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Early Friday morning on May 30, 60 bike riders gathered on Main Street in Nucla. Outfitted with food, water and supplies for multiple days, everyone was eager to begin their adventure. They were about to begin the Grand Loop, a 350-mile bikepacking route.

This year’s organizer, rider and Nucla local Tim Tait explained the route, which has been around since the 1990s.

“Well it’s the combination of three long distance epic trails that COPMOBA built in the late ’90s. You have the Kokopelli Trail, the Tabeguache Trail and the Paradox Trail. Each of those trails have their own history to them from the creation of them. But the Grand Loop pieces all those trails together to create the full loop,” Tait said.

Riders gathered an hour before departure to drink coffee, share information about the course and stock up on fresh breakfast burritos—some taking up to four for extra food along the way. They discussed the upcoming heat, with temperatures expected to reach the 100s, and the chance of rain and mud on Monday.

“It’s a lot of calculations of calories and how many hours you think you’re going to be out there and just know you can go without food, but the water, that’s the big one,” said Kevin Emery from Victor, Idaho. “So lots of capacity for water and always carry a little bit more and do a lot of research so you know how to supply, where to supply based on where you’re going, and then cross fingers.”

It was Emery’s second Grand Loop. Todd Murray from Colorado Springs made it halfway last year. This year, he said, he’s determined to finish.

“I mean it’s so unknown. It’s one of these events for me that I don’t know if I can finish and that’s the draw,” Murray said. “So it’s really cool to approach it to see if I can possibly test myself to that limit, but I’ve never done anything this hard before.”

“This year I’m approaching this event differently. Last year I raced it, this year I’m riding it,” he added. “I’m gonna sleep each night, I have some sleeping gear with me. And I simply want to finish.”

Riders posed for a photo at Paul Koski’s woodshop. Koski, a longtime Nucla resident, is the founder of West End Trails Alliance and one of the visionaries behind the Paradox Trail.

“We offer a unique experience out here—that being, it’s adventure riding, it’s wilderness riding,” Koski said. “And we’re trying to put in some groomed singletrack systems just outside of Naturita and Nucla. But for the most part the West End will remain pretty wild. We have a small population and a big area, can’t really maintain trails to make them nice and easy, flowy.”

This year, riders went counterclockwise, encountering the notoriously difficult Paradox Trail just before finishing back in Nucla.

After a quick photo, a pep talk from Tait and some final gear checks, they left just before 8 a.m.—somewhat unceremoniously.

For the next couple days, the only way to check in was to “dot watch,” as it’s called. Each rider carried a GPS unit, which tracked their progress on an online map.

Multiple-time finisher Kurt Refsnider was the first to complete the course, setting a new fastest time of 49 hours and 15 minutes. Nicolette Jones, an Aspen resident, set a new women’s course record, finishing at 4:45 a.m. Monday with a time of 2 days, 20 hours and 43 minutes.

Jones said she encountered mechanical problems, stopped in Fruita for repairs, and battled through heat and sleep deprivation. She said the final 30 miles on the Paradox Trail were so difficult she thought it was a prank.

“So I was definitely struggling to get through the sleep deprivation at that point and mentally with the terrain,” Jones said. “I was, like, not stoked to be there at one point. Again I was pretty tired, but I fully convinced myself that this was some sort of prank. Like, there’s no way it’s actually this bad. This must be something they do for first-time Grand Loop riders and there’s actually a different trail that everybody else knows to go on, ’cause there’s nobody else out here.”

Jones, who won the Colorado Trail Bike Race last year, said this was her first Grand Loop, and much of the course was new to her.

“There’s always so much camaraderie in racing—just knowing that other people are out there,” she said. “But something about this course, I don’t know if it was just shorter or if I just happened to be in a little bubble that was all paced pretty similarly. But I felt like I spent so much more time either riding with or near other riders in this race compared to other races that I’ve done, and it was super cool to be able to share the experience with everyone.”

All told, 21 riders completed the Grand Loop this year, with two riders still out on the course as of June 4. For most, it’s all about the experience—and whether 350 miles or 150 miles, the Grand Loop always seems to deliver.