Hopper is best known for their  Grasshopper Adventure Series, the longest-running cycling series in the country, coming on its 26th year.  What is a Grasshopper?   According to the series founder, an autobiography of sorts: “fun, often very long and hard, magical mystery tours through the diverse, challenging and eclectic hills of Sonoma County and beyond.”  The events are not billed as races but every bit as hard, if not harder.  They are about bicycle diversity, artistry in movement, and, above all else, personal challenge, perseverance, self-sufficiency, and competence. The rides were born from the founder’s love of riding and creating the perfect combination of road and dirt to challenge rider and machine.  All the unique routes were designed after spending endless hours flipping the pages of the Northern California Gazetteer, hiking remote drainages in West Sonoma County, exploring abandoned railroad corridors in Austin Creek, and carrying a bike over long un-rideable hillsides to connect one park or trail to another, was the birth of the Hoppers.  Hoppers are long, fun, challenging rides with no waiting for your friends (unless you want to), cold beer, and good stories at the end.  The routes are designed to be long enough that you know you can finish, but when riding outside your limit, riders must make good choices, or it will be a long way back, maybe alone.