A History of the Paso Gran Fundo
by Bob Long
The Original Hampsten Camps
In early 2005, Andy and Steve Hampsten invited Susan and me to attend a spring cycling camp in northern Santa Barbara County. That rather serendipitous invitation came after my former law partners selected the Hampsten brothers to build a custom bike as a surprise retirement gift. Both the bike and the camp changed the course of our lives in ways we could never have anticipated and over the course of the following years led us to some of our dearest friends.
The two of us were way over our heads in terms of cycling ability and experience at that first Santa Barbara camp in 2005, but we apparently did well enough to get invited back the following year. In that first year, we met some other Hampsten cyclists who continue to be enthusiastic participants in the spring camp tradition, including Paul Saunders, Joe and Chris Cesena, Darren Pollard, Chris Gulick and Erick Rabins, all of whom could not have been kinder to both of us, even as we lagged behind everyone. That spirit of inclusion, engagement and friendliness continues to be one of the most important attributes of the spring camp, thanks in large part to the spirit of these early participants.
For the next two or three years, Steve Hampsten and his then friend, David Schnitzer, organized the spring camp—always staying at the Skyview Motel outside of Los Alamos on Hwy 101, where thin walls between the rooms enabled everyone one to know their neighbors better than they may have wished. The best feature of the Skyview, however, was the way that all the rooms opened to the parking lot where everyone gathered in the afternoon to drink some wine and beer and spin tall tales about their cycling prowess. As I recall those years, Andy Bowdle, Tamara Donnelly, Brian Glass, Bill Crenshaw, Tom Byrnes, Paul Ehrenzeller, Tony Brown, Brian Gavin, and Pete McLeod, all became regular participants, although one or more of them may have also been at the 2005 camp. We all enjoyed the great rides– Tepusquet Canyon Road, Cat Canyon Road, Drum Canyon Road, Jalama Beach Road, Foxen Canyon, and Mt. Figueroa, among others—and the wonderful Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays of Northern Santa Barbara County, as much as we enjoyed hanging out with each other.
The Origin of the Idea for a Paso Camp
Susan and I met Corey Loyd and Susie Paine on a cycling trip with Andy Hampsten in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties in the fall of 2005. A couple of years later, Corey contacted me and inquired about the spring camp. He and Susie first came in 2008 and have been attending every year since then. In that same year, I met Ken Whiteside at a Tour of California mini-camp that Steve and Dave put together. Ken came back the following month for the full spring camp. During that 2008 camp, Corey, Susie, Ken, Andy B, Susan, Buzz Yancich, and I dined together one evening and jointly decided to sign-up for Andy Hampsten’s cycling trip to the Dolomites that autumn. In the course of that trip, a couple of significant things occurred, in addition to climbing the Stelvio: we formed a friendship that eventually led to the founding of the Paso Gran Fundo; and we met and cycled with Eros Poli.
By 2009, both Steve and Andy Hampsten had ceased any role in the spring camp, and it was left in the hands of Dave Schnitzer. That 2009 camp in Los Alamos was poorly attended and even more poorly organized, but it did have one promising feature—a daytrip up Hwy 101 to Paso Robles to cycle the Peachy Canyon Loop. I was amazed by that ride, as I continue to be every year I do it. In the fall of that same year, the Dolomite group returned to Italy and did a cycling trip centered in Verona that Eros organized and led. We had a fabulous time together, and over dinner one evening lamented that the spring camp seemed to be lapsing into irrelevancy or inactivity.
A few drinks later, I volunteered Susan and me to take over responsibility for organizing the spring camp and suggested that it might be time for us to move it to Paso Robles. Our small group of spring campers endorsed the idea and encouraged me to move forward.
In the fall of 2009, I drove up to Paso Robles to scout out possible accommodations and routes. I stayed a couple of nights in the Adelaide Inn and determined that it would be an excellent location: a significant upgrade to the Skyview at a moderate price point; that its parking lot would work well for our camp setup, much like the Skyview; and that the staff at the Inn seemed eager to work with us. I checked out the restaurant scene and found that there was a much broader and better range of options than Los Alamos offered. I also rode and drove a couple more of the Paso back roads and studied the SLO Bike Club website and its list of local rides, all of which reaffirmed my view that it was time to move the camp to Paso. Early in 2010, Susan and I returned to Paso with Buzz and another friend of the camp, Bruce Hildenbrand. We stayed another night at the Adelaide Inn and cycled and drove a few more routes, including Hog Canyon and Santa Rosa Creek Road. In the car, we failed to note just how steep the Wall was. It was on this trip that Susan came up with the idea of naming the camp, the Paso Gran Fundo.
The Early Paso Grand Fundos
The first invitations went out in early in 2010 to the Italy group and to every other Hampsten camper for whom we had an email. We had no idea what to expect in response, but to our surprise, a total of about 25 cyclists signed up to come to the first camp. Our objectives for the camp were simple: take full advantage of the great Paso cycling terrain; make sure that the camp is well organized with everyone knowing the schedule; facilitate collegiality among all the participants; suggest great dining options; and offer wine tastings at two or three of Paso’s best wineries. I think we pretty much succeeded with the first camp, because everyone encouraged us to do it again. And so we did.
In the summer of 2010, Susan and I cycled across the country and met two guys from San Jose whom we enjoyed so much that we invited them to come to the 2011 Paso camp. Bob Temmerman and Craig Needham did come and became instant fixtures of the camp. In Bob’s case, he also became the originator of more new camp participants than anyone else. Each year he would ask me if he could invite yet another person or couple, and each year I found it impossible to turn him down, because everyone he brought in added immeasurably to the fun and spirt of the camp: initially the new additions were Letitia Davis and Liz Dillon; followed by Leonard Laub and Yvonne Ascher; John Hartog and Maggie Hand; Erik Dryberg; Hamid Shoaee and Ann Ferris; Ron Anderson; and of course, his best recruit ever, Laura Hill, to whom he proposed several years later at the top of the Wall in one of the most memorable moments of Paso history.
Erick Rabins is another major contributor of camp participants during the early years. Some of us call them the “Seattle Guys,” although only a couple of them hail from Seattle: Michael Stearns, Jeff Spencer, Caedmon Bear, and Dave Lapell all have strong cycling abilities and engagingly fun personalities in common.
In 2011, Eros Poli became the first former pro to cycle the wonderful back roads of the Paso Gran Fundo with all of us, and at the end of the week, he announced his opinion that Paso offered the best cycling experience in North America. I guess he wasn’t just being kind. Several years later, Eros went to work with the cycling company, inGamba, and shortly thereafter, inGamba began to offer a cycling trip to Paso Robles. In addition to bringing his own brand of fun and friendship the camp, Eros indirectly got us connected to one of our favorite wine makers in the area, Janell Dusi. Eros was interested in drinking some grappa while at the camp, but the Paso liquor stores had never heard of the beverage.
Bill Grant, then a part owner of another winery, told me that we could probably get some grappa from a local producer that wasn’t currently offering it for sale to the general public. Late one evening, we met Janell on the town square and took possession of a bottle of the grappa that she had recently produced. She told us of her plans to open her own winery in the coming year and invited us to come visit her with the entire group. We took her up on her offer, and J Dusi became a huge favorite of and supporter of the Gran Fundo.
A couple of years later, another friend of the camp, Scot Nichol, introduced me to his friend, Cris Cherry, a cyclist and the owner-winemaker of Villa Creek, where we have enjoyed two or three wine tastings over the years. Almost every year thereafter, I turned to Cris and Janell for recommendations of wineries and introductions to their owners or winemakers. Thanks to them, we have enjoyed memorable visits to Denner, Alta Vista, Law, L’Adventure, Onx, Giornata, McPrice Myers, and Epoch, among many others. Since the first Paso Gran Fundo, each camp schedule has included three group wine tastings, which have also become a hallmark of the camp.
Perhaps the two best contributions we have made to the camp came in our second or third year. Initially, we provided everyone with a list of restaurants, and everyone pretty much went out in small groups every evening. We then began to notice that some of the small groups would get carry-out and bring it to the tables around the Adelaide pool. That led us to consider adding some optional catered dinners to the schedule. We decided that the small lawn area at the Adelaide would be a fine place to set up some tables, and we were fortunate enough to find Jim at Cahoots Catering who became our go-to caterer for barbeque and pizza dinners. We were soon offering optional dinners on the lawn on three nights of the Gran Fundo, and every year almost everyone opted in.
We struggled initially to find someone who was a good bike mechanic and wanted to come to the camp for the week. About the third year, we asked Shawn Johnson, our friend and favorite mechanic at our local bike shop, InCycle, if we was interested. He was, and the rest is history. Shawn has become perhaps the most integral part of the camp, servicing and improving all of our bikes and brightening the spirit of us all. It is hard to imagine the camp without him.
The Paso Gran Fundo Becomes a Family
In 2014, we celebrated what we considered to be the 10th anniversary of the camp, after five years in Santa Barbara and five in Paso. We invited both Andy and Steve to come and join us for the week. Steve was unable to come, but Andy did, and he spent the entire weeks doing all the rides and attending all the wine tastings. We were all blown away by Andy’s continuing cycling ability and his overall affability, and he was in turn amazed at what the camp had become. Before 2014, Andy had cycled many parts of California, including Sonoma, Napa, and Santa Barbara, but never Paso Robles. Just as Eros had done, Andy came away thinking that Paso provides some of the best cycling terrain in the county.
In these years, Susan and I also added a few new participants of our own to the group: Greg and Madeline Lee; Kevin and Marie Frasier; Ed Johnson; John Horn; and George Kiroff, all the way from Australia. Robert Trapani from Italy and Mark Edwards from New Zealand also attended with some regularity, adding to the international flavor of the week. A few years ago, Joe and Chris Cesena introduced Kyle and Patsy McCoy to the camp, and the two of them instantly become some of the most enthusiastic camp boosters. Kyle and Patsy in turn introduced Greg and Bev Benzon to all of us. Two years ago, Joe and Chris again convinced me that we needed to add two more to the invitation list: Paul LaStayo and Linda Lawless, who they have also become great new members of the family.
In 2016, we commissioned our son, Tyler, a frequent Paso Gran Fundo participant, to design a new logo for the camp and also design a Paso cycling kit. Tyler turned out a splendid logo that we hope will endure for many years, as well as a kit that as of 2020 has pretty much run its course but may soon be considered a Paso classic.
As families do, we both enjoy the present and pause to remember the past. In 2016, we celebrated together the lives of Pete McLeod and Brian Gavin, each of whom loved cycling and had come to every camp since the Hampsten days. In 2017, we sadly rode in memory of dear Richy Lee, who worked with Shawn during the 2015 and 2016 camps. We continue to miss all of their presence at the camp as members of the Paso family.
What has been most satisfying to Susan and me over the years are the friendships we have developed with all the camp participants and the family-like connections everyone has made with one another. It doesn’t matter that most of us only see each other once a year in April. When the time comes to gather once again in Paso Robles, it is pretty much a family reunion.
We are grateful for the ten years we have been privileged to organize and lead the Paso Gran Fundo, and we look forward to the next years under the leadership of Letitia, Bob, and Laura, who are the ideal people to move us forward with most of the rich traditions and new and better ways to do them.
–Bob Long