A 3-fold improve within the prize purse at this yr’s The Growler, the 139-mile one-day highway race at Levi’s GranFondo, brings the overall payout to $156,000 for the highest 10 riders in males’s and ladies’s divisions on April 19.
Different modifications to the professional race embrace separate begin occasions for girls, males and juniors, one designated ‘private assist’ space on the route and payouts going 10 deep. Final yr The Growler rewarded the highest 5 girls and high 5 males equally with shares that totalled $55,000. This yr winners will obtain $25,000 checks.
The high-stakes rewards have already paid dividends for organisers with early commitments from the professionals, together with defending champions Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz Bicycles) and Lauren De Crescenzo (Issue/The Feed/Wahoo/PERC). Amongst contenders wanting to remove the highest prizes and status on the lads’s aspect embrace Sonoma County natives Peter Stetina (Canyon CLLCTV) and Luke Lamperti (Soudal-QuickStep), Matt Beers, US gravel nationwide champion Brendan Wertz, and on the ladies’s aspect top-four finishers Sarah Sturm and Flavia Oliveira Parks.
New title sponsorship from Skipstone, a limited-production property vineyard within the Alexander Valley space of Sonoma County, was accountable for the huge 283% improve in prize cash for the professional race. Occasion co-founder and former WorldTour rider Levi Leipheimer, who started the GranFondo in 2009 with Bike Monkey CEO Carlos Perez, mentioned the 2025 occasion is not only wealthy for rewards, but additionally beneficiant for the event of aspiring professionals.
“We’re so grateful for the beneficiant assist from our mates at Skipstone. Fahri [Diner, proprietor at Skipstone] actually believes in within the ecosystem of the fondo and the way it’s a participatory occasion. Anybody can join it,” Leipheimer advised Cyclingnews, noting that the occasion has seven journey distances and can once more assist the King Ridge Basis.
“However we’re but giving again to at-risk children, and we’re giving again to the game now with this prize record and providing a highway race that has a decrease barrier to entry than your typical UCI-organized races, which they undoubtedly have their place. However I see this as a manner for folks to get into the game, whether or not they’re simply signing up for the brief path to journey the primary time, or they’re an aspiring racer, they usually get to line up subsequent to Peter Stetina, Luke Lamperti, or Lauren De Crescenzo.”
Whereas the one-day Classics in Europe hit a crescendo the identical week with Paris-Roubaix and Amstel Gold Race, The Growler provides an identical problem, Leipheimer referring to the route as ‘single monitor for highway bikes’. The identical hilly circuit on slim, twisting roads will probably be used as final yr, taking in vineyards and forests throughout 13,800 ft of elevation acquire.
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There will probably be many modifications between the beginning and end strains within the city of Windsor this trip. A mass begin will proceed for newbie riders in all distances, nonetheless, the elite divisions within the Growler will every have their very own begin occasions to start the day, the occasions nonetheless to be decided. The third and fourth teams to start out would be the junior males, on the Geyser route of 86 miles, after which the junior girls, on the Medio route at 68 miles.
On the route for the primary time will probably be a ‘private assist’ zone the place athletes can have tools and vitamin may be picked up, or dropped. A impartial bottle feed can even be at this identical location for any rider.
“I give credit score to gravel as a result of I believe it has taught the athletes how you can be self-sufficient. That may be a huge cause why this may work is as a result of we do not have an enormous comply with caravan such as you see within the Tour de France. There isn’t any private workforce assist, we will not have all that visitors. So riders have discovered to be self-sufficient.
“We have invested much more in visitors management this yr, extra moto marshals on the market as a result of now now we have separate begins. My predominant aim and my predominant concern is I need everybody to be protected.”
The emphasis on security contains not simply route markings with distinctive arrows on every course, however particular deviations within the last 7km when The Growler racers are anticipated to complete similtaneously amateurs on shorter routes.
“When the highest males and high girls are getting shut, we will begin to ship the riders on the shorter routes on a extra direct solution to the end. There will probably be separate end strains. Then when the highest males and the highest girls have completed, the folks on these shorter routes will proceed to go that solution to the end. It is for everybody’s security.”
Registration is now open for The Growler and the opposite six distances for Levi’s GranFondo, with extra professional athletes to be introduced within the coming weeks.
Final yr Swenson accelerated previous former WorldTour professional Lawrence Naesen on the line to win the lads’s division of The Growler, whereas De Crescenzo soloed to victory within the girls’s division.