I am a long time user of Strava, a relatively recent adopter of Rapha clobber and a perinial slob in the week between Christmas and New Year and so when I stumbled over the "Rapha Festive 500" Strava challenge to ride 500km between Christmas Eve...
The Bicycling Open is not really a Gran Fondo or Sportive per se but moreso a "recreational ride" as the organisers call it that provides amateurs of varying abilities the opportunity to ride the Philadelphia International Cycling Classic course before the pros....
The 2013 Etape du Tour is my favourite Gran Fondo to date. There were four of us that did it and as we had never attempted such an event before it really felt like a great adventure at the time that we would all conquer...