(Chapter I) - Preparing a Mix terrain Gran Fondo

Hi and welcome to my event Blog - here I am going to describe in detail the preparation I am doing to tackle the Levi Leipheimer’s King Ridge GranFondo 2025 edition. 

Why am I doing this? 

Well,  you can say it is a matter of pride. I am not new to Gran Fondos, having done the 100 miles Canary ride in the bay area a few times and the Tierra Bella a couple of times plus some monster rides in Europe. 

All those were pretty much. 100% nice road , challenging but nothing for which you might even think of using a gravel setup of any sort. 

However, last year I did the Levis GranFondo (Geysers) thinking that 86.1 miles (138.5km) and less than 7K feet ascent was not a big deal. So I took my Specialized Tarmac Pro - and set on my way.  

Boy I was wrong - the start is nice enough, but when you get to Kings ridge, the terrain changes and it makes a difference. The weather also made a difference in this case - lets say that with Snow, Slate, Hail you pretty much have a full winter hit in April. 

Some choices were not fortunate, this is 100% on me: 

  • The Bicycle was not a good choice, I am a 6’3” on the weight limit of the bike (last year) , that takes at toll on pretty much everything.
  • The road cleats do lock up when there is a large amount of mud around, even on the rest areas. And I mean; lock to the point of halting against a wall and undoing the shoes to dismount. 
  • Handlebar and vibration dampening - Kings ridge terrain is unforgiving, the descent after 5K feet climb on Sonoma roads is like a high frequency vibration test. 
  • The Tires - worst ever, assumed a 25 was ok, when a 32 or 38 would have been a much nicer choice.
  • The exertion to get over the challenges and the longer than expected ride also took a toll on nutrition and recovery. 

We did finish the ride, it took a toll on body and bike - bad-ass feeling, but I could not stop thinking that the ride took the best of us. 

So I decided to repeat the ride but prepare consciously this time, not just finish, complete it and enjoy it thoroughly as it should be. 

Here is just a list of the things that I will be covering on this blog as the entries are created: 

  • Bicycle Preparation - Setup - Accessories - Testing changes - Exercise and training, conditioning progress. Nutrition and diet. 

Now you know why I am doing this - Next blog entry will be about the initial bike preparation and a couple of tests and routes I used. 

Please feel free to leave any questions you might have, I would be happy to answer them as time permit.

About me:

Juan is an avid cycler and founding member of Ryden Bikes USA. He is also an Audio/Video Engineer, holds several patents and focuses his free time on Bicycles, Sports and Nutrition. You can reach  Juan. At: Juan@rydenusa.bike.

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