Wow. 2020 has been a doozy so far! (Understatement of the year...so far). Keeping up, keeping safe, staying home, staying sane...they’re all intertwined right now. Like many of you, we’ve been waking up each day and putting on our “optimistic face” and venturing into the world (even if “the world” means a basement office) with a sense of uncertainty. The challenges of running our business come in many forms and they come daily. Some days we fare better than others, some days we fall flat on our faces (and that’s ok, too). We’re all doing our best.

One of the challenges that we’ve been circling around now since March when we all went on lockdown: What to do with the Fulton Gran Fondo?

It was clear back in March that we weren’t going to be able to have the event in early May as planned. We toyed around the idea of a reschedule, with a digital “ride”, with breaking up the start times into small groups, re-routes, the list goes on. But in recent weeks we’ve come to the unfortunate but inevitable conclusion that the Fulton Gran Fondo we want to host is not possible in the remainder of this year, for a multitude of reasons that all boil down to doing the right thing for you, our employees and our community. We’ve been staring this disappointment in the face with hopeful eyes since we first postponed it, but now we must come to terms: There will be no Fulton Gran Fondo in 2020.

(deeeeeep breath)

But we didn’t come here just to give you the bad news.

If you know Fulton (and we think you do), then you know that when we do something, we do it all the way. We might be writing to you about canceling this year’s Fondo, but we’re also writing to you to tell you why next year’s Fondo will be bigger and better than ever.

First, the date: Saturday May 8th, 2021. Mark it down, save the date. Ok, that was easy.

The Ride. If you’ve signed up for the 2020 Fulton Gran Fondo then you are already signed up for the 2021 event. We’re rolling over all 2020 registrations in an effort to keep things simple, quick, and easy for everyone. For those who wish to ride with us in ‘21 but haven’t registered for ‘20 yet, just hang tight. We’ll open up registration in the same tiering style as in the past this coming fall/winter. If you’re seeking a refund for this year’s registration, please follow the *instructions listed here on our Fulton Gran Fondo website. As in years past, we will publish the route and accompanying Strava/Garmin/other digital files when it gets closer to the actual date.

The Party. We don’t know about you, but we could use a proper celebration right about now. But come next May, we’ll reallllly be ready to party. We’re already crafting our biggest, funnest, most impactful party to date and can’t wait to share all our plans with you in due time.

One piece we CAN share immediately is that Fulton Gran Fondo is joining forces with another event postponed by the pandemic to create one of MN’s biggest bike culture gatherings ever.

That’s right: You’re getting a full-on Fondo-ARTCRANK mashup in May 2021.

(another deeeeeeeeep breath)

We’ll have more on this as we get closer to next May, but we wanted you to be the first to know.

*Refund Instructions over on the Fulton Gran Fondo site right here.