Gravity racers took to the streets and stairs of Valparaiso in Chile celebrating the 15th year of the urban downhill race this past weekend. The port city west of the nation’s capital is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but still takes lets Red Bull take over its maze of steep cobblestone streets and stairways so that some of the best mountain bikers in the world can bomb down the hillside in between its colorful buildings. This year Czech rider and past Fourcross World Champ Tomáš Slavík bested the bunch taking his first win at the race by a little over two seconds. Czech out his winning run on the super shady narrow course care of a helmet-mounted GoPro, plus more great photos and videos across the gap…
Slavík’s course preview gives a good look at how sketchy the track really is. Besides watching the guy he’s riding with clip one of the narrow barriers and go down, a couple of his other landings look pretty borderline out of control. Remember how the wide angle GoPro flattens out your own rides?!
While helmet cam footage of the winning run doesn’t take in much of the scenery, it’s clear how fast and on the edge this type of racing really is. The course ducks through narrow alleys, rides walls & roofs, not to mention sliding through a few metal gates that might make the riders question using wide bars.
OK, so the neighborhood they are riding through doesn’t look like it holds the part of the city’s beauty that earned UNESCO designation.
And yes, the course involved cutting a hole in the end of a house this year so riders could ride a plank into one side and drop out of the second story on the other.
The race led a select group of 40 international gravity racers down the unique course for its 15th year. Totaling 1.8km in length it took Slavík just 2 min 48.48 sec to beat Brit Bernard Kerr, while three local Chileans rounded out the top 5 – Pedro Ferreira, Mauricio Acuña and Matías Núñez – all within about a tight five seconds spread.
It was Slavík’s fourth year racing through the town, and he was thrilled to finally take away the win. “I would definitely come next year and I would tell other international riders to come and try this event too.”
