Milwaukee's Santa Cycle Rampage; what you need to know

Good afternoon. Before we went to break there, I was talking about another amazing holiday tradition that's out there. We're talking Santa Cycle Rampage, which as you can see, I have the proof that I participated last year with a group of actually my co-workers. We took over the streets of downtown Milwaukee with a bunch of other Santas. Although my group went as reindeer because we figured if there was a ton of Santas, you need a couple of reindeer as well. This was so much fun and I wish I could have captured truly the mass amount of Santas. It is a sight to see. It is so much fun and you guys have the opportunity to do it in just a little bit. So I want to go ahead and bring in Jake Newborn here joining us via Zoom to talk. All Things Santa Cycle Rampage. Jake, this is an absolute blast, but tell me more about this bike ride for any of our viewers who have never heard about it before. Yeah, well, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. And yeah, it's thousands of people biking around downtown Milwaukee, spreading cheer by bike, all while raising money for us, the Wisconsin Bike Fed, a nonprofit helping kids and families, you know, be safe on bikes, get on bikes more often and make biking better all across the state. Yeah. It's so funny when this bike ride kicks off because it is just a sea of Santas and other amazing Christmas kind of costumes and holiday costumes. And you just take over the streets, but it's also kind of fun. You know, you get to ride in the streets of downtown Milwaukee. Yeah. I streets are meant for bicycles and we're, you know, legally able to do this, You know, because that's what the. That's what bikes are meant for. And so, you know, again, it's part of it is just to show that cycling in the winter can be done. And we're trying to encourage more people to just, again, have fun, make friends, meet people, get out and enjoy being on a bike in the winter. Absolutely. And I know for me, I have a bike, but I don't tend to ride it super often. So originally I thought. 13 miles. Like, is that going to be possible? But it's a party pace and it's also kind of a choose your own adventure. Tell me more about that for anybody who's maybe slightly nervous at the route and the distance. Yeah, for sure. So we have a couple different options if you're not quite up to doing a super long distance. One is our kind of relatively new, what we're calling the elf frenzy. And that's really focused more on like parents with kids who the thousands of riders is a little too much, a little too chaotic, maybe a little too far. That's about a three mile loop through Bayview neighborhood that will end at Cafe Central with snacks and hot cocoa and just a wonderful kind of lower Slower pace, less distance option for those who aren't quite able to do the full loop. Then we have our main ride, and that leaves at the bike fed here offices in Bayview. And this year it's going to end at Schlitz Park. So that's about a six and a half mile route to there. And then from there, we'll pause a little bit. That's where a lot of people split off. So you can kind of, that's what you're saying, choose your own adventure. People will head over to Lakefront Brewery, head over to Nomad, and then just kind of disperse into the neighborhoods. But we will be leading a group ride back from Schlitz Park. about 20 minutes after we get to the end there, if anyone wants to kind of just head back to their car or head back to Bayview and kind of continue on with their day. So really lots of kind of make it your own options. Absolutely. And of course, you want to be on Santa's nice list and not on Santa's naughty list, which means you want to register for the ride, not just crash the ride, Because. To your point here, this is a huge fundraiser for Wisconsin Bike Fed. Tell me a little bit more about your group and what you guys do. Yeah, for sure. Um, we, we appreciate everyone who's on the nice list and you do get some stuff for being on a nice list. One is our, our medal and ornament. Um, you can wear this showing the day of, you know, that you're a registered rider and you're on the nice list as well as some other items like a sticker and some other discounts and coupons. Um, but the Wisconsin bike fed, we're a statewide nonprofit bicycle advocacy and education organization. We teach kids how to bike. We teach adults how to bike for the first time, and those are... Truly some of the best experiences our staff have every year. We take kids on bike rides and helping explore the city. We produce educational material about, you know, riding safely. Hopefully we have. We have e-bikes is obviously a huge issue. So we advocate for, you know, legal, safe usage of legal e-bikes. Thanks. And, you know, we try and get older adults on them. Next year, we're going to be launching a new program to help keep, you know, older adults active and safe on bikes and walking too. And so all this just fun stuff that we do all year round is supported by the funds that we raise in this ride. Yeah. And of course, to your point, you also kind of almost raise awareness of just biking and the fact that this can be a mode of transportation and also a great way of a form of exercise as well. Thank It's so much fun to do the Santa Cycle Rampage, and I know there's already conversations among our group here at Fox 6 of, are we going to do it again? Let's sign up. What does it mean for you you guys to know that you have created a holiday tradition for so many families and friends and so community members here in Milwaukee? much. It's a truly amazing feeling, and we appreciate so much all the people who do it year after year and invite and bring a friend the next year. We hear every year that from someone who's done it the first time, and they can't wait to be back, and now it's part of their tradition. And that really makes our hearts grow three sizes each year. And we've got people coming from We had a family took the train in from Detroit a couple of years ago. We had a family drive up from Indianapolis. So it's really gone even beyond just the city of Milwaukee. It's become a kind of Midwest regional thing. And people are planning their holiday season around coming to Milwaukee to enjoy it. So we're very blessed for that. And we really appreciate everyone. And we're looking forward to, you know, hey, this El Nino weather, we might be 50 degrees and sunny. We don't know. So just dress for anything. Yes, I was going to say any costume advice here, because a lot of people are going to be Santas. That is certainly a good option here. You can do an elf, a reindeer, you can wear whatever you want. But I do feel like having layers is a good idea because you might need them, but you might not. Yeah, for sure. So layers that you can take off, you know, underneath the Santa suits are a lot warmer than I think people. think going into it. So, you know, that that heavy polyester suit will keep you keep you pretty warm. We really encourage people, though, to have like gloves and like a balaclava or a hat underneath your helmet, because a lot of people show up not having, you know, they got the Santa suit, but their hands are cold, their feet are cold, they didn't wear proper socks. So You know, wool socks, gloves, have a hat on underneath, have all that with you, you know, and a little backpack to keep stuff if you do have to take it off because it's warm. So, yeah. And right now we can already grab our phones, our calendars, mark December 5th. How do we go about signing up for this, Jake? You can go to wisconsinbikefed.org. It's right there on our homepage. Click on that. Sign up for it today. There's no reason to wait. We won't sell out, but the more... And the sooner you sign up, the better we are able to plan and partner with our with the city partners and the permits and the police department to make sure we have a safe and enjoyable ride for everyone. So, you know, again, get your friends on there, sign up, and we'll have a few different like packet pickup as well. So you'll be when you register early, you'll get information about that and those things leading up. to make your day go smoother so you don't have to maybe show up as early and you can get your stuff ahead of time and you get all the details and stay up to date on you know any route changes or any anything that comes up so I encourage you to you know again to get registered early so you're in the loop with all the the ride day information. Yeah absolutely and again I can attest this is an absolute blast. People will decorate their bikes. They'll bring out the costumes and it's not too intimidating. Those 13 miles, you just, they go by so fast and you have such a blast. So can't wait for another year here of the Santa cycle rampage. Jake, thank you so much for joining us here on Fox six now. Yeah, of course. We'll see you on December 5th. See you December 5th. Everybody go sign up now. Be on the nice list. Take advantage of some of those deals that you get and wear your fancy medal because it looks pretty cool. All right.