You might be wondering why a 'road' race lives in this database. Fair question. Levi's re-launched in 2025 with a more participatory, gravel-adjacent spirit woven in — no outside support, riders carrying their own gear, rules-of-the-road racing. Sounds familiar, right? On paper it's a road race, but in spirit and format it sits close enough to gravel racing — and draws enough American off-road talent thanks to its prize purse and its proximity to Sea Otter the same month — that we include it in the Index.
Levi's GranFondo is Levi Leipheimer's project — the three-time Tour of California winner founded it in 2009, initially in Santa Rosa before the event relocated to Windsor in 2022, with an explicit goal of putting live professional road racing back on American soil. It's a road event more than a gravel one by surface, but it earns its place in this database through its unroad-adjacent culture, its climbing-focused route design through Sonoma County wine country, and its status as one of the best-organized cycling festivals in the country.
The Growler is the marquee route by a wide margin — a 138-mile, roughly 13,000–14,000-ft-of-climbing route through King Ridge, Skaggs Springs, and Geysers roads that now carries what organizers describe as the richest one-day professional road race purse in the United States. The Gran route (named for King Ridge, the road the event was originally built around) is the toughest of the non-professional routes.
Registration for the non-competitive gran fondo routes opens in early August for the following spring; the Growler professional race and junior racing categories run on a separate, later application/vetting process beginning in September, since the pro field requires athlete verification.