Review: 2012 Gran Fondo New Jersey

To paraphrase Homer Simpson, the term “Gran Fondo” gets thrown around a lot these days.  Last decade’s Century Ride is this decades Gran Fondo. But while calling your organized ride a Gran Fondo comes with some pitfalls. The term implies something more than just picking a course and inviting a few local cycling clubs and buddies to do a ride. A Gran Fondo is supposed to be an Event. There should be lots of riders, lots of food and events, and a real sense of excitement.

So a few days ago my wife suggested I sign up for the 2012 Gran Fondo New Jersey.  It’s been a busy training year so a quick look at the course indicated I had nothing to worry about. So I figured “what the hell” and signed up.  I just got back a few hours ago and decided to write up this ride report while everything was still fresh in my mind. Did the Gran Fondo NJ live up to its name?  Read on to find out.

Registration and Packet Pickup

I signed up online about 6 days before the event. GFNJ uses Active.com for online registration. Active.com is easy to use but tries to sell you a bunch of other stuff during the registration process such as magazine subscriptions and whatnot. If you can navigate their check boxes, the registration is relatively easy. Frankly, I was happy to be able to register online as late in to the process as I was.

I got a hotel room about 3 miles away. Ideally I would have reserved a room at the Hyatt in downtown Morristown as it is directly in front of the Start/Finish line. As it was, I had to haul myself and half my family out of bed at 5:30 to pick up my packet the morning of the ride and try to get ready for the 7am start. Once we arrived and parked, I got in the registration line. 10 minutes later I had my packet. The onsite packet pickup line was quite large… so large in fact that the start of the ride had to be delayed in order to allow everyone to get their packets and get ready.

The packet had a variety of things required for the ride. A chip timer was supplied with a wristband to attach the chip to your right wrist. I thought a wrist chip would be annoying, but it really didn’t bother me at all. There was also a wrist bands with emergency contact info and a band for your head tube as well. Honestly, I’m not sure what the head tube band was for. I guess in case your bike had an emergency? I don’t know.

There was also a nice sticker that had an elevation profile of the ride with all the KOM’s called out in red. I put the sticker on my top tube but wasn’t sure how handy it would be since I have a Garmin 800 with the GFNJ map loaded. Really, that little sticker was awesome. I referenced it throughout the day as I gauged where I was in the ride, when I wanted to hold back a bit to recover for climbs, etc. A nice touch, to be sure.

Start

For the start, the GFNJ organizers had signs up next to the street indicating how fast you thought you’d ride and asked riders to line up next to the signs that best matched their abilities. I lined up in the 14-16mph area knowing that I’d probably clock in with an average speed of 15 mph (which as it turns out is exactly what I hit). While the idea of riders lining up next to their target speed is a great idea, the reality is a bit different. I think people overestimate their ability, which when you’re going out for a club ride isn’t that big of a deal. When you’re in a group of what appeared to be 1,500 riders lined up for the traditional GFNJ mass start, it’s a totally different situation.

The start was a mob scene… in mostly a good way. I’m not sure on exact numbers of riders, but it was easily more than a 1,000. I was about 100 yards behind the Start line when the starter said “GO”. It took about 5 minutes of walking my bike in fits and starts to even reach the line. It was another minute or 2 to be at a pace where I could really even get in the saddle and ride.

And then the fun really started. There was an amazing amount of diversity in rider ability at the start, especially considering some of us where doing the 107 mile ride and others were doing shorter rides. The first 20 miles was just unbelievable. There was a full lane of riders all the way until the first rest stop. Up hills, descents, and the little bits of flats where totally crowded with riders. For the most part, this was a blast… diving in and out of riders, finding a spot to fit in amongst the mob, chatting with folks. It was very much in the Gran Fondo spirit. However, New Jersey roads are sometimes not the greatest example of modern transportation surfaces. As a matter of fact, some of the roads seemed to be a better imitation of Paris-Robaix. There was one descent about 18 miles in that was quite steep and incredibly bumpy and holey. It was a white knuckled downhill, especially with riders walking up the sides of the road trying to pick up whatever random thing had fallen off their bikes due to the vibrations.

The Course

There’s a lot to say here, so I’ll keep it as brief as I can. Overall the course was very reasonable for the distance. It wasn’t as knee breaking as the 12k foot of climbing in the 100 mile Garrett County GF. However, at 7,700 ft of climbing, it wasn’t a simple ride. There were some nice challenging climbs, technical descents, and even some reasonable flat sections that allowed for groups of users to form a pace line and really put down some miles.

There were 4 timed KOM climbs. Each was very unique. The first KOM segment was 2.8 miles long… with about a mile climb in the middle of it. The first mile of the segment was mostly flat with several downhill sections. I’ve never seen a KOM that included so much negative vertical 🙂 The 4th KOM was barely an “M”. Most of it varied between 1% and 3% grade. A number of folks I passed were pretty spent at this point in the ride, so I think it still worked as a KOM. However, it was practically a sprint for those going for the King/Queen status.

As I indicated already, the road surface varied throughout the day. Some of the roads were smooth and well maintained. Others were marginally better than dirt in spots. I passed an amazing number of riders with flats and other wheel malfunctions. Way more than I would expect for the number of riders over this distance. I assume these flats were largely the result of the road surface.

The course was incredibly well marked. Not only where there painted arrows on the road, there were large “GF” signs at turns and major intersections with arrows and instructions printed on them. I thought I’d have to rely on my GPS for much of the ride, but honestly I almost never looked at the map. There was no need.

The course also had an amazing number of volunteers working it. Every single major intersection had either GFNJ volunteers with flags or local FD/PD working to control traffic. And in many cases there were cones set up to corral cars and riders to the right location. There were only a handful of intersections I had to stop at. Most of the time the person controlling traffic waived us right through. While we didn’t have closed roads, we had the next best thing. The ride organizers must have had their hands full getting all these different groups prepared for this ride. It was one of the most impressive parts of the ride, honestly.

The organizers also had local cheerleading squads cheering riders on along the route. Also a nice touch.

And the rest stops. They were well stocked with everything Powerbar makes. Lots of volunteers, lots of porta-potties, lots of energy. Again, kudos to the organizers.

The Riders

I feel like I need to talk about the riders at the GFNJ a bit. I met a number of nice people and had some great conversations. I think there were a large number of triathletes at this ride who, IMO, don’t handle pack riding well. I was in a few pacelines that made me very nervous. Lots of half-wheeling, people diving all over on the line without checking their sides/back, etc. But that’s all forgivable.

What’s not forgivable is the complete lack of respect for the local communities some riders showed. And what I mean here is littering. I’ve never seen so many riders willing to just throw trash all over the road. Ripping the top off a gel and spitting it out… then eating the gel and throwing it in the weeds. Riders dropping bars on accident and just riding away from them. Over and over I saw this happen throughout the day. I spoke up a few times, and other riders did as well. However, it’s really inexcusable to see this type of activity… esp when one of the charities that benefits from the GFNJ is an organization trying to clean up the greater Morristown area. I’m not sure there’s much the ride organizers can do about this… It may be up to peer pressure from other riders to make a difference.

The Finish

I finished and was immediately given a finisher medal/bottle opener in exchange for my timing chip. There was a BBQ and music at the plaza as well as various vendors pedaling their wares. Also, in theory, there were GFNJ pint glasses for riders. I couldn’t figure out where to pick them up and frankly I was in a bit of a hurry to get on the road and get my family back to Maryland.

Parting Shots

Overall, I was really impressed with GFNJ. A moderately challenging course, fantastically organized volunteers, and a mass start that really gets you mentally hooked in to the ride. While there are some rough edges, there were no fatal flaws and I’d like to come back for 2013. However, if there’s as much growth next year as they had this year, the mass start may have to change a bit… both for the safety and the sanity of the riders 😉