The population of Drumheller grew by 1,000 on Saturday. Coincidentally, the population of bike tires also grew by 2,000 as the Gran Fondo Badlands took to the highways of the valley.
This is the second year the TransRockies Race Series has hosted the event, and it continues to thrive with another year of sold-out attendance.
“It’s sports travel, and it’s a huge market,” said race coordinator Richelle Love. “I personally love Drumheller. I run two events here, and I am obsessed with Drumheller.”
Racers could take on four separate distances from 50-kilometres up to a 163-kilometre trek. These take riders through the river valley as well as the scenic Badlands, including a trip across the Bleriot Ferry. While traffic has insnarled the community with construction on the Gordon Taylor Bridge, with race times starting at 7:30 a.m., cyclists were able to cross with no issues or effects to traffic.
“Everest Construction was absolutely incredible in the whole process of making that nice and smooth. We had meetings with Alberta Transportation along with the project manager from the Town of Drumheller, and everybody was just so supportive and incredible in making that happen and getting the athletes across in an appropriate, safe manner,” said Love.
The race has evolved over the years, and it is now truly a destination event for riders who are coming from all over to challenge the Badlands.
“Drumheller is a destination, and I love nothing more than when I hear participants say ‘I haven’t been here since I was a child, It’s gorgeous here, I need to come back more,’” she said. “I had a couple from Wisconsin come up just for this event that had found it through some marketing. We had another fellow from Toronto. He saw it come up on his Instagram feed. He said that looks like an epic, pretty incredible place to ride a bike.'”
She adds they are continuing to grow and improve the event. This year, they added live music for racers when they crossed the finish line.
“We love it, and we have plans to expand our offerings next year into the Friday night… just to get more of that feel. We want to encourage people to spend more time in Drumheller and get more of the businesses involved.”
