The elite road cycling racers who’ll be at the front of the GranFondo pack have nothing to fear from Frank and Donna Savage next Saturday (Sept. 11).

The Whistler couple plans to take advantage of some of the six planned rest stops to be set up along the 120-kilometre Vancouver-to-Whistler route that will play host to some 4,000 people who are signed up to saddle up their bikes for the first such event ever staged in Canada.

Frank Savage on Tuesday (Aug. 31) said he figures it’ll take the pair about five hours in the saddle, plus another hour at rest stops, for the pair to reach the end of the GranFondo line in Day Skier Lot 4. That’s about 3 ½ hours longer than the hammerheads.

Still, you’ve got to hand it to the Savages. At age 62 and 66, respectively, neither had done much road biking until about a year ago, when — spurred on by a recreational cycling trip to Italy a year earlier — they purchased road bikes and started riding regularly.

Their training really picked up this past spring, after they signed up for the GranFondo. For the past few months, they’ve been doing two to three regular training rides per week in preparation for the big day.

“When we heard about it, we just thought, ‘What an opportunity,’ then we heard that it was selling out fast, so we just decided to sign up,” he said.

The race/ride, which Frank Savage refers to as simply “the Fondo,” has certainly spurred interest in the sport locally. An estimated 250 riders from the Sea to Sky corridor are expected to be among the legions taking part next week.

For the past few weeks many of them have been visible along Highway 99 or the area’s new favourite road cycling venue, Callaghan Valley Road, training for the big day. And Frank Savage he’s pretty sure the only drivers who have honked their horns as they passed the couple were friends voicing their support.

“It’s absolutely amazing,” he said about the explosion of interest in road cycling that has occurred locally since the GranFondo was first announced. “It just seems like everyone has a road bike now and if you’re in the Fondo, you’re out there doing some riding just to get ready.”

While the Savages are looking forward to the entire ride and in seeing the reactions of out-of-town riders to the passing scenery in their home region, Frank said he’s especially keen to experience the stretch from Horseshoe Bay to Squamish, which he’s never experienced from the saddle of a bike.

“We’ve been to Squamish and back a number of times in training, and especially with the lane closed, it’ll be a real experience,” he said when asked about his expectations of the event. “I just think that the folks from out of town who haven’t seen it, they’ll just be blown away. The whole ride will amaze people.”

Frank Savage said he also enjoys mountain biking as well as skiing, both cross-country and alpine. After training for the GranFondo, he and his wife are now committed road cyclists as well.

He said that while traffic volumes tend to increase as one gets closer to Squamish, he’s never felt unsafe riding on the shoulder of the highway — thanks, in part, to the recent $600 million road upgrade. Once considered a liability to Whistler, the post-upgrade highway is now an asset to the resort.

“I think the Fondo and the upgraded highway have very much gone together. It wouldn’t have been possible without the asset of the highway,” he said.