Gran Fondo Ephrata 2026

If the Belgian classics taught you to love cobbles and crosswinds, the Gran Fondo Ephrata is the Pacific Northwest’s answer. Starting from Ephrata High School in central Washington, the 80-mile Gran and 50-mile Medio routes push riders out onto primitive back roads through the Columbia Basin — a wide-open landscape of sage, wheat fields, and basalt where the shoulder of spring can mean anything from sunshine to sideways sleet. The climbing is real, the views are enormous, and the weather is a wildcard that keeps everyone honest.

Organized by Vicious Cycle, this event has earned its reputation as a PNW “spring classic” through years of delivering exactly the kind of day that separates riders who train in January from those who didn’t. Registration is deliberately limited and sells out fast, which keeps the start line from feeling like a mass event — this is 300 riders who know what they signed up for, not a parade. Aid stations are stocked and the course is marked, but you’re expected to be self-sufficient enough to handle what the Eastern Washington plateau throws at you.

The town of Ephrata itself sits about two hours east of Seattle on the other side of the Cascades — a different climate, different terrain, and a different kind of cycling than you find on the wet side of the mountains. If you’ve only ridden the Puget Sound or the Willamette Valley, the open basin desert of central Washington will recalibrate your sense of what road cycling in the Pacific Northwest actually looks like.