The Okanagan Granfondo, which for the past decade and a half has brought together thousands of participants from across the region, the province and beyond to celebrate the sport of road cycling as they peddle through the paved byways of the Okanagan valley, is no more.
The official announcement came Thursday morning from organizing body OG Events Ltd., saying in a release that the event has been "discontinued."
Just a couple years ago, the combined force of high-profile mid-summer mass-participation athletic happenings such as the Granfondo and Ironman Canada, the latter of which had just returned, seemingly triumphantly, to the South Okanagan after a multi-year stay at Whistler, served to keep Penticton a Canadian and arguably a North American endurance sport capital.
Now both are gone.
We reached out to 'Fondo founder and owner Jodi Cross to understand why, and found out more than we bargained for.
"It’s bittersweet," said Cross. "It's been a long run and I look at all the people we’ve met over the years. But it was time."
Cross was quick to hit upon the reasons for the undoing. And they weren't much different than the reasons she gave us a couple years ago when she told us then the event was on shaky ground.
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"Since COVID, traffic safety and management costs have increased 200 percent," she explained. "To be viable, participation fees (most recently $100 to $250, depending on distance raced and time of registration) and/or sponsorship would have had to increase by a similar percentage. And that's just not happening in the current fiscal reality."
Cross assured us the decision had "nothing" to do with the tragedy of the 2025 Granfondo, saying her mind was all but made up in 2024.
"It's my understanding the RCMP investigation is still ongoing," she said. "And I, like many, am looking forward to closure on this unfortunate event that has so deeply impacted the family and the entire community.
"(But) I'd already decided to stop prior to this year. I held on for one more year because I know it’s a great event for the community.
"But the increases are not something we could handle any longer unless title sponsors came along and we raised entry fees."
Cross also confirmed Granfondo numbers have been dropping, possibly reflecting a swing away from pavement.
"We were at 1,800 this past year, so we were down a couple hundred," she said.
Both numbers are a far cry from 2022, when the competition experienced a surge of participants suddenly freed from their pandemic isolation. The total that year approached 3,000.
But the end of the current iteration of the Granfondo doesn't mean an end to Cross's involvement with Okanagan-based mass-participation cycling events. Indeed, she insists, we're apparently just a couple weeks from an announcement.
It's an announcement that'll extol the virtues of gravel.
"I'm a road cyclist," said Cross. "But not as much anymore. These days I'm riding a lot of gravel.
"And three years ago I put on an event called the Okanagan Graveller. It was fun but I don’t think people were quite ready for it yet. Not a lot of people had made the move to gravel riding.
"But now is different. There are events in the US that get 1,000 or 2,000 people. I think people are ready."
Registration for the renewed Okanagan Graveler, explained Cross, will officially open in mid-October. The event will run in June of 2026 in the "Oyama region."
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"It's all about the cost and hassle of putting on a gravel event compared to something that's on major roads and highways," she said. "Here you'll be away from traffic.
"Right now I'm just looking to get some permitting done. It'll be more of a grassroots event for the community. It's actually going to be a sporting festival weekend."
The initial edition will be comprised of three distances – 60, 90 and 120 kilometers. There'll be an e-bike class too.
And if she has her druthers, the South Okanagan won't be left entirely out in the cold.
"Penticton's in the cards too," she said. "The South Okanagan has been great to me. The volunteers there are just spectacular. So doing something in the South Okanagan again definitely appeals to me."
For more info on the Okanagan Graveller and its impending rebirth on 2026, turn here.
