Blimey – you’ve got to hand it to Red Bull. When they decide they’re going to put on an event they don’t mess about.
Last night saw Red Bull bring Bristol city centre literally to a standstill. Park street was closed off to traffic and transformed into an arena for 32 riders to battle it out – bottom to top – to decide which rider and which bike was the quickest in a short, fast, uphill sprint. The baying crowd, the glowing lights, the MC’s, a BMX hydraulic gate and a booming sound system meant that it wasn’t just a bike race – but a genuine crowd pleaser and an event worthy of a Saturday night!
The format was pretty straight forward. 16 pros vs 16 local heroes. Any bike, any style, bottom to top. There were trials bikes, fixies, mountain bikes, road bikes, BMX’s and everything in between.
The pros included Danny Macaskill, Cunny, Katy Kurd, Dave Wardell and of course – Chris Akrigg who most people’s money was on for the win having smashed the Cobble Wobble and the MiniDrome previously. The local heroes were picked by Red Bull from a list of applicants on their site and included our boy Rich Sanders who’d opted for a flat-barred Specialized Tricross and had been knocking out laps of Park Street all week in prep!
Racing was quick fire and I think it’s fair to say that everyone was amazed – no terrified – at how quick riders were blasting out the course. I try to avoid riding Park Street whenever I can … It’s not the biggest climb ever but it’s long enough to be a pain in the arse after a few beers and it’s steep enough towards the top to get the legs burning. Seeing riders blast it out in just over 20 seconds was ridiculous!
Despite their best efforts the MTB and BMX crowd gradually fell by the wayside through the heats with the guys on the road bikes showing that they could keep the pace all the way to the top. Local Bristol BMX racer Tom Palmer held out till the quarter finals … But it was an all skinny tyred final with Paul Derrick racing Chris Metcalf. Metcalf took the win and a gold Charge fixie for his troubles.
I’m a little bit cynical at times about energy drinks companies getting involved with sports but it’s hard to stay like that after an event like the Hill Chasers. Red Bull shut Bristol down and did something that has never been seen in a city centre before, let alone Bristol. The riders loved it, the punters loved it and a lot of people got to see how awesome a sport cycling is – right up in their faces on a Saturday night. It’s a bit of a cliché to say it – but events like this are the future for the sport. Let’s get a bit more of our sport out of the woods or the velodromes and right up in the spotlight!
Thanks to RedBull and everyone that was involved for a great Saturday night out. A final big shout to Rich Sanders who donned a Wideopen jersey for the evening and did us all proud by being the only rider to crash all night. Nice work!
Red Bull homepage for more.
All photos by Jamie Edwards except for the awesome crash shot, which was shot by our 4X’er Dave Thomason.
Looks like Richy wasn’t the only rider to take a dive! Here’s DMR’s Duncan Ferris getting into a spot of bother – shame – looks like he was on a charge!
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Superb write-up guys! Seems you’re the only website that have done a write-up of the event, as of lunchtime Sunday after the event! Nice one!
Yikes – it seems this article alone has maxed out our bandwith! Jim has been on the phone and told ‘em to just keep it rolling!