Blue Mountains Gravel Fondo
Date
Saturday 15.06.2024Distances
84 - 126 kmCity
Thornbury
Country
CanadaThe Blue Mountains Gravel Fondo is a gravel event organized by Bruce Bird, multiple UCI Gran Fondo World Champion in both time trial and road racing and organizer of the Blue Mountains Gran Fondo who was part of the UCI Gran Fondo World Series from 2015-2019. . Bruce is collaborating for this event with the organizers of the spring Classic Paris Ancaster. The event in Ontario’s lake region is a true Gravel paradise.
Course
The courses below are the ones from 2023 but will get an update for the 2024 edition. More information soon.
84 km
official qualifier distance for men 60+ and women 50+
126 km
official qualifier distance for men 19-59 and women 19-49
Profile
The area around Blue Mountains ski-resort has some rolling hills which results in challenging race with 1500m of elevation for the long distance and 1000m for the short distance.
Right after the start, riders have a 2km climb at 5% average and roads are always slightly going up and down, but climbs are never very long nor steep. There is a second 2km climb on every lap after 12km. The final 2.5km are first in downhill on a paved road with a last turn 500m before the finish to slightly go up on a gravel road towards the finish.
42km lap
Blue Mountains
The event takes place in the Blue Mountains, an area known for skiing in winter and hiking and biking in the summer, a region with a lot of tourism for people from the Toronto area with the mountains and Georgian Bay next to each other. The event starts in Grey counties’ main city Thornbury to wind through the area with a lot of Gravel roads all going up and down to then finish back in Thornbury.
Thornbury has a population of 7000 inhabitants with a lot of hotel accommodation in the Blue Mountains Ski resort at the bottom of the slopes, only 15 minutes’ drive from the start of the Gravel Fondo.
More information on https://www.thebluemountains.ca/visitor-information.cfm
