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Get the lowdown on the Red Bull Cerro Abajo urban downhill racing series
The city streets of Valparaíso and Guanajuato will host some thrilling downhill racing over the new few weeks. Get all the info and find out how to watch the action right here.
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When it comes to mountain bike racing, there are few disciplines that look as spectacular as urban downhill. The races see competitors ride with speed down a steep course set in a city or town-based mountainside environment. There's a lot to take in. You'll see racers ride down stairs, navigate narrow lanes, jump over massive man-made jumps, go over the top of rooftops and buses, and in some cases, ride through buildings.
This unique gravity mountain bike discipline is popular around the world, particularly in Central and South America, where the geography of major cities lends itself to these street-based courses, with huge hillsides and neighbourhoods sprawling up above the main city centre below.
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The Red Bull Cerro Abajo series
Red Bull Cerro Abajo urban downhill races have been held in South America for a number of years. The most well-known of these is Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo in Valparaíso, Chile, which will hold its 20th edition this year.
32 min
20 Years of Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo
Relive 20 years of the largest urban downhill race in the world that began as an idea among friends.
In 2023, a fully-fledged Red Bull Cerro Abajo race series was launched, which Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo was a part of. Two other events ran as part of the three-race series – Red Bull Medellín Cerro Abajo in Colombia and Red Bull Guanajuato Cerro Abajo in Mexico.
For 2024, Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo and Red Bull Guanajuato Cerro Abajo make a return to the calendar, while a new stop outside South America has been added to the series. Red Bull Italy Cerro Abajo will conclude the Cerro Abajo series in October. The location for the Italian stop will be announced in the next few months.
You can watch all three races in full on Red Bull TV. Read on below for details on the dates of the events, the live broadcast details, what the courses are like and who'll be riding.
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How can I watch the Cerro Abajo series?
The high-octane races from all three events will be streamed live on Red Bull TV on their respective dates. Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo took place on March 3, followed by Red Bull Guanajuato Cerro Abajo on March 23 and the series concludes with Red Bull Italy Cerro Abajo in October.
All three races will be presented live on Red Bull TV by mountain bike downhill legend Rob Warner and can be watched on demand once the races have finished.
Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo – Sunday, March 3
The 2024 edition of Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo has now been and gone. Watch the replay below to find out what happened at the race.
Livestream – English
The best riders from around the world join the largest urban DH race as it celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Red Bull Guanajuato Cerro Abajo – Saturday, March 23
Watch the race in full from 8.45pm UTC.
Live
The most epic urban downhill MTB race hits one of the most magical little towns in Mexico.
More on urban mountain bike downhill racing
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Where exactly are the Cerro Abajo races taking place?
The UNESCO World Heritage port city of Valparaíso is the location for Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo. The Chilean city was a major trading and shipping hub in the 19th century, with many of the colourful homes and buildings that sit on the hillsides constructed during that colonial time. The barrios on the hillsides are connected by a labyrinth of narrow alleyways.
Valparaíso is breathtaking from above
© Fabio Piva/Red Bull Content Pool
Guanajuato City in Mexico will host the final stop of the Cerro Abajo series. Like Valparaíso, Guanajuato is a UNESCO World Heritage site on account of its colonial-based street layout and housing architecture that dates from the 16th century when the city started to boom as a major mining location. The city sits in a valley and the lanes here on the hillsides can be super-narrow and steep.
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What are the courses like?
Urban downhill courses in Central and South America share a few characteristics that define them. They're steep, often have long staircase sections and feature speedy straights, as well as tight turns on incredibly narrow streets. To help boost speed, the courses also feature man-made obstacles, such as wood-based ramps and wallrides.
Man-made features are an important part of a South American urban DH course
© Alfred Jürgen Westermeyer/Red Bull Content Pool
The Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo course is about 1.6km in length with with 205 metres of incline. It starts at the top of Cerro Cárcel before winding down past Bismarck Square and Atahualpa Street towards the fountain of Neptune at the Plaza Aníbal Pinto in the city centre, where the finishing line for the race is. On their way down, competitors will ride on the rooftop of a house alongside the famous Boccaccio stairs that leads to them going through the interior of the Hotel Faro Azul – in what's considered the most iconic part of this Valparaíso track. This year, the classic course will also introduce a 10-meter Truck Jump, requiring riders to clear a lineup of trucks on the course. This Truck Jump will follow just after the Faro Azul.
2 min
Track guide
Take a virtual tour of the notorious urban downhill track for Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo 2023.
The first edition of Red Bull Guanajuato Cerro Abajo took place on a newly designed course in the city. Guanajuato has held urban downhill races before, so the authorities and the population there are no strangers to the concept. The Guanajuato course is 1.2km in length.
Watch Tomáš Slavík's race run from Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo in 2023 to get an idea of what it is like to race down one of these urban courses:
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Tomáš Slavík's winning run POV
Get inside the action as Tomáš Slavík takes us down his run from Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo 2023.
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There'll be an overall Cerro Abajo Series winner
Points will be awarded over the three races depending on where an athlete finishes in a race. At the end of the series, a trophy will be given to the athlete who has accrued the most points over the three races. This will provide motivation for athletes to enter all three events.
Entries are generally capped at 30 per race. Just like any other downhill mountain bike race, there's a small amount of practice allowed on the course, as the tracks will take some getting used to. This is followed by a qualifying run so that numbers can be whittled down to a manageable amount for the live broadcast of the finals. There's just one race run, with the fastest time being declared the winner.
There's always a trophy to take home after winning one of these races
© Fabio Piva/Red Bull Content Pool
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Who's racing the Cerro Abajo series?
With these races taking place in the Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup off-season, they've usually attracted some serious racing talent. Brook Macdonald, Jackson Goldstone, Bernard Kerr and Wyn Masters are just four who've dabbled in the past. Most of these races will feature mainly South American riders and specialist urban downhill racers.
Huge crowds gather to watch Jackson Goldstone in action in Valparaíso
© Jean Louis de Heeckeren/Red Bull Content Pool
Confirmed to be racing the Red Bull Cerro Abajo races is Tomáš Slavík of the Czech Republic, a two time Valparaíso winner and the absolute master of urban downhill events. Enduro racer Pedro Burns from Chile is scheduled to be racing some of the events. Other local South American talents to look out at these races include Chileans Pedro Ferraira, Felipe Agurto and Matias Nunez, as well as Camilo Sánchez from Colombia.
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Who won the Cerro Abajo urban downhill race series in 2023?
The first winner of the Red Bull Cerro Abajo series was Colombian Juanfer Vélez. Vélez had a healthy lead of 42 points over the Czech Republic's Tomáš Slavík in the overall Red Bull Cerro Abajo standings, but there was still a chance for Slavík to take the title at the concluding stop in Guanajuato.
Vélez qualified the fastest of the two and was the last man down the track. However, calamity struck the young racer, as his front tyre came off his wheel at the top of the course and he was unable to finish.
The DNF didn't matter in the end as Vélez already knew he'd won the overall Red Bull Cerro Abajo title, secured before he set off for his run. This was because Slavík crashed heavily on one of the stair segments which ruled him out of the battle for the race win and saw him finish 13th of the 15 starters.
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Who were the winners of the Valparaíso and Guanajuato races in 2023?
Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo has been raced under Red Bull sponsorship since 2010 but the 2023 race was its 19th as an entity. The edition was won by Tomáš Slavík in incredible circumstances. Slavík had previously won two editions of the race in 2017 and 2018. Watch Slavik's winning run from 2023 below:
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Tomáš Slavík's winning run
Tomáš Slavík took the first win of the 2023 Red Bull Cerro Abajo series. Watch his run through the streets.
The first edition of Red Bull Guanajuato Cerro Abajo was won by Colombian Camilo Sánchez. Sánchez posted a time of 1m 55.766s, which was 2.2s faster than rising Canadian UCI World Cup downhiller Jackson Goldstone in second place. Chilean, Felipe Agurto, claimed third place with his time.
10 min
Top 3 runs
Enjoy the top three runs from Chile's Felipe Agurto, Canada's Jackson Goldstone and Colombia's Camilo Sánchez.
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