The Gran Fondo Comes to Beverly Hills

With Pavarotti’s voice crooning over the loudspeakers, hundreds of cyclists started their journey from Rodeo Drive on Sunday morning for the first Gran Fondo Colnago Los Angeles.

The Gran Fondo, or “Big Ride” in Italian, was the culmination of a week of “La Dolce Vita Beverly Hills,” which celebrated the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy with special events showcasing all things Italian.

“It’s been a great week of Italian food, cinema, fashion, art, and now this,” said Mayor Barry Brucker. “It’s officially our first bike ride in Beverly Hills and I hope this becomes a yearly event for us.”

Gran Fondos are long-distance, mass-participation cycling events—not races—that are popular in Italy. The rides are open to cyclists of all abilities and most people enter for the challenge and satisfaction of making it to the finish line.

For the Los Angeles event, riders could choose a long course of 72 miles that reached an altitude of 7,100 feet, or a short course of 39 miles that reached an altitude of 2,100 feet. Both courses brought the cyclists back to Beverly Hills for lunch and the finish line expo.

“From Rodeo Drive to the Pacific Ocean and up into the Santa Monica Mountains, this ride includes all the elements that make Beverly Hills and Southern California special,” Brucker said.

Joe Pooler, a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton, is already looking forward to his next Gran Fondo.

“There were a lot of good people. We’re all from different areas, but we just all worked together as a team,” he said. “It was a lot of fun and I’ll definitely do it again next year.”

For Ashley Killian of Marina del Rey, the hardest part of the ride was the trek up Topanga Canyon.

“That was a good eight miles of climbing,” Killian said. “But it was really great. It was challenging and fun and all the things a good bike ride should be.”

After the finish line, cyclists were treated to a hot Italian lunch, great bargains on cycling gear and a post-ride celebration.

“That’s the thing with cyclists,” Killian said. “At the end of the ride there’s always a good party.”

Italian bicycle manufacturer Ernesto Colnago, whose company sponsored the event, was on hand at the expo signing autographs and posing for photos. Colnago sponsored a Gran Fondo in San Diego in April and has events coming up in Philadelphia in August and Miami in November.

Through a translator, Colnago said that the first Los Angeles event was a huge success.

‘”It was wonderful. We would be very happy to come back here again,” Colnago said in Italian. “The riders enjoyed it and everyone was very happy to be here because Beverly Hills is a very prestigious place to be.”

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