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Overview of the 2010 Fondo

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Bill  On The Road

 by: Bill Oetinger  12/1/2011

Fondo Fun

GranFondo Video from Levi's GrandFondo Web site

Probably the last thing the cycling world needs is another eyewitness account of “My Day at Levi's GranFondo.” If you go to the event website, you can find a well-stuffed portfolio of such reports, filed by riders spanning the whole range of the event’s population, from the fastest finishers to the rank-and-file pluggers. I was there too, and having this column to write each month, I figured I might as well devote one installment to reviewing the ride, in spite of the fact that so many other riders/writers have taken a crack at it. I was delayed a month by the more urgent topic I had to cover last month, so now, not only will this be the umpteenth version of a Fondo report, piled on top of all the others, it will also be about two month’s out of date…old, cold news, reheated.

But perhaps that tardiness is not entirely a bad thing. Perhaps a two-month cooling-off period will be useful for allowing the exciting impressions of the big day to fade into the middle distance of memory…to let a little time damp down the immediate thrills and chills and have it all settle out into a longer-view perspective.

Myers GradeI don’t propose to write a blow-by-blow account of my own ride, which was fairly ordinary…nothing to work up into an epic saga. I will mention my own place in the larger ride at some point, but that's not my focus. Instead, I hope to patch together a handful of observations about the event which may or may not add up to a cohesive, coherent overview.

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you may recall that I did another sort of overview of the Fondo last year, combining a local, historical perspective with my own impressions from riding the event and working in a rest stop. (Yes, I managed to do both last year.) I'm not going to rake over all the same back story I worked up in last year’s column. If it’s of any interest to you to understand how we got to where we are now, you can head back there and pick up the pieces.

For now, I'm just going to throw out a few general observations…

• Organization. In a word: Wow! I have a fair amount of experience at organizing rides or working in some support capacity on rides. I may sometimes fall into the trap of appearing rather blasé and been-there-done-that about big events. But I have to say I continue to be impressed at what a slick job Carlos Perez, Greg Fisher, and the rest of the BikeMonkey/VeloStreet gang are doing in putting on this big--no, this HUGE--event. I said last year that I had originally doubted their ability to pull it off…to not have it all degenerate into some catastrophic shambles. After all, they had only the teeniest sliver of experience in putting on bike events before Levi dumped the challenge in their laps. It would have been very easy to make a giant pig's breakfast of of the whole affair.

But they didn’t do so. From the first year (2009), with 3500 participants, through last year, with 6000 participants, to this year, with 7500 on the road, they have dotted all their I's and crossed all their T's in ways that would never have even occurred to me. They have gone way beyond the basic century support grid…and so they should have. That many riders out on the road, beginning from a mass start, is going to have a big impact on the entire region, on any number of fronts. So it would have been irresponsibly short-sighted to treat it like a regular old weekend century. To their credit, they have not done that.

They have turned the prep work for this one-day event into almost a year-long, full-time job. Not only have they absolutely nailed the basic support--the rest stops and sags and course marshals, etc--they have also done yeoman work on community outreach, both to the residents along the route(s) and to all of the emergency response teams who might have to wade in during the event. Two years ago, when the event first got up to speed, there was some pushback from the locals out on those dinky back roads, who felt their remote turf was being trampled on by these big city busybodies. But three years on, that adversarial friction appears to be pretty much gone. Some very hefty chunks of event revenue have been funneled back into the local schools and into the budgets of those volunteer fire departments and other community services. They’ve also hired crews out of their own pocket to patch most of the worst potholes on the roads along the route (something our cash-strapped county has been unable to do of late). That has smoothed a lot of ruffled feathers.

But they’ve done more than just throw money around. They have demonstrated a fine capacity for meeting the locals on their own ground and on their own terms…for listening well and adjusting accordingly. Where there was initially suspicion and resistance, there is now enthusiasm and a willingness to work together to make the event run smoothly and safely.

I didn't have to jump through the hoops for regular event reg because I was comped a sponsor-VIP entry, so I can't tell you how easy it might have been to register. (I didn't hear of any problems this year.) All I can say is that the process for activating my VIP entry was simple and seamless and took about two minutes. Ditto with check-in on Friday, the day before the ride.

As far as I know, their electronic time-keeping worked pretty well. They had provisional results up fairly promptly and finals not too long after that. I wasn't really champing at the bit to see my own results, so I don't know exactly how fast they got them up, nor do I have any way to verify if they are accurate. Supposedly they cleaned out the errors in the provisional list and will continue to tinker if riders point out goofs to them. All I can say is that they look plausibly correct.

I had been a bit nervous about the mass start: all those riders launching off in one, massive river. I was worried that loose cannons would be bouncing from one side of the road to the other, taking other riders out…including this one. Didn't happen. It was amazingly smooth, efficient, and stress-free.

There are so many, many other elements to the logistics of this monster undertaking. I could fritter away several more paragraphs itemizing other places and ways where they got it right. The overall take-away though is that the whole event ran like a well-oiled machine. If there were glitches and gaffes, they were either minor or were dealt with promptly and effectively. The impression most participants would have had is of a superbly well-organized event.

Because I know a fair bit about this one aspect of the event, I want to salute the volunteer work done by the Santa Rosa Cycling Club in support of this event. They were, first of all and most visibly, in charge of the biggest rest stop on the GranFondo course: the lunch stop on Tom Ritchey’s ranch on Fort Ross Road. The club also placed volunteers with a great deal of event-support experience in all of the other rest stops, where they had leadership roles. Much less visibly but no less importantly, the club had crews at work for several days before the event and again afterward, organizing and cleaning the vast quantities of materiel that were used in the event…ice chests, canopies, water coolers, tables, utensils, etc, etc. Hundreds of volunteers worked thousands of hours to make this event a success. And this isn't even a Santa Rosa Cycling Club event. The club has no stake in the production. The club and its members get absolutely nothing out of it, except the satisfaction of knowing they helped the organizers in their efforts to help a few thousand riders have the best possible day on their bikes.

Carlos and the rest of the event organizers know how much the club does and make sure the club members know their work is appreciated. But I doubt very much that the bulk of the riders have a clue the club is so heavily involved. All that wonderful support just magically happens… But without the SRCC, it would be a very different event.

• Weather. As always, a very interesting topic! I have been writing about bike rides in Sonoma County for over 20 years now, and reporting on rides almost always involves some mention of the weather. So I've got a pretty good handle on the vagaries of the changing seasons, which follow fairly predictable patterns from one year to the next. Almost without fail, we will NOT have a drop of rain from late May to September. Through September and into October, we can usually count on a gorgeous, balmy Indian Summer, with real rain not kicking in until right around Halloween. The Fondo, on the cusp of September and October, would in most years fall right in the middle of that perfect summer swan song: crisp in the morning but sunny and warm all day. That's what the GF experienced for its first two years.

This year, the prevailing pattern failed. It didn't exactly pour rain, but it was overcast through most of the morning, and at the higher elevations--meaning up on King Ridge--we actually rode up into the clouds so that we were enveloped in a chilly, clinging fog. At its worst, the mist was precipitating out of the clouds with a decidedly drizzly aspect. It never quite condensed into real rain, but it looked like it was going to for awhile, making a lot of riders very anxious. Most of us had not thought to pack rain gear. We had arm warmers and vests, maybe, but nothing else. Real rain would have been miserable.

As it was, the worst problem was wet roads. The mist was plenty heavy enough to make some of the roads very slick. In particular, Hauser Bridge Road was a holy terror for many riders and a disaster for a few. This is the descent from King Ridge, plunging into the gorge of the South Fork of the Gualala River, with every yard of it over 10% and the steepest pitches over 20%. It is twisty and narrow and patchy and funky and just plain gnarly. At the bottom, it crosses the river on an iron grate bridge…what one rider called a giant cheese grater. When the Coors Classic stage race used this road in 1988, it was on this descent that Olympic gold medalist Alexi Grewal crashed (on a day with the same misty conditions and the same wet roads).

When I left the King Ridge rest stop, launching off into this wicked descent, the mist was in its worst, almost-drizzle phase, and the road was very wet. Six month's worth of grime and oil had been lubricated by the moisture into a greasy slick on the lumpy old pavement. I know this nasty descent pretty well, and I usually have a pretty good comfort zone with it. But on this day, I tiptoed down it at what I felt was an extremely cautious snail's pace. But even at that, I was passing riders all the way down the hill.

At the last turn before the bridge, course workers were jumping up and down and waving their arms and warning us to slow down slow down slow down… I took the last, tight corner onto the bridge at about 15 mph and zipped right across, no problem. I was focused on tracking straight over the super-slippery grating, but I did notice a lot of emergency personnel around and a lot of off-the-bike activity. Only later did I learn what a scene of carnage I had just ridden through.

One of our club members, Charlie Niles, was working as a sag at the bridge. He sent me a three page report on all the incidents he witnessed in just a few, very hectic minutes. First, a guy locked up his brakes and managed to get his front wheel sideways to his bike and went headfirst over the bars. Then a woman lost control on the approach to the bridge, hit the guardrail and went down hard, breaking bones in an elbow and foot and doing a serious face plant on the iron grating. (The first descriptions I had of this incident was that her “face had been ripped off.” But Charlie went to visit her in the hospital the next day, and I'm happy to report that the wounds only amounted to a one-inch cut above the eyebrow and a three inch cut on her cheek. Not nice at all, but not as bad as we first feared.)

Then another woman, screaming that she had no brakes, slewed sideways across the bridge, hit the deck, and slammed into a fire engine on the far side. Another woman, right behind her, lost control on the bridge, bounced off three other riders, and went down hard on the grating. She too lacerated her face. (Cheese grater, indeed!) Next were two riders from Canada. The woman lost control coming down to the bridge, hit her boyfriend, and both of them flipped over the guardrail and dropped 20 feet onto the rocks along the river. They were badly mauled, with assorted broken bones and other wounds. Getting them out of the gorge required some heroic work from the emergency teams, using ropes and pulleys.

These were just the worst of the incidents. There were other, less violent falls and stumbles. We have all said before: this is not an entry-level century, and that applies to the descents as well as the climbs. It's an epic adventure, out on the edge. Those of us who ride it on a regular basis are aware of its booby traps. They're all part of the “chutes-and-ladders” world I described in my Hell's Hairy Half Dozen column last year. I suspect many of the riders have never encountered roads this treacherous and frightening. The organizers do a good job of warning riders about the perils out there, but I don't think a lot of people really understand how wild and wooly it is until they are deep into it.

Back to the weather… the heavy, chilly mist persisted for several miles, all along the high ridges. I was feeling sorry for all the riders who had traveled from afar to do this ride: they were being deprived of the glorious, spectacular panoramas that make this ridge ride so impressive. It was all socked in. But then, as we began the steep, twisty descent on Meyers Grade, we abruptly dropped out the bottom of the clouds and into clear air…and there the view was, miles and miles of it, all the way down the coast. Yes, it was still overcast and gray, so not quite as lovely as it is on a blue-sky day. But still, not too bad, and a damn sight better than plowing through the clouds.

Down on the coast, it was quite pleasant, and on the last big climb on Coleman Valley, we began to see patches of blue. By the time we were back inland, past Sebastopol and heading for the finish in Santa Rosa, the sun was out, it was moderately warm, and it continued to warm up and clear up for the rest of the day, so hanging around at the festival at the finish was very comfortable.

• King Ridge hype. This is a minor--a very minor--gripe of mine. My eyes are starting to glaze over at the dump truck loads of hyperbole that are being lavished upon King Ridge Road and its consort roads: that this is the greatest ride in the world or at least on a very short list of great rides. What's ironic about me saying this is that I have probably written more lurid prose about the charms of King Ridge than any other writer out there. In fact, a good chunk of my copy from that Hell's Hairy Half Dozen column ended up being quoted in the main article in the commemorative BikeMonkey magazine that was handed out to all Fondo participants in their swag bags.

I picture hundreds of GF riders, sitting up in their motel beds the night before the ride, reading that copy and getting all jacked up for the adventure ahead. And I want to call, "time out!" and request a bit of a reality check. Okay…yes, this loop is really wonderful…world class even. But the best ever?

Perhaps I'm just jaded, after having ridden it two or three or five times a year for the past quarter century. I really do agree with the other people quoted in the article--Levi and Gavin Chilcott, Scot Nicol and Owen Mulholland--that this is a wonderful ride and that we are fortunate to have it here in our own backyard, available anytime we want it. We are blessed with that good fortune. But I wish we could dial back the praise-singing just a bit. I hate to overhype anything too much and then have the reality be a disappointment.

The best ever? I think of other rides I've done that match King Ridge and maybe then some. Riding from the bottom of Kings Canyon up to the Generals Highway and down the 26-mile, corkscrew descent out of Sequoia National Park, along the canyon of the Kaweah River. Riding through the canyon lands of Southern Utah. Riding around Crater Lake or along the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. Doing the Col d'Allos-Col des Champs-Col de la Cayolle loop in France. Or, nearby, the Gorge du Cian-Gorge de Daluis loop or the Grand Canyon of Verdon. Or Stelvio-Gavia-Mortirolo in the Italian Alps or the Sella Ring in the Dolomites. I could go on. Pick any one of a half dozen rides in Haut Provence, and they would all be as scenic as the King Ridge loop, and they'd all have better pavement too…

All I'm asking is that we tone it down a little…regain a little perspective. Soft-pedal the florid prose and let the newbies discover the wonders of King Ridge on their own…not as a product of pre-packaged hype.

Alright then…

My own ride: pretty uneventful and laid-back. I hadn't even planned to do the ride until almost the last minute. I hadn't entered it. I was trying to decide whether to sign up to work at our SRCC rest stop or just give the whole day a miss when I was offered a sponsor-VIP pass. Well…I wasn't going to pass up a freebie. In the end, I had a good time, in spite of the funky weather and in spite of a flat tire. I'm glad to have done it, but I expect I will let someone else take my slot in the field next year.

I'm neither strong enough nor motivated enough to mix it up with the big dawgs in a field like this, so I went into the day with the notion of just noodling along, schmoozing my way from one rest stop to another, yakking with old friends and new along the way…an easy, lazy day. And that's exactly how it played out.

Last year, after working the King Ridge rest stop, I joined the ride back among the last, slowest riders on the course. I noted that I was one of the fastest riders in that crowd. It wasn't bragging; it was merely a commentary on how overmatched those later riders were by that tough, technical terrain. This year, my peer group was significantly different.

I arrived at the start with my pal Rick. We had been instructed by the Fondo website to seed ourselves into the long river of riders at the start, based on our best guess as to our eventual elapsed time, which we had agreed ought to be seven hours or so. But as we walked along the mass of riders, from front to back, we looked at the riders in the five-hour area and decided they didn't look anymore like five-hour types than we did. (I have done five hour centuries, but not lately.) Anyway, we did exactly what the pre-ride advisory advised us not to do: we slotted ourselves into that five-hour area, well forward of where we should have been…a couple of wannabe poseurs.

That made getting away at the start relatively easy. We were clipped in and rolling within a couple of minutes of the official start. Then, along the flat miles of closed roads heading out of town and across the valley, we kept passing people. We weren't riding hard--not burning matches--but for some reason, we kept moving up the long file of riders, so that finally, when we arrived at the first uphills on the western rim of the valley, we were probably up amidst the top three hundred riders.

I guess that's the good news. The bad news is that this rather exalted placing in the long file of 7500 riders meant that my surrounding peer group was a lot different from the one I'd experienced the year before. After being a fast fish in a slow river last year, I now became a slow fish in a fast river. As soon as we hit the hills, I started being passed by stronger or at least more motivated riders, and that became the theme song of my day: riders going by on my left, pretty much constantly. I figured I'd eventually drift backward until I settled out into my own, authentic peer group, and that did kind of happen. But even at the end, there were still riders whizzing by. I don't think I've ever been passed by so many riders in one day. I felt like I was riding backward…a sort of two-wheeled moon walk.

I did manage to repass tons of them on the downhills, not because I'm such a crackerjack descender but because of local knowledge. I have all those descents pretty much hard-wired. I know where all the tricky spots are and where the best lines are. That was fun. I wish I could have done the same on the climbs, but…nope. Anyway, I was taking it easy. I have comfortable climbing gears, and I just twiddled along, enjoying myself. The distance didn't bother me. I think that was my 21st century of the year and I've done a few more since then. I've got the miles hard-wired too. At the finish, I can honestly say I wasn't tired…not even close to being trashed. It was just a pleasant day on the bike.

The results show me just outside the top 1000. Without that frustratingly complicated, time-consuming flat tire--where I discovered my pump was broken--I would have been in the mid-900's. So although I felt as if I had been passed by every single rider in the event, in fact, I ended up around the bottom end of the top third of the field on the GranFondo course. (4000 were registered for the longest course, but only about 3000 actually chose to do it.) And that's just about where I would have expected to be, given my approach to the day.

Overall, it was a nice day for me. Not the greatest day ever on a bike, but good fun. It was certainly an extraordinary day…I mean a day that was not ordinary, what with all those masses of riders and the buzz of excitement from beginning to end. I never once laid eyes on Levi, except at the start, but I did run into a few racers and celebrities I know. I'm not much of a celebrity groupie. I don't get much of a charge out of that. But it's as nice to see those folks as it is to see any of my other, more regular friends, who were here, there, and everywhere, all day long. The festival at the finish was well-run and loads of fun, with good food and--I think--good entertainment. I don't really know about the entertainment on the big stage because I was too busy eating, drinking good beer, and hangin' with my homies to wander by the stage to see what was going on.

Aside from those misty-damp skies and the handful of wet-road crashes, it was just about a perfect day for a big bike ride. From a logistical, organizational standpoint, it had to be nearly flawless. King Ridge and Meyers Grade, Highway 1 and Coleman Valley: those roads are always a treat for me. They never get old. But they don't offer up the thrill of first-time discovery anymore. So that special magic was missing (for me). But looking at it all vicariously, through the eyes of the thousands of riders who had never seen that landscape or ridden those roads before, I can imagine how special it must have been (for them). With that perspective in mind, I can see that, for the vast majority of the participants, it would have been one of the best rides ever.

Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net



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