It’s a scenic ride around Cambridge and along the Grand River for riders of all abilities with 11 routes to choose from, some road rides and some gravel. As last year, I really enjoyed it again.
My first time riding was last year, with the 100km route, so this year I went the whole hog and signed up for the 160km route. It has a number of refreshment stops along the route and while there are certainly fast riders riding in groups (at least on the longer routes), it’s not a race and so you can ride at whatever speed you want.
There are a good range of bike styles taking part and with several thousand riders shared across the routes, it’s a great atmosphere throughout the day.
As events go, there’s a lot to like. The signage along the route is exceptionally good - there are more than enough signs at every single junction. To support that, they provide very good route maps and GPS data for upload but I didn’t need to look at the map sheet once (and not just because there were other riders on the route, but that always helps too). The route is classic ‘rolling hills’, there isn’t really a flat stretch of any length, but none of the hills are very long or very steep, it’s just up and down the whole way and very scenic.
There are plenty of snacks at the refreshments stops, a cold lunch half way and at the end. There are many volunteers in evidence throughout and should anyone have a mechanical issue, there’s a contact number provided for a pick-up/support service for riders. All in all, it’s very well done.
The route was actually just under 160km because of some construction changing the route not long before the event, my computer said 156.5km. While we didn’t have the heat of last year, it was a very windy ride this time and a good deal of the second half of the long route was into the wind. After setting a good average speed in the first half, I watched it chip down and down in the second half to finish at 29.8kmh and 5hrs 15mins riding time according to Strava.
During the week leading up to the event, I’d managed to aggravate an existing back problem and was a little concerned that it might be an issue. I was delighted that despite the effort that the wind demanded, it didn’t cause me any issues throughout the ride.
Proceeds from the event are used to fund their Helmets for Kids program, providing bicycle helmets to children and young adults at no cost through partnerships with the Cambridge Neighbourhood Associations. The Cambridge Tour de Grand has purchased over 1,750 helmets to date.
While I saw a handful of recumbents last year at the finish while eating and relaxing, this year I think I only saw one while out on the route. It may have been another high racer, but I only got a very brief glimpse. Admittedly, I wasn’t able to hang around for long once getting back to the start/finish, perhaps there were others that I didn’t see who may have come in already or were still riding.
If you want another flavour of the event, one of the volunteers was running a drone around the start and produced this video - you get a better idea of how busy it got later in the morning when more of the riders had arrived: