Can Levi Leipheimer Revive Road Racing in the USA?

In 2009, Levi Leipheimer won the Tour of California for the third consecutive year. Even though he’d ride professionally for another three seasons before retiring, 2009 was also the year he dipped his toe into what would become his biggest post-retirement project: the mass participation cycling event Levi’s GranFondo.

The event will return for its 15th edition this April and to mark the occasion, Leipheimer is shaking things up a bit.

Although one of Leipheimer’s routes was featured as stage 7 in the 2016 Tour of California, Levi’s GranFondo has historically never been a race. The event has always been more about participation than prizes, featuring multiple routes of varying difficulty in Sonoma County, California.

Until this year.

“I’ve always wanted to make it a race,” Leipheimer said. “I moved to Sonoma County purely because I fell in love with the roads. When I was training there for 22 years, I would dream about big races coming through.”

While he’s not resurrecting the Tour of California, Leipheimer is taking a tried-and-true formula and putting a twist on it.

This year, the ‘Growler,’ always the longest distance on offer at Levi’s GranFondo, will be a proper race, with a cash purse and significant traffic control. The start list is already teeming with professionals from various disciplines including Lachlan Morton, Peta Mullens, Ian Boswell, Sarah Sturm, Peter Stetina, Heather Jackson, and Petr Vakoč.

While Leipheimer is hesitant to embrace the headline that the revisioned Growler will help ‘save’ American road racing, he does believe that the race will rival any of the WorldTour’s longest one day races in both caliber and difficulty — and, that that could help the road revival.

“A road race like this, on paper, the stats equal a Liège-Bastogne-Liège or a Tour of Lombardy,” he said. “That doesn’t exist in the US. So, we’re doing our part, and I think it’s a big part. Road racing needs a resuscitation.”

The best of both worlds

The inaugural year of the Growler race at Levi’s GranFondo will require people to flex a little in their definition of a professional road race.

In some ways, it will resemble a Liège-Bastogne-Liège or a Tour of Lombardy —  a deep pro field racing for a cash purse on a challenging course. It will also be expensive to produce — “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Leipheimer said.

But, the Growler will also bear the trappings of the gran fondo it was born from; or rather, it might just seem like a professional gravel race, which some view as gran fondo’s cooler, grittier cousin. Riders will start en masse (although the pro category will line up in the first corral), no team cars will be allowed, and roads will be “controlled” but not closed. No governing body is sanctioning the race.

For, Leipheimer, it’s the best of both worlds.

“Obviously, this won’t be the organization of Liège or Milan-San Remo, that’s not what we’re going for,” he said. “This is sort of a hybrid between gravel and that. We’re allowed to do this because we’ve gained knowledge and expertise in traffic control and rider safety. We have relationships with land owners and local agencies. Now, we’re able to utilize all those resources to put on a road race.”

Road races are notoriously costly to produce due to the need for road closures, which is one theory that explains their decline, even as gravel — and to some degree, crits — flourish. There are currently less than half a dozen professional road races in the US; gravel races proliferate from coast to coast.

Nevertheless, Leipheimer likes a lot of what gran fondo and gravel have brought to the table, aspects of bike events that he’s not willing to part with yet.

For example, he believes that a mass start and a professional race can coexist.

“It’s important to me that everyone starts together, all routes, and abilities,” he said. “That’s the hybrid of fondo/gravel and road. We’ll have different age placement and corrals, and the Growler will lead everyone out. I believe they’re the fastest riders with the best skills. But it’s always been important to have all racers together. I really believe in atmosphere, the energy and electricity of the start.”

However, he also believes that professional riders should be treated as such, hence the $20,000 cash prize purse.

“These athletes that are coming, I think they deserve to to be paid and rewarded because this is their job,” he said. “We want to make the distinction that this is not just a gran fondo; this is a race.”

The $20,000 will be split evenly between the Growler’s top five men and women finishers. Parity in access and opportunity, another lesson from the gravel/gran fondo world, is also important to Leipheimer, and he hopes that on race day the women’s field will extend as deep as the men’s.

While the Growler’s timing on the calendar means that WorldTour riders will be in Europe tackling the spring classics, Leipheimer is happy with the interest in the race. He also sees it as a perfect opportunity for an aspiring road racer who hasn’t made it to the big leagues yet  — “it’s a great testing ground for up and coming road hopefuls,” he said. “The course itself and the roads in Sonoma County are completely epic, really what it’s about for me. It’s a really hard race on incredible roads that will take strength and skill and knowledge.”

The Growler clocks in at 138 miles with 12,000 feet of climbing — completely epic. It just might help resuscitate American road racing.

Find more information and registration about Levi’s Growler here.