Saskatoon Cycles July 2025 Newsletter
Bike Valet Forges Ahead
The 2025 festival season continues roaring along, and the Saskatoon Cycles Bike Valet is there for all the action! The SaskTel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival was another massive success, the YXE Urban Games brought the spirit (and some rain), and our small but mighty “Saturdays on Broadway” valet has been popping up (and will until September) to give your bike someplace to stay while you shop the Avenue.
We’ve now appeared at thirteen (13) separate venues over twenty-five (25) days! By the numbers:
- Volunteers = 55
- Total volunteer hours = 365
- Bike parked = 2500
The role played by volunteers cannot be overstated; they are the lifeblood of making this service professional and effective. We offer a HUGE thank you to everyone who has taken on a shift or two, and invite anyone who hasn’t already to join the team. Shifts are two hours, but go by so fast. If you haven’t volunteered yet, you’ll get a nifty new blue comfortable shirt for your efforts!
There are way more venues coming up, and we’re always looking for folks to help out. Please check out these upcoming shift opportunities and consider joining us for a stretch:
2025.07.50-2025.09.6 – Saturdays on Broadway
2025.08.24 :: WEGO
2025.08.29-30 :: Fireworks Festival
2025.09.06 :: Broadway Street Fair
or click here to visit our Bike Valet page for the whole schedule.
Thanks again to our volunteers, our venue hosts for contracting us, and the City of Saskatoon for supporting the valet.
Keep Rolling – Events
The Saskatoon Cycles “Keep Rolling” cycling education program participated in two exciting collaborations in July.
Along with the Bridge City Bicycle Cooperative and the White Buffalo Youth Lodge, we provided some very basic cycling instruction and skills practice at the Kids Bike Give Away on July 19th. Almost 50 bikes were distributed to youths of all ages and sizes over the hour and a half session. Also in attendance was Rob with the Tune-Up Tent to make any last minute adjustments and repairs. (Thanks to Jay’s Transport for sponsorship of the new Tune-Up Trailer!)
On July 22, we worked with the Saskatchewan Intercultural Association to offer cycling safety skills to over 50 kids who were also receiving donated reconditioned bikes. The smoky skies kept some of our volunteers at home, but the intrepid Jory was there to provide helpful instruction and support to an enthusiastic group.
Keep Rolling – Mabel
One of our favourite Keep Rolling stories of the year so far is Mabel’s. She reached out to us in February to ask about cycling instruction for adults, and even though we didn’t have a specific program for such a request, we invited her to join one of our Keep Rolling sessions.
Most people don’t like showing the vulnerability that comes with learning a new skill, but with one-on-one training from Keep Rolling coordinator Jory, Mabel proved to be courageous and up to the task. It’s an inspiring example of what perseverance can do, and best delivered in Mabel’s own words:
My name is Mabel and I currently live in Saskatoon. I grew up in a big city where riding a bicycle was uncommon. It was also associated with transportation for people in poor, rural communities.
When I visited and lived in Europe, I saw how biking for fun and commuting was prevalent. There were dedicated bike lanes, racks, and parking lots. Since then, it had been in my consciousness to learn as an adult. When I moved to Saskatoon, I wrote to the city council, and I was referred to a few organisations, which I, in turn, reached out to. However, only Saskatoon Cycles was responsive and showed commitment to helping.
I attended one of the learn to ride sessions in conjunction with Global Gathering. I knew nothing about bicycles; I didn’t own one, but they gave me one to learn. It was hard and frustrating to balance and then pedal. After about one hour and 30 minutes, I was tired, teary-eyed and discouraged, but my instructor was positive that I was improving. She volunteered to take me on extra sessions personally. After two additional sessions, I was pedaling, balancing and riding! It was a feeling of joy I can’t express in words.
I work in IT and from home, staring at a screen and sitting on a chair for 8 hours with little to no movement. I have bought a bike and ride around my neighbourhood as a form of exercise. Saskatoon Cycles also gave me a bell, a helmet and a lock for my bike; so kind. This July, I am on a 30-day challenge to ride for at least thirty minutes daily. I have missed a few days, but I am still going strong. THANK YOU, Saskatoon Cycles for getting me to ride!
We’re so happy that Mable reached out to us, and we wish her continued joy in her cycling experience! We also have to acknowledge the generous support for the Keep Rolling program by SaskLotteries.
Ride for Refuge 2025
Saskatoon Cycles is back once more for the 2025 “Ride for Refuge“, a cross-Canada, family-friendly, in-person fundraising ride/walk held in support of charities that help people seeking hope, safety, and freedom.
In Saskatoon, the charity again this year is Global Gathering Place, and our city’s ride is on on Saturday, October 4, 2025.
You can support the Saskatoon Cycles’ fundraising “dream team” by donating money, joining our team, or both!! You might get some warm fuzzies and have fun!!!
Click here to DONATE or JOIN or BOTH!!!
People for Bikes – 2025 City Ratings
People for Bikes is a Colorado based coalition made up of hundreds of cycling industry leaders and over a million individual members who all advocate for making cycling better in the US and around the world.
Every year, they publish their City Ratings that measure the quality of biking in nearly 3,000 U.S. and international cities. Saskatoon is one of the latter group.
The bad news first: our score of 41 is out of a possible 100. It is by any standard metric a “failing grade”, ranking 69th out of the 95 Canadian cities measured, and well behind nearby cities with a similar climate, like Calgary, Edmonton, and Red Deer (though *slightly* ahead of Winnipeg at 38).
The good news: Saskatoon’s rating has gone up over the years.
- 2019 – 30
- 2020 – 32
- 2021 – 32
- 2022 – 33
- 2023 – 33
- 2024 – 34
- 2025- 41
Many factors go into the city measurements, and no matter how comprehensive the dataset, nothing can perfectly assess the experience of riding a bike in any city. However, the City Ratings help show us that while Saskatoon has a long way to go, it is making headway in the right direction.
The loss of the 23rd St. bike lanes and their connectivity from Meewasin to Blairmore may reverse some of the gains made from 2024 to 2025, but we’re hoping that new improvements coming soon will keep Saskatoon on track to better cyclability in the years to come.
Pedal Express Challenge Update
The Pedal Express bike delivery rivalry that began in January appears to have morphed from a nail-bitingly close competition between two couriers into a likely blowout for the odds on favourite.
Analysts unanimously agreed that it was not a shock to see the younger, fitter Tyler Rittinger take a commanding lead over last year’s champion, Jason Hanson.
“Hanson was in France for almost a month,” one anonymous observer commented, “but that’s not the real reason. He’s tired, washed up. Rittinger, though, he is hungry for the chase. The guy’s on fire!”
One source claimed that some of Hanson’s neighbours had heard the song “Eye of the Tiger” coming from inside his house, suggesting an effort to stage a comeback, but these reports could not be substantiated.
“You gotta watch out for the other contenders,” another informant said. “There’s still a lot of 2025 left, and anything can happen. No lead is ever safe.”
The current standings:
- Tyler – 17 deliveries
- Jason – 9 deliveries
- Dark Horse 1 – 4 deliveries
- Dark Horse 2 – 4 deliveries
The contest might even heat up more as Pedal Express welcomes its newest store partner, Broadway Shoe Repair!
If you are interested in fueling the competition, or joining it, get involved with Pedal Express as a customer, store partner, or courier by visiting the page HERE.
Cycling Data Volunteerism
Every month we launch a new pitch to encourage people 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 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.