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Aircraft carriers. The Hadron Collider. Burt Reynold’s mustache: all big, all undeniable, all gargantuan in their ambition. Once loosed, there is little one can do to slow them down.

You see where we’re going with this, yes?

In the last week, we have achieved a critical mass and we likely will not be stopped until our collective enthusiasm uncoils across the tarmac here in the County Sonoma. Hard to imagine that all this chaos knocking around will, in exactly one month, manifest itself in a ribbon of humanity, spinning by the thousands towards lonesome ridges and a shimmering sea.

Somebody should take a picture.

All The News That’s Fit To Print
Shipping Your Bike, Renting Someone Else’s–How To Handle With Care
Camelbak–Hydration Hosts Have H2O (in a bottle. For you.)
FondoSonoma Festival–Beer Me, Feed Me, Make Me Grin
From Medio to Gran–Self-Upgrades and Impulsive On-Course Decisions
A Van By The River–Lodging Update

Shipping and Receiving
There are few people more threatening to our nation’s airlines than the cyclist. Their hideous display of tan lines. Their constant calorie intake. The way their butts actually fit in the seats. And their bikes, their ever present bikes, weighing down our planes with their carbon fiber-ness. Terrible.

At least that’s how one feels when checking into your flight with your favorite ride.

Skip it this time around. Don’t give ‘em the satisfaction. Our pals at NorCal Bike Sport will receive and rebuild your bike to a standard rarely seen in this life. Don’t believe us? Ask the guy working on your bike where he is in July. Don’t be surprised when he tells you he’s in France, keeping bikes running for some guy named Levi while he does this really big race.

Looking to rent a bike for the day? Like a boss, we’ve got bikes available all over town. Check out our rental page here and really travel with ease.

Camelbak
We are indeed ugly bags of mostly water, ever threatened with the loss of our precious bodily fluids, as we sweat to the oldies.

Stop us, before we reference again.

Luckily, we have Camelbak, our partner in the everlong battle of hydration being waged right under our very skin. From their original inspiration involving an IV bag, a tube sock, and a 100 mile Texas road race, to their world-class Podium bottles and innovative wearable hydration systems, Camelbak has been a leader in getting water to your body when you need it the most. They’ll be on course at the GranFondo, running their bottle upgrade program. All you’ve got to do is trade in an old water bottle for a brand-spanking-new Podium bottle, adorned with GranFondo colors, naturally. We’ll take your old bottles and donate them to Bikes For Humanity, where (along with donated bikes) they’ll enjoy a new life in Namibia, helping people travel further for work, medical care, and education. Nice work folks.

Bread Breakin’, Beer Crackin’, Kick Backin’
When you ask 7500 people to go on a ride with you, you take on certain debit. Hospitality extends well beyond the bike in these parts and that means we take those obligations seriously. To wit, we’ve put together an expo that’ll make Barnum blush. Bike exhibits, live music, local food, and tasty tasty New Belgium beer, all solar-powered, thanks to Affinity Solar. Yep, we saw you perk up a bit there. We’ve stacked the FondoSonoma Festival with Venezuelan arepas, Mexican tacos, curries from India, Carolina BBQ, California street cuisine, and of course, Gerard’s Paella, cooked in 9 ft wide pan after 9 ft. wide pan.

You trudged up and down our hills, so we figure that merits some grub and a cold one, all on us. Park your bike, grab a shower, pick up a beer, and enjoy some of the best food you’ve ever earned. Maybe you didn’t ride? Don’t let that stop you. The FondoSonoma Festival is open to the public and we’d love to see people cheering on our brave riders.

Upgrade? You’re all in first class already.
Some of you are feeling spunky. It’s in the air and in our email inboxes. You’ve signed up for the medio and think that, come October 1, you might find a little extra pepper in your pants. For those of you considering making that fateful turn towards King Ridge when you’ve signed up for the piccolo and the medio, we have a “self-upgrade” policy in place on our website.

To sum up, we spend a lot of money per rider, way more than just the food in the rest stop. Motorcycle marshal escorts, on-bike marshals, CHP, police, fire, and emergency communications, protocol and SAG support are all things that your registration money funds, so by upgrading yourself, you’re adding to that burden and increasing the impact we’ve forecasted to communities along the route.

On top of that, you’ll have a color-coded bib and number plates. Our course and on-bike marshals will be on the lookout for this sort of thing and they may ask you not to return next year, which is a bummer for all of us.

If you need to downgrade mid-route because you need to get back to the start for any reason, please do so. But don’t opt for an upgrade just because you feel feisty. It’s not fair to the people who planned and paid for that service. Plus you’d be poaching a charity ride. What would your mother say?

Jumping From Bed to Bed
When an unstoppable object meets an immovable force, that’s usually when things get interesting. In this case, the unstoppable object is hotel beds, the immovable force is you, and the interesting part is where you’re going to sleep. We’ve heard from a lot of our partner hostelries that they are filling up up up and properties with vacancies are moving ever further away from the event start/finish.

The Hilton Sonoma Wine Country and the Hyatt Vineyard Creek are rolling out the deepest, reddest carpet for you: free shoeshine buffs made especially for carbon soles, protein-enhanced recovery mints on your pillows, and a free channel on the TV that shows what’s on all the other channels. Seriously, these two locales will put the cherry on top of your GranFondo experience as you luxuriate and rest within their walls. Don’t believe us? Ask Team Astana, Team RadioShack, and Team BMC Racing. They’ve been running camps out of there for the last few years.

Check out our innkeepers at http://www.levisgranfondo.com/gettingthere/lodging/. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Tickets are still available for our Festa del Fondo gala dinner!

Volunteers are still needed in hundreds of different places. Enlist here!

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