Constructive reactions are resounding amongst highway and off-road riders to the information that The Growler at Levi’s GranFondo has inflated the one-day race prize purse by 283%, the whole for the highest 10 women and men now a mixed $156,000.
As well as, organisers revealed earlier this week that separate begin occasions might be carried out for elite and junior divisions and new end protocols within the return to Windsor, California will permit prime professionals to separate from newbie riders on the run-in. Now in a second yr with a money purse within the longest distance occasion for Levi’s GranFondo, The Growler takes place with all fondo rides on Saturday, April 19.
“When you could have a prize purse this strong, it is going to assure a really deep discipline, one of many deepest fields we have ever seen. As soon as that information dropped [Tuesday], each rider globally who could make it occur is popping out of the woodwork. The win might be way more prestigious than the inaugural one,” Sonoma County native Peter Stetina, who completed sixth final yr, advised Cyclingnews.
“I’m so excited in regards to the big prize purse for The Growler and by no means thought I might be making a gran fondo certainly one of my season targets,” Lauren De Crescenzo (Issue/The Feed/Wahoo/PERC) verified to Cyclingngnews that she plans to defend her elite girls’s title.
Confirmations started to hit warp velocity for the elite discipline as registrations opened within the new yr for all seven journey distances at Levi’s GranFondo, which was co-founded by retired WorldTour professional Levi Leipheimer close to his former dwelling in Santa Rosa, California. This might be a sixth version for The Growler, a 139-mile endurance check with greater than 13,500 ft of elevation acquire on uncompromising tough roads, and solely the second time for a prize purse.
Luke Lamperti (Soudal-QuickStep) first rode Levi’s GranFondo in 2011 when he was eight years outdated, finishing the 60-mile route. Now taking the beginning for a fifth time, he was desirous to not solely showcase his dwelling roads to a global discipline but in addition formally settle for a finisher’s prize for the primary time.
“For me, it is dwelling roads right here in Sonoma County, so any time I’ve an opportunity I get to journey with a bunch of individuals in Sonoma County it is at all times superb. Now that it is a race, I am tremendous excited to come back again to it and hopefully competing to win it,” Lamperti advised Cyclingnews quickly after the small print have been launched for the 2025 occasion.
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“After I was 9 I first did the gran, which was 100 miles. I bear in mind I acquired an enormous bottle of tequila. However clearly, I used to be underage then and could not settle for it myself. Now with the prize cash this yr, it is tremendous superior to see the quantity the sum of money they’ve put behind it.
“[It will] hopefully get lots of [riders] out in Sonoma County and see a number of the finest roads on the earth. They’re a few of my favorite coaching roads in your entire world and I sit up for sharing it with everybody and competing in Levi’s GranFondo.”
The timing of The Growler enhances the gravel calendar for a lot of riders. It falls between Sea Otter Basic Gravel elite race on April 10, the beginning of the Life Time Grand Prix sequence, and an abundance of races the subsequent weekend of April 25-27 that embody BWR California and a trio of UCI Gravel World Collection races throughout the US, Canada and Italy.
“The timing of The Growler on April 19 is nice for me, particularly following Sea Otter Gravel the week prior. I will solely must guide one flight to California,” mentioned De Crescenzo, who will line up towards Heather Jackson, Sarah Sturm (Specialised) and Flavia Oliveira Parks (Excel Sports activities) because the early girls’s favourites.
“Final yr, I completely liked the relentless climbing, tough roads, and 120-mile distance—it felt like the right mix of my favorite elements of gravel merged with my first love– the highway. I feel the occasion is reinvigorating highway racing within the US for certain.”
On the roadside, The Growler is bookended by Paris-Roubaix and Amstel Gold Race. Leipheimer and Stetina agreed that the roads in Sonoma County have been worthy of comparability with the European Classics. And now the prize cash is comparable. The whole purses differ, however with $25,000 up for grabs for the lads’s winner in California (the identical for the ladies’s winner), that’s simply $5,000 lower than the lads’s winner of Paris-Roubaix and almost $10,000 greater than the Amstel Gold Race.
“The metrics maintain as much as any one-day Basic in Europe, however these roads are more durable – they’re pitchy, undulating, slower. It is simply ‘exhausting yards’. It simply wallops you bodily,” Stetina mentioned.
“It makes use of a number of the identical roads because the Tour of California ulitized in 2016. That yr it was riders within the WorldTour peloton who have been hooting and hollering and mentioned it was essentially the most enjoyable day they’ve had on a motorcycle race. And The Growler is simply principally a child model of that.”
Leipheimer mentioned that along with Stetina and Lamperti, 2024 males’s winner Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz Bicycles) was confirmed to take part, in addition to three-time Cape Epic MTB winner (Specialised Off-road) Matt Beers and US gravel nationwide champion Brennan Wertz (Mosaic Cycles).
