We’re grateful for the support, interest, and registrations for the 2022 race. After launching registrations the single most common feedback we’ve heard is that racers would like more time to plan, prepare, and reserve space on their calendars for an event this big, so we have made the decision to move first edition of the race to 2023 in order to make the first edition more accessible to more riders. All registered racers have been contacted and offered to defer or refund their entries and thankfully all racers have been supportive and understanding! Thank you!

So what will we be doing between now and the 2023 race? We’ll be hard at work still! We plan on hosting a more locally oriented 3 day cycling festival and event in Armenia which will invite all riders, but more particularly riders in-country or from around the region. This will be done with the goal of helping to grow the local cycling and bikepacking community in advance of next year’s main event with an eye towards having more local and regional riders able to race, not just international riders. The race management will also continue scouting and course refinement through the intermediate months and are still at work with bi-weekly trips out into the mountains to explore more improvements. We will almost certainly also be sending more time on the bike scouting as well, and are considering plans to send a rider out on a solo attempt to set a baseline time for the route as-is. Stay tuned for updates on that!

Regarding 2023 date we are stepping back to ask ourselves what is the OPTIMAL date for the race. September is quite nice in Armenia so the date may stay the same, but we could also move the date up even into June to take advantage of the incredibly beautiful alpine scenes playing out on our scouting trips. The mountains are so verdant and lush in the spring that we are asking ourselves if it might be more beautiful to consider June. But we have a little bit of time to work on that so stay tuned. We will announce the new date well before the end of 2022 so that people can properly plan their travel calendars for 2023.

More soon!