After being voted 3 years in a row as the Best Gran Fondo/Century in California and awarded a “Champions of Economic Impact in Sports Tourism” title, the Tehachapi GranFondo is dead. Killed off by the pandemic and its board of directors.
Instead of an event that attracts 1000’s cyclists to the city of Tehachapi for a weekend of riding and spending money at local business, the Tehachapi GranFondo board has decided to go smaller, a lot smaller, with a 100 rider event just for local residents, rather than trying to rebuild the gran fondo after a three year absence.
At a meeting of the board on 19 October, members said it was too difficult to organize a gran fondo due to continuing uncertainty, length of time needed to prepare for such a large event, difficulty designing a safe route and lack of resources.
In addition, board Vice President Kaleb Judy, who was chairing the meeting, commented the Tehachapi GranFondo is a tourism event and did not make money for the parks and recreation district that took over organising the event in 2019.
“It’s not in our wheelhouse,” he said.
The new “locals-only” cycling event that Judy is now championing will be called the T-Town Ride and take place in September in lieu of the 1000+ rider Tehachapi GranFondo.
Judy’s plans for the T-Town Ride? “Make it awesome!” he said.
Hmmm, 1000’s of cyclists though the Tehachapi GranFondo was already pretty awesome…
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