Mount Rainier, the crown jewel of the Northwest, has many ways to enjoy its grandeur. You can climb it, hike it, photograph it, and, since the mid-1980s, you could join 800 people every summer to ride bikes around it in a day.

Until now.

The Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day, or RAMROD, one of Western Washington’s most loved annual cycling events, which for over 40 years has taken cyclists over 150 miles with 10,000 feet of elevation gain, through evergreen forests, switchbacks, vistas and unsurpassed mountain passes, is not running this year.

The Redmond Cycling Club, which is responsible for the stewardship of the RAMROD, announced last month that the 2026 ride is canceled.

“It would have been our 42nd, if we’d had the ride this year,” Rick Duong, president of the Redmond Cycling Club, told The News Tribune. “We’ve met with the park several times. And they’re not budging.”

Duong said the issue is timing. Traditionally, the RAMROD has run on the final Thursday of July. This year, the park service is trying to push the ride until after Labor Day.

“After Labor Day is too late in the season for the club. School has already started, there are reduced daylight hours and colder temperatures. It’s a safety issue,” Duong said.

The National Park Service has not responded to The News Tribune about the event.

Duong said the park offered another course, primarily along Skate Creek Road, but the detour takes you outside the main roads of the park, far from what Duong considers “the mountain experience.”

The RAMROD was pivoted along Skate Creek in 2025 due to construction at the Nisqually entrance. The timed-entry program was still in effect then as well.

The Nisqually and Stevens Canyon entrance stations are the primary points of entry for RAMRODs of the past, even though the event has not been allowed to pass through those stations since the pre-COVID era due to the pandemic, construction and timed-entry issues.

Traditionally, the route had always gone counterclockwise, starting in Enumclaw, through Eatonville, then up through the park before finally coming down near Packwood.

A couple of years ago, the park told the Redmond Cycling Club it couldn’t do that anymore, so it reversed the route and went clockwise instead.

“We feel like we’ve been pretty agreeable, Duong said. “This year, there’s no construction, and there’s no timed entry, so we don’t understand why we’re being rerouted outside of our route., and then pushed to after Labor Day.”

Duong is worried about the event’s future and has received no explanation as to why the RAMROD cannot continue its regular route and time.

“They’ve suggested it’s traffic issues,” Duong continued. “But they haven’t given us any data. The ride comes in on a weekday, and we’re willing to cut our numbers. And we’ve offered to shift to June, any date in July, or August.”

In its earlier days, the RAMROD was a race. Nowadays, safety is the primary concern. Duong said the Redmond Cycling Club works with traffic control and has radios and chase vehicles, and it uses a lottery system to cap riders at 800.

Duong, who has been a member of the Redmond Cycling Club since 2015, has ridden the RAMROD seven times.

“It’s an amazingly inspirational event,” he told The News Tribune. “It’s a hard ride, so there’s a sense of achievement, but for me, it’s more like a religious experience. A feeling of absolution. There’s something magical about Rainier, the folks that you do it with, and the ride itself. That’s why I’m fighting for this ride to continue.”

As for the RAMROD’s future, the Redmond Cycling Club isn’t giving up. Changing courses to outside the main corridor and eliminating the mountain experience aren’t options.

“The Skate Creek route isn’t RAMROD,” Duong continued. “It’s not a bad route, but it’s not what RAMROD was originally founded on. We want to continue to champion what RAMROD really is.

“It’s not just for me. It’s for all the riders after me.”