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 test 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.