The 2024-25 Winter Program Is Here!

Photo by Mike Campbell 

For many riders it seems that the outdoor cycling and randonneuring season has come to an end. For others, the arrival of freezing temperatures and snow just means the beginning of our regular winter riding season. Perhaps these riders are going for RUSA’s prestigious R-12 or P-12 awards. These awards are earned by completing a ride of at least 200km (or 100km for the P-12 award) over 12 consecutive months. Or they are preparing for a winter ultra cycling event such as Tuscobia or Arrowhead. Or they simply ride for fun and to stay in shape over the winter months.

For the upcoming winter season (November to March), we have scheduled one 100k and one 200k ride per month. The 200k rides are on the first Saturday of each month and the 100k rides on the second Saturday. 

Winter riding has many challenges: Weather and road conditions can become too challenging or even too dangerous. We will reschedule our rides if there is snow in the forecast or if there was a snowstorm the day before. It takes time to plow the roads. If below zero temperatures are forecast, a reschedule is likely as well. Experience tells us that single digits and below will make meeting the 13.5-hour time limit for a 200k a challenging proposition. A note will be sent out to registered riders a day or two before.

As an added incentive to participate in our winter program, Minnesota Randonneurs will recognize hardy winter riders with the following Award categories:

·       MN Natural Winter Randonneur (Bronze Level): 500km ridden in eligible events.

·       MN Natural Winter Randonneur (Silver Level): 1,000km ridden in eligible events.

·       MN Natural Winter Randonneur (Gold Level): 1,500 km ridden in eligible events.

Eligible events for the MN Natural Winter Randonneur awards are any official RUSA rides between November 1 and March 31 in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, North and South Dakota. Individually scheduled permanents in these states will also count towards the km totals. In addition, we will recognize mileage from winter races such as Tuscobia, Arrowhead, and any other (most likely) fat bike events in the aforementioned states. If you want winter mileage credit for these races and for your individually ridden permanents, please notify us so we can enter them into our database.

See our awardees from last year’s winter season below.  

Special mention to everybody who accumulated at least some winter miles last year: Chris Alto, Andy Quandt, Ian Buck, Bob Elias, Rob Welsh, Hall Sanders, Keith Larson, Luke Myers, David Marsh, Chris Carlson, Dawn Piech, Phil Higley, Justin Tan, Mike Willbanks, Aaron Milbank, Steve Brackett, Alex Riddell, Tom Garry, David Zion, Scott Gregory, William Watson, Don McCall, Glenn Seager, Mark Catlin, and Charles Stephens.

If you are interested in riding with us, we encourage you to join our winter ride mailing list by sending an email to our winter program coordinator Norman Ehrentreich (Norman.Ehrentreich@mnrando.org).This email list is used to communicate ride offerings and last-minute updates or cancellations. We also created a special Slack channel (winter-riding-program) and already have added some usual suspects to it. Feel free to join and see what others are up to during the winter months.

Both of our winter routes, the Northern Pancake 200k and the Half a Pancake 100k, are as flat as can be and have been specifically designed for winter riding. They can also be ridden as Permanents and we encourage riders who can't make it to one of the scheduled events to ride them as Permanents. The value of Permanents is that they encourage riding either solo or in smaller groups and provide more scheduling flexibility. If you are looking for company on your permanent, please post it on the Slack channel or send an email to the winter riding mailing list. And of course, once you've completed a winter ride, permanent or regular event, feel free to brag about it on our Facebook page. We love to see your pictures and read your ride reports.

Ride far with friends,

The MN Randonneurs