Cutoff Times and Time Limits

There are cutoff times to ensure your safety. We have found it mandatory to enforce cutoff times due to a simple lack of available daylight hours in the fall. You will have until 6:00pm to complete the entire route. It takes approximately 30 minutes for the last riders to cross the start line. Because of this, all riders will have between 9.5 and 10 hours to complete any given course and have their time recorded.

• 11:00am: If you have not made it to Cazadero by 11:00am, CHP will direct you to the left of the intersection at King Ridge road and up an alternate climb called Fort Ross road. You will reach the ridgeline adjacent to the Ritchey Ranch rest stop where you can fuel up just before the steep descent back down to the coast. Fort Ross road will give you a really tough climb, but it’s not as long or difficult as King Ridge.

• 6:00pm: The course is officially CLOSED at 6:00pm, at which time we stop recording finishers and start the work of tearing down the festival. You will not be recorded as having finished the event, but we will make sure to keep some food and beer around for those of you rolling in that late. We don’t want you going home without a reward for your efforts.

Why is there a cutoff?

The mandatory cutoff for the gran route is above all, a safety issue. Having riders out on the course, far from the finish, at sunset is not only a visibility issue, but also one of fatigue and discomfort for the rider. Beyond the safety issue, we hope to provide an enjoyable experience whereby someone can have a fun, challenging experience on their bike, which includes taking in our post-ride Festival and not struggling through a difficult ride for the entirety of daylight hours. Additionally, we need to be respectful of hundreds of on-course volunteers whose hard work makes the GranFondo a success and, by not structuring time limits for this route, we’d be ask them to spend sunup to past sundown in remote areas of the county for the whole of the event. In this environment, it makes it difficult to operate an event that provides a high standard of safety and enjoyment for all. By implementing a cutoff in the earlier part of the day, we hope to salvage a good ride for participants that would otherwise spend their day struggling to complete the gran route, or worse, injure themselves or others in the process. For those of you who would argue that it’s not the distance that makes the cutoff challenging, but the mass start and subsequent negotiation through riders, we all recognize that staging is a component of Levi’s GranFondo that requires constant reexamination and improvement. Working with thousands of people in order to get them perfectly sorted according to ability and route on a ride they’ve never done is indeed a challenge. However, we remain committed to the mass start, as it is a vital component of a gran fondo/sportive event and is a major difference between this format and that of a more common century ride.