Gorge Roubaix and Gorge Gravel Grinder Wrap Up

Chad Sperry

2017-04-05

Dear OBRA,

I wanted to take the time to say thank you to all of you who came out this
past weekend for the Gorge Roubaix and Gorge Gravel Grinder. We received
so many amazing comments and support and I want to tell all of you who
attended thank you very much. Best group of racers ever with not a single
complaint and so many wonderful comments and thank yous. You made my staff
and I's weekend a great one.

I wanted to let all of you know how the weekend shook out on our end. My
belief is that the relationship between a promoter and the racers is a
partnership and giving you the details from our end. For starters the
numbers for the Gorge Roubaix OBRA races on Saturday were not good. In
fact they were down right lousy. Last year we had 349 riders in
attendance. This year we only had 220 riders. Even with the amazing
generosity of teams stepping up to sponsor the event and volunteers coming
out we will still fall well short on breaking even. At this point it is
not looking like we will continue with the race. It is one thing for me to
volunteer my time to an event like this, but I just am not willing to
donate my own money to this project. Just like many of you I have a family
that I have to support. I say all this to all of you not because I am
looking for sympathy but as a way to say support your local races. Every
race out there is struggling right now. I am talking every single one.
Sponsorship is down and so are racer numbers. Even in our glory days we
were not pulling in tons of money so it only makes things even worse. When
you choose not to attend you jeporadize not only the future of that race
but also the future of racing in general. You can only sustain the loss of
so many events before the sport is gone in an area. So if a race is
outside of Portland skip a couple of lattes, use the money to put gas in
the tank and drive to them. If you are not in winning shape, who cares get
out there and race into fitness. It is to late for the Gorge Roubaix but
not to late to save all the other tremendous races on the calendar. Show
them your love and support.

As bad as the Gorge Roubaix was the Gorge Gravel Grinder was a great
success. We hope all of you enjoyed the format and the courses. Without
having to follow strict racing guidelines and have a certified flagger at
every single intersection we had the freedom to create unbelievable
courses. We hope you enjoyed them. It was great to see so many people
come out and do the event and then stay to drink beer and enjoy great food
afterwards. We are excited about the next two events in the series, the
High Desert Gravel Grinder on June 4th and the Mt. Hood Gravel Grinder on
July 8th. We will be adding more updates to the website next week so be
sure and stay tuned for more info on the Oregon Gravel Grinder series by
checking back at Oregon Gravel Grinder Series
In addition we will be posting a
photo gallery from Sunday's race up on our website as well.

Once again a huge thank you to all of you who came out this past weekend it
was very much appreciated!!!

Sincerely,
Chad Sperry
Breakaway Promotions
541-980-2338