay or very much glory. At our AGM on November 27, 2024 three people joined our Board. In this edition, we introduce you to Arika Block.
Q: Why do you ride a bike?
I ride a bike because it makes me happy and keeps me healthy. It is also, in most cases, the fastest and most convenient way for me to get around.
Q: Why did you decide to run for the board?I decided to run for board because I believe Saskatoon can be a great cycling city, and I want to be part of making that happen.
Q: How would you describe cycling in Saskatoon to someone new to the city?
Cycling in Saskatoon: it’s worth a shot! Depending where you live and where you need to get to regularly, it may or may not seem like a particularly viable or useful option, but there’s probably somewhere you need to go that you can get to by bike. And you can also ride for fun!
Q: If you could make one change to the cycling experience in Saskatoon overnight, what would it be?
If I could make a complete, city-wide network of safe, protected bike infrastructure appear overnight, I would — bonus points if it gets cleared quickly and reliably in the winter. I would love to know that everyone in the city has a safe route to cycle anywhere they want to go.
Q: Do you have any favourite cycling rides or routes in or around Saskatoon?
I enjoy riding around quiet residential streets in my area, and taking the 14th St bikeway to the Meewasin trails (often stopping at D’lish). When I’m riding through the north part of campus, I like to go through Boffins garden. I also love exploring and discovering new routes.
Q: When you’re not cycling, what are your favourite activities?
Aside from cycling, I enjoy playing French horn, crocheting, and writing.
Pedal Express Challenge: Jason vs. Tyler Update
In our February newsletter, we told you about the friendly rivalry between Jason Hanson and Tyler Rittinger, two Pedal Express couriers who challenged each other to see who would deliver the most packages in 2025. The contest is being watched by a number of people, and there have been rumours of wagers being placed, possibly in the ones of dollars.
For those following, Jason got off to an early lead, but currently trails Tyler. The standings are:
- Tyler – 9 deliveries
- Jason – 8 deliveries
- Dark Horse 1 – 4 deliveries
- Dark Horse 2 – 2 deliveries
There is a lot of 2025 to go, so the title of “Most Deliveries for the Year” is still wide open. What we DO know so far is that Pedal Express deliveries are up significantly over last year, and the number of active couriers is also up!
Do you know of a potential courier or business that would enjoy being a part of Pedal Express? Let us know!
Don’t Forget: Big Fun Bike Ride – June 8, 2025
The folks at Life Outside Gear Exchange (another Friend of Cycling) are inviting Saskatoon to a new event this year, the Big Fun Bike Ride on Sunday, June 8th, 2025!
From the registration page:
Join us for the first annual Saskatoon’s Big FUN Bike Ride – a community ride celebrating the joy of cycling, being outside, and community! Whether you’re looking for a leisurely loop or a longer ride, this event is for you.
The event will offer different distances for riders to choose from, a BBQ picnic, a swag bag, and other prizes. Saskatoon Cycles will be on site to provide our legendary Bike Valet AND the Tune-up Tent for minor adjustments and fixes.
You can still save $10 per registration if you sign up before the end of April, so hop on board today and get your spot in this fun new Saskatoon event!
REGISTER FOR THE 1ST ANNUAL SASKATOON’S BIG FUN BIKE RIDE HERE
Big Pelican Ride – June 21, 2025
Nathan Jones is a local cyclist and photographer. He starred in a winter cycling video clip for Saskatoon Cycles during this February’s BYXE Week, and once took portrait photos of riders and their bikes at the Bike Doctor’s Spring Bike to Work Station. He also created The Big Pelican gravel ride and is promoting the 2025 edition. The lowdown:
“The Big Pelican is an annual community ride hosted at Redberry Lake that offers routes of 24, 45 and 85 km through the rolling Thickwood Hills. As a non-competitive event, the ride hopes to offer something for riders of all ambitions, building community and developing the area as a gravel cycling hot-spot. Farm stops on the 40 & 85 km routes will offer snacks and refreshments, and a pancake breakfast will be hosted the following day to reward those who stick around to camp. More information and registration at bigpelican.ca or follow along on instagram at @thebigpelican.”
Visit the website or contact Nathan.
Help With Data Collection with Strava and BikeMaps.org
We still run into quite a few people who haven’t heard about some rather “passive” actions they can take to help city planners and advocates get the robust data they need to inform their approach to better and safer cycling in Saskatoon.
Strava and BikeMaps.org are apps that aggregate crowdsourced information to help decision-makers understand transportation habits and patterns. The information collected is all anonymous, but extremely useful when accumulated and sorted on a city-wide scale. To help out, you can:
1. Install Strava on your phone and track every ride or walk you take. You only need a free account. And if you already use a tracking app, check to see if it has a Strava integration. There are more than 100 apps that Strava connects with.
Strava anonymizes the data from all users in an area and creates the Strava heatmap. Images from these heatmaps can be a powerful visual to show that there are cyclists and walkers using the streets all over Saskatoon (like this presentation on Circle Drive on Ave C). But we need as many cyclists as possible to be using this system!
2. Bookmark Bikemaps.org and report every time you have a cycling crash, a near-miss, see a cycling hazard, or have your bike stolen. (This is NOT meant to replace the calling of an ambulance or the police. Absolutely, do that first if it’s needed!!)
Bikemaps.org is a system that aims to catch as many as possible the almost 70% of all cycling incidents or near misses that don’t get reported officially.
Donate to Saskatoon Cycles
Your donations give us the resources to press toward a Saskatoon where cycling is a viable, year-round mode of transportation that is safe, convenient, and comfortable for all ages.
We want families to be able to simply hop on their bikes to go grab an ice cream and enjoy the beauty of Saskatoon. For you or your partner to pick up groceries or a library book. And we really want you to be able to commute to work and back safely and conveniently.
Your donation helps us work on these three ‘pillars’ of cycling development for Saskatoon:
- Infrastructure – A safe, convenient, comfortable, and well-maintained cycling network throughout the city that allows cyclists to go from every neighbourhood to key destinations.
- Ridership – Educate, encourage, and promote cycling so more people choose bicycles as a convenient and safe transportation option year round.
- Culture – Educate, encourage, and promote diversity in ridership with respectful inclusion of all modes of transportation.