What does it take to gather over 700 riders from all over the world in peaceful Quincy, CA, a town with a total population of 1,728 inhabitants, to celebrate a two-day cycling icon? May it be the union of riding, racing, live music, great food, camping and a festival-like atmosphere or the composition of the best essences of gravel racing, gran fondos and enduro? The spirit of Grinduro has no equal.
After last year´s thriving premiere, Giro´s Marketing Director and mastermind behind the event, Dain Zaffke, dived deep into California´s backcountry once again to discover the ultimative course for the second edition and found ’’[…] the right balance between climbing and descending, gravel and road, singletrack and fireroad.“ A 100 km long loop, that connects four timed segments, means that the overall loop time is not relevant for the result. It “only“ comes down to how much juice you can squeeze out your legs within those roughly ten-to-15 minute long segments. Dain continues: “The descents are only as hard as you make them. Everything is rideable, and it´s our hope that the only time you need to clip out is to stop for lunch.“ So if you’re more a “I like hammering some trails with my friends on the weekend“ instead of a “Yeah you know, I just rode up Alp d´Huez on Zwift after work“ kind of guy, you will be just fine. Face the challenge to race the big guns or grab some beer at the camp fire after a day of on-bike toothy grinning, either way: make sure you will have a damn good time!
Grinduro 2016 Highlight Video
TWICE AS MANY PARTICIPANTS TWICE AS MUCH FUN
“I am absolutely in love with the race format at Grinduro,” said men´s pro class winner Duncan Riffle. (This name might ring a bell for some of you as Duncan was a former American Downhill Champion who also raced the UCI MTB Downhill World Cup for some years.) “Show up at the start and go as fast or as slow as you like, get to the start of each stage and go when you please. Keep it going, or pause as you like. I love going out on my bike and not stopping, pushing as hard as you can – to the point where you really do question the pain and how much damage you are potentially doing to yourself, but in the end the sense of accomplishment and courage to overcome and deny that question is priceless…it’s the best feeling in the world. This year, I knew I would have quite a challenge ahead of me competing against the likes of Carl Decker and Barry Wicks who were on rigid MTB bikes in the final stage but I really did want to prove a point and win this with a proper drop-bar bike as I felt, and still do, that this is the spirit of this particular event, as it was introduced to me. Not to mention it makes it a whole lot more fun and sketchier on the proper DH segments!”
Meredith Miller, winner of the women´s pro class sums up: “Giro and the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship really hit a grand slam with this event. It absolutely ranks at the top of my list because it includes the best of everything – the atmosphere, the people, the organizations behind the event, the vendors, the course, the format, the party, the scenery. From beginning to end it was so rad to be part of 700+ people whooping and hollering the entire way. Finishing at the train tracks after the sickest singletrack stage and watching everyone high-five each other was simply cool and left me with such a good feeling about people sharing their passion to get rad on bikes! And then the swimming hole…but you’ll have to race yourself to find out what that’s all about!”
You can find the overall ranking right here.
Click here in case you want to check the whole event photo gallery.
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Words: Ben Topf Photos: Ian Stowe, Colin Meagher, Dain Zaffke
