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When it comes to unveiling 4.0, race founders Mike Brumbaugh and Jake Wells are sticking to their proven recipe.

“Right now, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Wells said ahead of the fourth-annual gravel bike event, which rides out of Gypsum on June 22. “We just want to continue doing what we’ve been doing and make small little tweaks that can hopefully make for a little bit better experience for everybody.”

Last year, over 500 cyclists competed across 85, 50 and 20-mile races. Eric Brunner and Cecily Decker claimed respective men’s and women’s titles in the signature Ram’s Horn Escape race, topping a field filled with former Olympians, Leadville 100 champions and LifeTime Grand Prix stars. For the second-straight year, the course will run in a clockwise direction. This time, however, the final lollipop will ascend Red Hill Road and come down the paved Cottonwood Pass into the finish. Wells said even though the original plan was to alternate directions every two years, the current consensus is to keep it this way for good.

“We might throw in the occasional throwback for nostalgic reasons,” he said. “But for now, I think for our crew to get out to where we need to be and most important, the racer experience — getting some of the Spring Creek and Love Connector (trails) in there early when people are fresh and feeling good is important.”

The likelihood of running into general public users is also diminished with the early-morning arrival. Even though the gradual Gypsum Creek ascent is now a buttery smooth downhill, both the 50 and 85-mile courses cater to the climbers. Brumbaugh said one will experience the same zen going up to the Peter Estin Hut on Spring Creek Road or taking Brush Creek to Sylvan Lake.

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“It’s in the shade, you’re cruising along, you see wildflowers, moose,” he said. “You get the harshness out of the way early and then you get to just settle in.”

Another small tweak was to slide one of the aid stations a little past Yeoman Park Campground, closer to the course’s 11,000-foot high point.

The organizers have also increased the prize money and deepened the podium. Now, all of the top-5 finishers ($2,500, $1,200, $750, $500 and $300 for 1-5, respectively) in both the men and women’s events will go home with some cash. Two riders who would have liked that feature in last year’s race are Sam Brown and Haley Dumke. The two Mountain Pedaler teammates each placed fourth in 2024 but return Sunday to battle against a stacked pro field.

“It’s impressive,” Well’s said of the registered elites. “And it’s probably even more impressive on the women’s side.”

Bighorn Gravel is perfectly positioned in the off-road calendar for athletes training for marquee races like Crusher in the Tushar, the Leadville 100 or Steamboat Gravel. It’s one reason why Wells has been fielding calls from athletes in the LifeTime Grand Prix, the premiere gravel racing series in the country.

“It’s the first opportunity to get some high-altitude racing in,” he continued. “So I think it lines up well for those riders.”

While Decker is the defending champion, the favorite has to be Karolina Migon. The 29-year-old Polish cyclist is fresh off winning Unbound Gravel — one of the largest and most prestigious gravel races in the world. Migon’s teammate, Emily Newsom, is also in the field. Boulder-based Olympian Erin Huck plans to trek back over I-70 after sweeping the mountain bike races at the GoPro Mountain Games a week ago. There’s also last year’s runner-up, Lauren Stephens, a three-time winner of the Unbound Gravel 100-mile race and a sixth place finisher at the UCI Gravel World Championships in 2023. Two-time Pan American cyclocross champion Raylyn Nuss and Lauren De Crescenzo, a former pro road cyclist and the 2021 Unbound Gravel 200 champion, round out the group.

The men’s side should be tough as well, led by Durango’s Cobe Freeburn. After a runner-up finish last year, Freeburn returns to Eagle County having won both the short-track and cross-country mountain bike events at the Mountain Games in Vail. He’ll be challenged by two-time Tour de France finisher Alex Howes, who moved away from the pro road scene to off-road events in 2023.

But the elite athletes aren’t the only thing the race organizers are excited about. The “stoke level” of everyone involved, from the volunteers and vendors to the police escorts and the Town of Gypsum is Brumbaugh’s favorite part.

“The support we have from the community and the government is just — Jake and I look at each other and say, ‘what did we do to deserve this?’ — because it’s pretty amazing,” Brumbaugh said.

It’s one reason why the pair added Bighorn Road. The 80-mile ride on Sept. 6 will revive the now-defunct but immensely popular Colorado-Eagle River Ride. The pristine loop goes from Gypsum to Wolcott, north to McCoy on Highway 131, around to Dotsero via Colorado River Road and back. Last September, roughly 75 cyclists raved over the ride after a low-key test event. Brumbaugh recently took a few cycling friends out on the route, too.

“These guys have all ridden in France and seen the Dolomites, and I was like, ‘trust me, this is an incredible ride.’ We all rode road bikes and when we got done, every one of them was like, ‘that is one of the best rides I’ve done in my life,'” Brumbaugh said. “We saw an Osprey attack a bald eagle and steal a fish from him…I mean who gets to see that?!”

After spending hours riding around Eagle County and traveling to various gravel races, Wells and Brumbaugh felt compelled to bring one home. But no one was grabbing the bull — or in the case, ram — by the horn.

“We were like, ‘we have equally good if not better terrain to choose from. Why don’t we have an event where we live?'” Wells said.

Part of the motivation for Bighorn Gravel was to provide the safety net of support to encourage locals to embark on a big backcountry ride. Wells said the same idea applied for the road event.

“For people to go do something big that they wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable doing on their own,” he said, adding that the dirt on Colorado River Road is the quintessential “Bighorn element.”

“The stretching you but not breaking you component,” he explained.

Since Brumbaugh and Wells received increased capacity from the Forest Service for Bighorn Gravel, they’re hoping to push their registration numbers up in the coming week. Their main focus, however, is finding the “sweet spot” number which enhances and preserves overall rider experience.

“I don’t feel like bigger is always better,” Wells said.

The weekend begins next Saturday with a series of sponsored shakeout rides and a Q&A with Huck, Decker and Stephens. The always popular kids balance bike race was moved to 2 p.m., another considerate tweak to accommodate for nap time. The family-fun event rolls right into the mandatory pre-race meeting and allows riders to get home to rest for the next day.

The long-course Ram’s Horn Escape rolls out Sunday at 7 a.m., led by an Eagle County Sheriff escort. Brumbaugh said after meeting recently with town council members and police, he left encouraged knowing his event had their support.

“They love the biking community,” he said. “They love the event and what the spirit of gravel is all about. That’s so cool to see this day and age from a town.”