The 2011 Caramel Roll Ride was a huge success!  We had the largest number of riders ever at 374 riders.  We had 232 who pre-registered and 142 riders who registered at the event.   People came from 122 different  communities inlcuding 25 people from 15 communities in 6 states other than Minnesota.  15% of our riders came from our trail communities, 36% came from central Minnesota communities not on the trails, another 20% came for the twin cities metro and 27% came from the rest of Greater Minnesota along with the 4% from out of state.  Not bad for our little Carmel Roll Ride!

Thank you to everyone who pre-registered... we really appreciate these pre-registration which help us make sure we have enough funds to support the event and our Lake Wobegon Trail Association activities especially in the event of bad weather. Thanks also to those who chose to show up on the day of the ride ... you provide the "extra" revenue that allows us to take on additional projects.

We were able to generate over $10,000 in revenue and with expenses of just under $4,000 we were able to genrate over $6,000 for the Lake Wobegon Trail Association projects this year.   No one gets paid to put the ride together and we have many many volunteers who help make the ride a success... thank you to everyone who helped again this year! 

We added another $1,000 to our endowment fund ( current balance $4000) which we hope to grow and be able to use only the income generated from investing the funds for projects benefiting the trail.  We willl accept any donations to help grow this fund so if you are willing to help with this effort please contact us at Cliff@lwtrails.com.

The balance of the money is used to help pay for the cost of printing maps, advertising the trail in MN Trails magazine, website hosting and maintenance of the www.lakewobegontrail.com website.  We used some money this year for a "Thank You" dinner for our volunteers to show our appreciation for their help with the ride. 

This year we also used the profits to fund the development of the mobile website at www.lwtrails.com which can be accessed using a smart phone to scan the QR codes that will be posted at each trailhead along with a code to check in your location on facebook.  

We also created virtual tours of the trail on our website.  The St Joseph to Osakis tour (http://www.lwtrails.com/tour/) and the Albany to Hyway 10 tour (http://www.lwtrails.com/holdingford/) which includes the Lake Wobegon Trail to Holdingford and our partner trail, the Soo Line Trail as well. 

We created a "Coffee Table" picture book that we will use to help promote the trail and show our stakeholders at various events what the trail has to offer.  We will be selling copies of the book as well as soon as we find a publisher and can establish a price for the book.  Check it out at http://www.lwtrails.com/media/wobegonflipbook.pdf and if you would like to be added to the list to receive a copy send us an email at Cliff@lwtrails.com.

We are continuing to work on creating an e-commerce store on the website to be able provide products trail users  and supporters might be interested in purchasing.  The items will include t-shirts, caps, coffe mugs, and other items as we grow this aspect of our web presence. We are open to any suggestions you might have for products or store ideas.  Send your ideas to Cliff@lwtrails.com.

Again I want to thank all the riders, volunteers, non-profit organizations and trail community businesses who helped make the 2011 Lake Wobegon Trail Caramel Roll Ride possible! 

Happy Trails!

Cliff Borgerding
President
Lake Wobegon Trail Association
33504 Shorewood Dr
Avon MN 56310
320-293-9364
Cliff@lwtrails.com