Saskatoon Cycles December 2025 Newsletter
Gratitude for Giving Tuesday 2025!
The heartiest of thank you’s to the great cycling community that stepped up to support us during Giving Tuesday 2025! Your generosity is both validating and practical; it affirms we’re putting our energy in programs that resonate with our membership AND it provides the resources we need to execute those programs. We thank you so much.
2025 was an incredibly busy year for Saskatoon Cycles. Our Bike Valet parked another 3000+ bikes at summer festivals, the Keep Rolling program provided cycling education and skills to over 100 newcomers (and bikes and accessories to many), and our delivery of the BYXE Weeks with the City of Saskatoon engaged hundreds of people in various cycling activities. We held the second Ride for Your Life bicycle safety rally in June. Our Tune-Up Tent serviced over 100 bikes at various events. Our volunteer Pedal Express delivery service hit record numbers again. Our advocacy presence was steady at any community information session or open house that dealt with active transportation, access, and safety issues.
We’re looking forward to another exciting and productive year in 2026. We’ll again be running our slow rolls every month from our new meeting place at Gather Local Market. We’re going to be pushing hard to build our “Bike Bank” partnership with the Bridge City Bicycle Co-operative so that everyone who needs a bike will have access to one. We’ll be running our regular programming and looking for more ways to expand Saskatoon’s imagination when it comes to bike culture and infrastructure. And through it all, we’ll be engaging city administration, our members, and the general public to make our city more “liveable”.
The engine that keeps all of this running is YOU, so we hope you’ll join us in 2026 as we continue to work and play hard!
Again, we thank you!
Ice Cycle 2026 – January 24th
For the first time since 2023, Saskatoon Cycles will be hosting the ICE CYCLE, an event designed to introduce riders of any skill level to winter cycling, offer expertise and support for those trying it out, and provide a warm social event to everyone who is willing to brave the lower temperatures on two wheels.
This year’s ICE CYCLE will be held on Saturday, January 24, 2026 at Gather Local Market, from 1PM to 5PM. It will feature:
- demo fat bikes from Bike Doctor and others
- winter cycling experts from Bruce’s Cycle Works and Saskatoon Cycles
- a “slow roll” ride at 2PM
- random draws for prizes
- free Gather refreshment tickets
- a commemorative Ice Cycle 2026 sticker
- fun and fellowship
PLEASE NOTE: you are welcome to come and go anytime during the ICE CYCLE event to learn about winter cycling and try out a demo bike (while available), but you MUST register to be eligible for prize entries, refreshment tickets, sticker, or a demo bike for the slow roll.
REGISTER for the ICE CYCLE HERE!
Our thanks to the City of Saskatoon’s WintercityYXE Micro-Grant for making this event possible.
BYXE Weeks Coming In 2026!
We’re very excited to announce that we’ll be partnering again with the City of Saskatoon to deliver the BYXE Weeks in February and May of 2026!
You can look forward to more fun activities and challenges to augment your usual cycling habits, introduce you to new routes, potentially win great swag, and celebrate every aspect of getting around on two wheels, in both a winter and spring session.
Watch for more details in the new year, and make sure your bike is ready for adventure!
Center for Cycling Education
We officially introduced our collaboration with the Center for Cycling Education back in May, but we want to remind people of this affordable, easily accessible, and strategically beneficial “vehicular cycling” course that you can take at your own pace.
With our discount code, the cost of the course is only $25. No matter your experience on a bike, the material will have something for you, and if you don’t feel you’ve gained skills, there’s a 30 day money-back guarantee. There is zero risk to try out “Traffic Smarts for Cyclists”.
Our original pitch:
Whether you’re a rider with many years of experience, or someone planning to head out for the first time into traffic (or onto the Meewasin Trail), there is much to learn.
The Center for Cycling Education (The CCE) has a ‘Traffic Smarts for Cyclists’ online course that will add significantly to your tool kit, increasing your competence and comfort through innovative, effective, and enjoyable training.
Topics include:
- Choosing & configuring your equipment
- An explanation of the laws (and your rights)
- Choosing your place on the road
- Proper approaches to intersections (and how to trigger a traffic light)
- And so much more.
(Here are some testimonials.)
Saskatoon Cycles has partnered with The CCE and we’ve arranged for a $10 discount for you.
More details on the course can be found here: saskatooncycles.org/traffic-smarts-for-cyclists/
Working with cycling instructors in both Canada and the United States, The CCE creates programs that exceed nationally recognized standards.
Cycling Data Building
Every now and again, we like to remind local cyclists to connect with a couple of free apps that can 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 can be 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 the FREE version to do this. 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
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.