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What is urban downhill? Red Bull Cerro Abajo guide
Stairs, rooftops, huge drops and narrow city streets – here's everything you need to know about urban downhill and the Red Bull Cerro Abajo World Series.
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When it comes to mountain biking, few disciplines are as spectacular or as wild as urban downhill. Forget flowing trails and wide-open mountainsides – instead, riders race down stairs, navigate narrow alleys, jump over massive man-made ramps, ride over the top of rooftops and, in some cases, actually ride through buildings
And nowhere showcases urban downhill quite like Red Bull Cerro Abajo. From the legendary hills of Valparaíso to the stairways of Stuttgart, here's how it all works and what makes it one of mountain biking's most thrilling disciplines.
01
How does urban downhill work?
Fastest to the bottom wins
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
Urban downhill is raced in the same format as a UCI Downhill World Cup: competitors race individually and are timed from start to finish, with the fastest time winning the race. There's usually only a small amount of practice allowed on the course, followed by a qualifying run and one race run.
Courses are mostly through closed streets and down flights of steps, but sometimes organisers throw in sections of off-road where possible and at the bigger events there will usually be man-made jumps, wall rides and drop-offs. Courses are sometimes made even more thrilling by sending riders off rooftops, down tight alleyways and even through buildings.
The courses call for the speed and commitment of a downhill racer, but also the precision to squeeze through narrow gaps, negotiate sudden changes of direction and land huge jumps with little room to spare – especially as missing or incorrectly executing mandatory man-made obstacles (like wall rides or jumps) adds a 5-second penalty per violation.
The fastest 15 riders in qualifying then advance through to the Finals, where everything comes down to another race against the clock.
Ramping up the action at Red Bull Cerro Abajo
© Mauro Puccini/Red Bull Content Pool
02
How did urban downhill begin?
The sport took off in the early 2000s with the Red Bull Lisbon Downtown race that sped through the tight alleyways and stair sets of the Portuguese capital.
Not long after, Valparaíso emerged as one of urban downhill's defining locations. First held in 2003, Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo turned the Chilean port city's steep hills, staircases and narrow streets into a spectacular race course and has since become one of the sport's most iconic events.
In 2023, a fully-fledged Red Bull Cerro Abajo race series was launched and, in 2024, the first stop outside of the Americas was added to the calendar – Red Bull Genova Cerro Abajo in the famous Italian port city.
Urban downhill has been thrilling fans for over 20 years
© Gonzalo Robert/Red Bull Content Pool
03
What are urban downhill courses like?
No two urban downhill tracks are quite the same – largely because the city itself dictates the challenge. In general, they're steep, often have long staircase sections and feature speedy straights, as well as tight turns on incredibly narrow streets that are barely wider than a set of handlebars. To help boost the spectacle, the courses also feature man-made obstacles like artificial ramps and wallrides.
Where traditional downhill courses predominantly feature dirt, roots and rocks, urban riders must summon up all their skills and technical ability to negotiate concrete, asphalt, cobblestones, stairs and whatever else a city can throw at them.
Tomáš Slavík tackles a set of stairs at Red Bull Cerro Abajo in Genova
© Andrea Zaffaroni/Red Bull Content Pool
Surfaces can change several times in a single run. At Red Bull Genova Cerro Abajo, for example, riders descend from Monte Peralto through 2.2km of steep gradients, stair sections, narrow alleys and rapidly changing surfaces before reaching the finish at Largo della Zecca – while the course drops almost 280m along the way.
04
What is Red Bull Cerro Abajo?
First launched as a World Series in 2023, Red Bull Cerro Abajo has grown beyond its Latin American roots to take urban downhill into new cities and onto completely unfamiliar terrain. The 2025–26 season featured four stops across two continents, starting in Genoa before heading to the legendary streets of Valparaíso, returning to Italy and then finishing among Stuttgart's famous Stäffele stairways for the first-ever German stop.
After winning twice in Genoa and finishing runner-up in Stuttgart, Brazil's Roger Vieira ended the season on top, becoming only the second rider to lift the World Series title after Colombia's Juanfer Vélez.
05
What are the most famous Red Bull Cerro Abajo stops?
Part of what makes Red Bull Cerro Abajo so unpredictable is that every city brings something completely different to the series. From the colourful hills and maze-like streets of Valparaíso to Genoa's historic centre and Stuttgart's seemingly endless stairways, riders have to quickly adapt to whatever the city puts in front of them.
Urban downhill has taken over Valparaíso’s streets since 2003
© Gary Go/Red Bull Content Pool
Valparaíso, Chile
If there's one city synonymous with Red Bull Cerro Abajo, it's Valparaíso. The Chilean port city has been hosting the event since 2003, with its steep hillsides, huge stair sets and labyrinth of narrow streets helping to shape urban downhill into the spectacle it is today.
Over the years, some of the sport's biggest names have charged through its streets, while the course itself has become famous for features that make full use of the city's buildings and natural layout. In 2026, Colombia's Sebastián Holguín added his name to Valparaíso history with a blistering run of 2m 15.432s, breaking Tomáš Slavík's previous course record on his way to victory.
Watch: Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo 2026 highlights
27 min
Red Bull Valparaíso Cerro Abajo highlights
Relive the action as the world's best MTB riders took on the UNESCO World Heritage port city of Valparaíso.
Guanajuato, Mexico
Guanajuato may be just as colourful as Valparaíso, but racing through its historic streets brings a very different kind of challenge. The 1.2km course has packed in long stair sections, hard pedalling and some of the narrowest alleys riders encounter anywhere in the series, meaning there's little room for error when you're trying to find every last fraction of a second.
And then there's the feature that's become synonymous with the race: riders launching straight out of the front window of a house before continuing their charge towards the finish. It's exactly the kind of obstacle that sums up the creativity – and craziness – of urban downhill.
Watch: Red Bull Guanajuato Cerro Abajo 2025 highlights
26 min
Red Bull Guanajuato Cerro Abajo highlights
The world's most epic urban downhill MTB race hit beautiful Guanajuato, Mexico, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Genoa, Italy
When Red Bull Cerro Abajo crossed the Atlantic for the first time in 2024, Genoa proved to be a natural fit. Built between the Apennine hills and the Ligurian Sea, the historic port city's steep streets, staircases and famously narrow caruggi provided a whole new playground for riders accustomed to racing through the cities of Latin America.
The 2.2km course drops almost 280m from Monte Peralto towards the city centre, mixing fast sections with tight corners, staircases and purpose-built obstacles where committing to the right line can make or break a run. Brazil's Roger Vieira has certainly figured it out, winning both Genoa stops during the 2025–26 season on his way to becoming World Series champion.
Watch: Red Bull Genova Cerro Abajo 2026 highlights
26 min
Red Bull Genova Cerro Abajo 2026 highlights
Watch high-speed urban downhill racing through Genoa's historic streets, staircases and technical alleys.
Stuttgart, Germany
Stuttgart became the latest city to join the Red Bull Cerro Abajo map in 2026 and wasted no time putting its own stamp on the series. The German city's famous Stäffele – the stairways that criss-cross its hillsides – formed the backbone of a 1.2km course that dropped 130m through the heart of the city and featured more numbered obstacles than any Cerro Abajo track before it.
There was plenty to test even the bravest riders, from an 11m blind gap and a 16m jump to the 8.5m-high Bridge Drop, which sent riders sideways from a pedestrian bridge onto the road below. Spain's Alex Marín eventually mastered the new terrain fastest, beating Vieira by just 0.055 seconds in the closest finish of the season, while Stuttgart also made history by hosting the first women's competition at an official World Series stop.
06
Who are the biggest names in urban downhill?
Few riders are more closely associated with urban downhill than Tomáš Slavík. The Czech rider has been charging down staircases and through city streets for years, building a reputation as one of the discipline's great specialists and racking up six Red Bull Cerro Abajo race victories along the way.
Roger Vieira celebrates his victory with the fans
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
He's far from the only rider to have left his mark on the Chilean classic. Slovakia's Filip Polc also won four times in Valparaíso, while home favourites including Antonio Leiva and Pedro Ferreira played their part in establishing the race – and urban downhill itself – as a major spectacle.
The arrival of the Red Bull Cerro Abajo World Series in 2023 ushered in a new era and Juanfer Vélez quickly made it his own. The Colombian won the first two World Series titles before completing a remarkable hat-trick in the 2024–25 season, setting the standard for the riders chasing him.
That chase has only become faster. Brazil's Roger Vieira took over at the top in 2025–26 after winning twice in Genoa and eventually securing his first World Series title, while Sebastián Holguín showed exactly why he's another name to watch by smashing the Valparaíso course record on his way to victory in 2026.
Sebastián Holguín on the way to setting a new course record
© Jean Louis de Heeckeren/Red Bull Content Pool
And there are already more contenders coming through. New Zealand's Tuhoto-Ariki Pene finished fourth on his World Series debut in Genoa before stepping onto the podium with third place in Stuttgart, needing just two Cerro Abajo appearances to announce himself as another rider capable of challenging the established names.
07
How long have women competed in urban downhill?
Women have long competed at the highest levels of downhill mountain biking, but the 2026 Red Bull Cerro Abajo finale in Stuttgart marked a major milestone for women's participation in the World Series.
Six riders – Nina Hoffmann, Fernanda Gildemeister, Paz Gallo, Veronika Widmann, Catalina Calderon and Abigail Hogie – were invited to take on the Stuttgart course as part of the series' development of women's participation.
Among them were established downhill names such as Germany's Nina Hoffmann, a multiple World Cup winner and 2022 world championship silver medallist, and Italy's Veronika Widmann.
Paz Gallo celebrates a historic victory at Red Bull Stuttgart Cerro Abajo
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
But it was Chile's Paz Gallo who made history in Stuttgart, racing the complete 1.2km course in 1m 55.617s to beat Hoffmann by just 0.118 seconds, with Widmann completing the podium. In doing so, she became the first woman to win an official Red Bull Cerro Abajo World Series race.
With an international field taking on exactly the kind of staircases, jumps, drops and tight city streets that define Cerro Abajo, Stuttgart represented an important new chapter for the series.
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