Fluidride: Bike Shop, Seattle Washington

“” The King Took Back His Crown”"

Hi everybody I´m Javier Araya, writting from Chile and i´ll write a few words about the biggest race of the year in Chile.

That big race has been placed in Valparaiso since 2003 and it´s the biggest downhill event in the country in terms of crowd and “glamour”. Riders came from several countries like Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and the last years more riders from US and Europe had visited us.

The course this year was like always, full of stairs, steep sections and jumps… creating a lot of nice spots to see the riders skills and also creating too much stress on the bikes sometimes…. the race was full of flat tires, broken rims and derailleurs.

The fastest chilean riders are Antonio Leiva (3 times winner of the race) and Mauricio Acuña, but here anyone can win, you just have to get the “perfect run”.

The training day was sunday´s morning were the riders did lots of runs down the circuit trying to get the best and fastest lines, the qualifying run started at 3 pm and the fastest guy was Antonio, 2nd Mauricio and 3rd was Johan Leon. The fastest girl was the brazilian Luana Oliveira. Fairclough got a flat tire and he didn´t get into the finals, anyway he did other run just to please the massive crowd (like 6000 - 7000 fans were there).

The finals started with the ladies and the 30 fastest guys. The brazilian girl took home the firts place, second was Micayla Gatto, third was Diana Marggraff and fourth was the chilean Veronica Miranda (who had a hard crash the day before the race).

The men “opportunity” arrived and one by one were riding down the course and finally Antonio got his 4th title (04, 05, 06, 08), second was Mauricio and third was the canadian Steve Smith.

That´s it… the great event has gone… so we just have to wait 12 more month and enjoy the 09 version.