Trip Report
Pre-race:
Day before: I stayed in one of the only Airbnb’s in Nucla with Richard and Aaron. Aaron had booked it months ahead of time and kindly opened it up to other racers. Richard had picked me up in Glenwood Springs at 8:45am and we enjoyed the scenic drive to Nucla. After settling in a bit, I joined Aaron for an easy ride on start of the course. We were happy to run into Jay and Allan and enjoyed a fun little group ride on one of the few singletrack portions of the course. The rest of the evening passed more quickly than I expected; I packed my food, about 5500 calories, went to group social for a few hours, and finally ate the dinner I had prepared for myself the night prior. I was happy to be in bed my 9am
Morning of: I woke up earlier than expected. At 5:30am Richard and Aaron were up and about and the first light of the day made it hard to go back to sleep, so had a long morning to drink tea, eat breakfast (oatmeal and rice) and finish final packing before the start at 8am. At 7:20am I finally left the Airbnb to ride to start. I anxiously meandered back and forth between group and Richard’s parked car to drop off a last few things before we finally gathered for a group photo and the send off at 8am.
Day 1: We had a strong start with lots of people pushing the pace out of town. I chatted with other riders and breathed in a healthy serving of dust riding in the pack. I started with 4 Liters of water which was more than many of my fellow riders, but I was happy to be able to stay on top of my hydration in these early stages and not have to stop at some of the early more questionable sources.
Riding with the group, I was frustrated to have to stop and get passed by other riders early on. I had packed tomorrow’s gels in the top of my saddle bag, and they shook the closure loose twice before I moved them to my frame bag. It felt silly to be re-packing so early on in the race, but it was nice to let go of the idea that it might be a perfect race so soon.
I rode with Aaron quite a bit as well as a handful of other riders throughout the day. The riding and camaraderie was fun, and I was feeling good on the bike.
I was surprised when the well graded dirt road that started at mile 20 lasted the entire rest of the climb to divide road. I was moving well and rode away from the little group that I had shared the single track with. As we neared the top of the 5000′ climb the air was cooling off, and I drank almost all the water I had started with and got water around mile 35 out of a clean trickle coming out of the ground on the side of the road. Jay joined me to collect water and a few other riders around me stopped to break nearby. The rest of the climb went by quickly and I caught up with more riders collecting water at the top.
The turnoff the divide road quickly was a nearly unavigable path over trees and through brambles, it felt like the first real taste of the Grand Loop’s character. It was short lived though, and when we got back onto trail it was fun and almost flowy. We descended the loose, but quite enjoyable trail to Roubideaux mesa. Since I had already gotten water, I decided not to stop at Bull Creek although this had originally been my plan, but did grab a liter a few drainages later. I stocked up at monitor creek as planned and the entire stretch went by more quickly than I expected. I was riding off and on with other riders, but continued to play drop and catchup as I stopped to lube my chain (5 times that day!) and check on my shifting, which was out of wack with a worn cassette that I certainly should have replaced before the start of the race.
After a short stint on another weird bushwhack, we were out on the cruiser cottonwood road. I was behind a small group, and caught them at a piped water source at cottonwood creek. Despite not really needing water, I stopped for some of the cool clean water and a bit of shade before heading on. had a few more stops in this section as a result of not following my plan. I almost blew past East Fork creek, an essential source, having misread my water plan. It would be another 30 miles before the next reliable water. (There did end up being a few healthy trickles on the way up to Love Mesa, but I was glad to have water anyway.) With all the stops in the previous hour, I was motivated to keep moving up the long, hot climb up Love Mesa (it paid off because I did end up with the Strava QOM on this climb.)
Once reaching the divide road I caught and passed two other riders who were stopped for a break, and enjoyed the sweeping views on the well graded divide road. By the time I turned off for the descent down to Dominguez Creek, however, I was glad to be off the road and onto something a little more interesting. A few steep climbs broke up the ride to the Dominguez Creek campground and I was joined by another rider who was feeling strong at the end of the day here. When we crossed the creek at the campground, we rode up a little ways past it looking for the piped spring, but unfortunately stopped just shy of it and filtered water out of the creek instead. I got a full 7L load, filtering only my bladder and treating the rest. At this point I noticed the negative air suck in my fork and started wallowing wandering what I was going to do.
Knowing that there was nothing to do for the moment but ride into the night, I continued on, although not as quickly as I had been, getting dropped on the climb and rode most of the night alone. Aaron passed me sometime later and I whined to him a bit about my fork before he rode off. A really sandy, slightly downhill section somewhere in there continued to slow me down and by the time I was descending cactus park to hwy 141, my neck and hands were so wrecked from the wack geometry that I had to take a break. Seeing that I had already ridden 128 miles and that it was 12:20am, I decided to call it a night.
I set up camp, and set my alarm for 4 am. It was nice to take my chamois off, but I quickly realized that the rubbing alcohol that I had added to my wet wipes was a huge mistake. I waited out the burning and dawned my sleep hat as half a dozen riders passed by me.
Day 2:
When I woke up to my alarm I was glad to feel rested and have service to check trackleaders. Frances and Ivy were well ahead of me along with a slew of other riders who had pushed through the night without stopping. I finished the bit of descending to 141 in the dark and then crossed over to start the no-mas climb. I was glad to be doing this climb first thing. Even with grinding gears I was still clearing a lot more than I expected, and I passed two other riders on my way up. The rider I caught near the top stayed with me to Grand Junction, and I was surprised to be leading us through the descents even with my bum fork. A renewed sense of energy overtook me as we discussed resupply plans and my pit stop.
I called Mark at 8:45 just outside of grand junction, so I probably got to Fruita around 9:20. I headed to CBB where Noah and crew took care of my bike (fork service and replacing my cassette and chain) while I went to City Market to resupply. Considering all I had to get done, it was a fairly efficient stop but I wish I had taken off my chamois or shoes, since leaving Fruita is my saddle sores and bursitis really started to act up.
I was leaving town by 11:30am.
Someone taking photos on the way to the kokopelli trail told me that Ivy was just ahead, so I continued to push my pace trying to catch her. I caught up with her and we leap frogged the techy section of single track until she got ahead of me again at Salt creek where I took my chamois off to get in and cool off. Before that I had definitely had a moment of “I am too hot,” missing easy moves and generally feeling a little groggy.
Back on the trail after salt creek was a ton of hike a bike, which I was quite grumpy about. I had forgotten to put on sunscreen and had to stop again, spilled half of it on my bag and cursed as I carried my bike through the steep rocky trail: the heat was definitely taking its toll on my mood and coordination.
When I caught up with Ivy again, I was glad to be off of single track, and once again we leap frogged towards rabbit valley. She kept dropping me on flat stretches and only after she passed me while I was shuffling water in the shade did I notice the small arrow bars clipped to the front of her bars. Somewhere in there we got some trail magic, a couple gave us some huge pieces of ice to put down our shirts, which was incredible in the hot, windy, dry, riding. I finally put a gap on Ivy as we continued past rabbit Valley into the heat of the day. When I stopped briefly in some shade to shuffle more water, I saw another rider coming up toward me. It was Tim, the first time I had seen him since the start, and we enjoyed a brief hike-a-bike together, before I dropped his 4″ tires on the roads into Westwater.
As I made the turnoff to Westwater at 5:35 pm I saw Frances riding out! I was stoked to see them and took note of the time so that I could track how far behind them I was. I had a few chores at westwater: chamois and shoes off, eat my cheese and pickles, refill water, wash my face, mix up some drink mix. While I made a quick turnaround by westwater standards, it took me an hour to make it trail to trail. In my excitement to catch Frances, and my fatigue from the heat, I made the poor decision to only carry 4L of water.
While I was initially moving well with all the excitement, I quickly slowed down and started stopping too often as the sun went down. By the time I was getting out my bike light, I was in serious need of a nap, and laid down for 10 minutes as the riders I had left behind at Westwater caught up to me. I was riding more consistently after sleeping, and enjoying the lights of the other riders around.
I leap frogged with them to Dewey. And had fun riding alternately sand and slick rock in the night, it felt like being on the moon. The fellas pulled into the Dewey campground around midnight, and I followed them in hoping for a secret water spigot, but no such luck. I rode away from the river, passing other riders pulling over to camp, and I let my lizard brain take over as my aching achilles, dehydration, and sense of disorientation begged me to stop over and over again. At some point Alex caught up to me, and his company helped me focus in as we headed towards the water at cottonwood. I was really paranoid about missing this source since I had not saved it as a cue point, and my mileage math had gotten screwed up with the detours in Fruita and Westwater. I definitely need to dial in my use of cue points for my next long ride.
Alex, thankfully, had cottonwood marked down, and since the water didn’t flow to the road, we hiked just a few hundred feet back to it. I was slow and sporadic in getting my water refilled, and Alex was already laying down for the night at the top of the hike-a-bike out of cottonwood when I got there. I laid down nearby and moseyed about with other evening chores that I did not really want to do. So I wasn’t trying to actually quiet my busy mind with sleep until 2:30am.
Day 3:
I woke before my alarm at 4 am and started packing up, I knew I needed more sleep and figured I would have to stop for a longer nap or a full sleep on night three.
Again, I was moving slow. The views were incredible, but the top of the world road climb and the red garden hill trail, were not very much fun for me. The riding was challenging and I was not finding my flow through it, walking down some of the techy bits and waiting for it to be over. The descent ended in a significant, loose, downhill hike-a-bike, then started a climb of similar character. But the climb quickly changed to something more rideable, and the sweeping views provided some perspective on the popularity of this trail. Shortly before the descent to hideout spring, I caught Bohdi, and I ate his dust all the way to the water source where we found Frances!! It was about 9 am. They had started at 1am that day after laying down at 11pm the night before. They had been unsuccessfully trying to catch a little bit more shut eye, and took off with Bohdi while I floundered through another stop. Finally moving again, I tried to convince myself to ride out the entirety of the climb ahead, since I knew that it was not going to get cooler than it was at that moment.
At 10:15am though, I spotted the perfect spot of dirt in the shade and laid down for a 20 min nap. When I woke up, I was not feeling fully recharged, but the sleep must have changed something in my brain chemistry, because at 11:40am I had the realization that I could just move and ride faster. I was having a conversation with myself. In the sleep deprivation it was really quite like having a conversation, like there were two different people talking. I told myself that I only needed to do a few things for the next 100 miles to the finish: eat, drink, ride and sleep. I decided I should scratch sleep off the list actually. Everything else I realized, could be dealt with tomorrow when the race was over. From there on out I repeated the mantra eat, drink, move (since I knew there was a fair bit of hike-a-bike ahead I made the slight alteration from ride to move). Anything I thought about doing had to pass the mantra test before I did it; I really wanted to brush my teeth those last 15 hours, but that did not fall under any of the big three categories, so I suffered through my sticky disgusting teeth until the finish.
I finally caught back up to Frances and Bohdi and blew by them with my new speed. I enjoyed the fast riding through the end of the Kokopelli trail and into the start of the Paradox. I followed my water plan and was doing a good job of keeping my energy high by consuming a lot of calories.
As the climbing got more technical, Alex caught me once again, and while I was not able to hold on to his climbing pace, we did enjoy the long Red Hill descent down to the Dolores together before he finally dropped me climbing up Mesa Creek. My pace started to wane again as we parted ways, and I decided I needed a quick nap to reset. I laid down in the dirt, giving myself 7 minutes, but was rudely awakened 2 minutes in by a swarm of mosquitoes and no-see-ems. I could not get back on the bike fast enough. Without any sleep and newly covered in bites, I was grumpy as ever. Since no one else was around, I decided to play some music off of my phone, the only time I listened to any throughout the race. To my surprise it came with a significant energy boost. I pedaled to the creek crossing where I got water, relieved that the bugs had dissipated in the waning daylight.
As the day transitioned into the night, Tim caught me, and let me know we were on the infamous Koski traverse. He said a whole crew should be catching up to me and making it out tonight, he shortly pulled away from me and I did not see him again until the end. So while I pushed through the misery of this section, I kept expecting to see someone else out there. No one else caught up to me for the rest of the night though, but two other racers did finish within an hour after me. As my mental fortitude waned with sleep deprivation, I gave into my frustration at the trail and its conditions. The Koski traverse felt endless as the PUDs traversed through a cow trodden burn scar, the climbs almost all too steep to ride and each descent only serving as a reminder of the next climb to come.
At one point, not being able to see the lights of the other promised riders, I was convinced that I had downloaded the gpx wrong or that this was some sort of prank. When I finally reached gravel road at the end of the Koski traverse, I cried briefly, and let myself take a 7 minute nap to reset my vision. I knew the roads would not last to the end, and I knew that the stretch from Tabeguache creek to the finish was going to be another hard push, but I still was not prepared for how long those 14 miles would take. When I first reached the loose two track, I was motivated and riding hard. I pushed for about 3 miles, committed to keeping a hard pace and trying to finish the ride in less than two hours. After encountering the first downhill hike-a-bike, however, my resolve quickly waned, and suddenly, I was frustrated and moving at a snails pace once again. My attitude tanked, and I started cursing the trail. It was loose, gravely, steep, and without the motivation to do so, largely unrideable. Watching my progress on my GPS was painful, and I was not trying to be anything but upset. I had kept eating up until the last hour, and had rationed my water so I had something to sip on until the end, but nothing was stoking my energy levels. With less than 7 miles to the finish, the trail turned to singletrack and became significantly more rideable, although I was still not enjoying it. I started having powerful Déjà vu, so sure I had done a ride just like this before. This was some sort of trick of my sleep deprived brain, and instead of finding comfort in the familiarity I was further upset that I was not riding faster. When I finally reached the pavement. I burst into tears, sobbing, so relieved to be done.
I got myself together to roll into the finish where I was surprised to see Mark waiting for me along with some of the other racers. I fell into a hug with Mark and quickly removed my shoes, enjoying congratulations from the other riders while reminiscing over the struggle of the final miles. After waiting for George and Billy to roll in, we abandoned the street corner and I laid down in the back of Mark’s van where I quickly fell asleep.
Post Ride:
I woke up at 8 and enjoyed congratulating the incoming racers. Aaron and Frances squeaked in just under the 3 day mark and a handful of other riders had made it in while I was asleep. Eventually we made it over to Naturita for breakfast where we shared a meal and some laughs. In classic bike race fashion, all it took was a few hours of sleep and a good meal for me to decide that I would do this race again.