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We've just wrapped up the second live broadcast of Skipstone's Growler Road Race here in Sonoma County, California, USA. Hopefully you were able to join us in person or virtually by watching in real-time or even after the fact.
First, nothing is ever perfect. We look to that moniker as an asymptote — a line on a chart that you can close in on with hard work and attention to detail, but never make contact. The beauty of this concept for us is that no matter how good we get, there's room for improvement. There are things we can do better. While everyone is feeling an enormous high from Saturday's monumental success, it's Monday here at Bike Monkey (we suspect it is wherever you are too), and there's work to be done to get closer to that line. As we type this message to you, multiple draft documents are already being populated in our corner with contexts around what can be done better.
The 2027 edition of Levi's GranFondo is 361 days away, but only two separate us from the one behind us. Rather than allow ourselves to get caught up in the euphoric dust settling on flat surfaces, we're already strategizing an even more impressive lap next year. Just in case you were wanting a little insight into what's going on inside the machine that makes it all happen. But enough about us…
Collectively, we had a pretty great day. You rode, you raced, you watched, and the people were inspired — not just by the professionals duking it out on America's toughest road course, but by the protagonists of every story that was told on Saturday. People partook in what is being heralded as the future of American road racing whether you realized it or not. That's special.
We tried some different things this year with our live broadcast. For starters, we flipped it on at 7:00 AM deliberately so that people tuning in from different time zones would have an opportunity to see the event in raw form before the official studio "show" with Hannah Walker and Levi Leipheimer began. And then, when we finally did go live, we had a lot of behind-the-scenes tricks we worked really hard at incorporating to improve coverage in areas where there's literally no cellular signal, and even more drone coverage so you could see the incredible scenery of Sonoma County. If you didn't have a chance to watch it, you're in luck because the whole thing is available on YouTube for FREE. Fancy that. Re-watch it starting with the live show timestamp right here, or back it up to the very beginning for three and a half extra hours of raw coverage if you find yourself at the office for 8 hours and need something to keep you entertained while you "work."
Re-Watch Skipstone's Growler Road Race
Well, here's the part where we need your feedback, but this one's going out to everyone on the list this year because we need to hear from you about our live broadcast too. As of this morning, about 42,000 of you have watched it. That's a lot of voices we'd like to hear from.
Tell us how we did whether you rode, raced, watched, or all of the above. Click here to take our post-event survey.
In our survey we'd like you to rank us on big bucket items like communication, course support, traffic control, festival, food, customer service, live streaming, and more. And there's a free-text option for stuff that we didn't specifically ask about but is still important to you.
A lot of pics. Like thousands. Click here.
Your results are available on our results page here.
We achieved 270% of our fundraising goal, raising more than $135,000 for King Ridge Foundation this year. Big thanks to the top 20 elite competitors, who each donated 2% of their earnings in support of at-risk youth and the organizations we support — Adventure For All, Blue-Tailed Skinks, Forget Me Not Farm, our annual holiday bike drive, and the Sycip Devout junior racing team. We are achieving incredible things.
Bike Monkey currently has a giant online blowout sale going because in a couple of months we're moving to a new location, and we're really hoping we don't have to move quite as much stuff. We're so appreciative of anyone willing to take merchandise off our hands that we've reduced pricing on tons of stuff! We're talking $15 bibshorts and $10 jerseys (HEY, who authorized this??!)
Levi's GranFondo is our biggest event, but it's not our only bag of tricks. We keep ourselves sharp producing Stetina's Paydirt with Peter Stetina in Carson City, which takes place in just a few short weeks on May 16th; The Wente 8 Hour mountain bike race on May 30 — a completely different experience on mountain bikes; Truckee Gravel in the beautiful town of Truckee, California on June 27th; Rebecca's Private Idaho for four days from September 9–12 in the heart of Idaho's clutch of the Rocky Mountains; and The Bovine Classic, which closes out our year in "cow-town," Atascadero — California's other stunning wine region — on incredibly well-groomed gravel roads on October 24th. If you liked what you experienced this weekend, you'll like these too.
Check them out: https://www.bikemonkey.net/events
Thank you. That's what. Thank you for supporting us, for being a part of the experience, for smiling at the cameras, and for believing in us.
That was damn hard. But damn, was it rewarding.
Sincerely,
Levi, and the cast and crew of Bike Monkey
