Welcome, folks, to Levi Leipheimer's GranFondo, cycling's version of the pub crawl, 3,500 riders stopping every 12 miles or so not for a brew but for water, a granola bar and a chance to compare quads with Levi.
The start will defy description as 3,500 men, women and children at least 13 years of age will be primed to launch from the Finley Center, ready to evacuate Santa Rosa en masse, like gasoline just hit 10 bucks a gallon and they just had to get out of town on a bike.
The GranFondo scene will escape our experience as cyclists do not travel in the thousands, not in the hundreds, not even, typically, by the dozen.
A cycling club may start a ride with a dozen riders but the ascending and descending roads in West County spread out that dozen to the point that they become more of a loose affiliation than an unit, that the leaders might have to leave bread crumbs to provide direction for the much slower riders.
"That's one of the things that is so intriguing about this GranFondo," said Greg Fisher, magazine editor of Bike Monkey, a Santa Rosa cycling business. "Watching 3,500 people move all at once, it'll be like watching mercury floating across a table. It'll be like watching a living organism."
The one visual experience in sports that approximates 3,500 people moving together on 7,000 wheels is foot traffic, like a Boston Marathon or the Bay-To-Breakers, but even foot races do not have the element of tire tread marks on fallen cyclists or 40-50-60 mile an hour steaming descents down a steep hill.
A large group of people on the move beg to be noticed if for only for a simple visual curiosity. What do 3,500 people moving together as one look like? A colony of ants on the prowl? A human glacier?
"It's not like sitting on your hands at a Miley Cyrus concert," Fisher said.
It's also not like your average sports fantasy camp, and the GranFondo is certainly a sports fantasy camp, an opportunity to travel the same roads with the world-class Leipheimer, Scott Nydam, Tyler Hamilton and other pros.
Embarrassment and humiliation - frequent partners in pro baseball and basketball camps - are not on Levi's menu. Leipheimer and his pals will make sure to stop and interact in rest areas, as well as on the open road.
"It's a little more equitable than getting stuffed by Kobe Bryant," Fisher said.
The scene at the start and during the first few miles will be the Kodak Moment of the GranFondo. A bigger moment, however much less obvious, is the dramatization of what truly should have the longest lasting affect.
"Share The Road" will become more than a street-size road sign Saturday. "Share The Road" will not be able to be so easily ignored, discounted and otherwise disregarded. Not with 3,500 riders wanting to share the road safely.
"To raise the awareness of safety on the roads, it's one of the major inspirations for this event," Leipheimer said. "Most drivers are very respectful of cyclists but it only takes one incident to create a bad situation."
"Share The Road" might as well read "In Your Face" Saturday and there's no harm in that, for 3,500 riders will provide the conga-line example that cycling is here to stay in Sonoma County. That, sure, it's most celebrated as Leipheimer's home but most cyclists thump their way from Santa Rosa to the coast and back not with Leipheimer on their mind but, rather, the intent to feel exhilaration, completion and satisfaction.
In other words, cyclists are not the lunatic fringe, the occasional oddball duck pedaling and mucking up the 75-mile an hour car sprint down Bodega Highway. How can they be when their numbers and their goals combine for an overall gestalt that should be applauded and not damned? After all, when was the last time you saw a cyclist jump out from the side of the road to take out a car? So 3,500 riders will beg to be noticed, one of Leipheimer's original motivation.
By their sheer size of the scrum there is respect in that number, for 3,500 people from 39 states and three countries create an impression that cycling in Sonoma is not only here to stay but, in fact, promises to grow dramatically.
"There is an GranFondo in South Africa that drew 10,000 riders," I said.
"But there was one in Italy that broke 10,000," Leipheimer said.
Ten thousand people. Twenty thousand wheels. Seems unimaginable. There or anywhere.
"But remember we set a ceiling for this GranFondo at 3,500," Leipheimer said, "because we only had four months to organize it. Think about next year, when we will have a full year to prepare for it. Carlos (Perez, event organizer) and I are confident that we can get there (10,000 riders) some day."
Ten thousand riders on Levi's King Ridge GranFondo? Ten thousand? Was Leipheimer stretching a bit? Nope. Fisher guessed Saturday's ride would have attracted 5,000 riders if they didn't put a ceiling on participation. Five thousand riders, 10,000 riders, whatever the number, moving like mercury across a table. Outrageous? Leipheimer wasn't laughing.
"Share The Road" is not really a road sign. It's a way of life. The message is clear. Give a cyclist room. And after driving around 3,500 of them on Saturday, I wouldn't think that would be difficult. Not difficult at all.
For more on North Bay sports go to Bob Padecky's blog at padecky.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5223 or bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.
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