Sunday was a big day for a gran fondo.
More than 800 cyclists rolled across the starting line of the Bluewater International Granfondo in Bright’s Grove Sunday morning on four routes through Lambton County that ranged from 30 to 150 km and all began and ended at Sarnia’s Mike Weir Park.
“We could not pick a better day,” Ken MacAlpine, co-founder of the event, said under clear skies in the lakefront park.
“The location is beautiful,” he said. “The riders are so happy.”
Gran fondo is an Italian term for “big ride.”
Corbin Lippert of Dorchester and Wilma Koopman of London, nurse practitioners at London Health Sciences Centre, were riding together in a 100-km event Sunday morning.
“This is his first ride,” said Koopman, a triathlete who uses the granfondo as a training ride.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “Lots of fun people – the best place ever.”
“It’s my first time every having a number on a jersey,” Lippert said. “I’ve never been in a group event before.”
“It’s a lot,” he said about the 100-km ride he expected would take four hours to complete.
The route covers “beautiful countryside,” Lippert said. “It’s mostly flat with a couple of little hills in there.”
Since the first of the cycling events were organized in Sarnia in 2016, they have raised about $300,000 to support palliative care education in the community.
The granfondo organization sponsors a Bluewater Palliative Care Retreat for health care providers and volunteers organized by Dr. Glen Maddison.
The upcoming conference is expected to host about 150 participants in September, MacAlpine said.
“He’ll have world-renowned experts speaking at it, passing along what the latest techniques are in palliative care.”
Riders came from across Canada and a few spots from around the world to participate in Sunday’s cycling event, MacAlpine said.
“They’re just blown away” when they see the starting line on old Lakeshore Road overlooking Lake Huron, he said. “It’s a location second to none.”
MacAlpine said organizers thought they might be able to attract 100 cyclists when they held the first granfondo in 2016, “never thinking it would grow into what it is today.”
More than 500 cyclists entered that first year and the numbers grew in the years that followed.
The granfondo wasn’t held the first year of the pandemic and switched to a virtual format in 2021 that attracted just over 500 participants. Sunday marked its return to an in-person event.