Chilean Holiday: Vuelta de la Leche 2016
Fabian’s adventures in Chilean road racing stepped up a notch, or 10 notches over the weekend when he had the chance to race the three day Vuelta de la Leche stage race. With over 120 racers, a TT, and a brutal HC climb thrown in the mix, things definitely got interesting. For how the weekend went, here’s Fabian:
Friday afternoon was finally here and I started traveling towards Puerto Octay, Chile. My friend Marco came by my parents place to pick me up, last time we saw each other we were in a car going skateboarding over 8 years ago.
The trip to the cabin we were staying at was about 2 hours, when we finally made it to the town we stopped to get lunch at a restaurant across the street to the staging of the main events happening over the weekend.
The cabin was really nice, I met the team I was staying with, all really nice and quite funny. Got everything organized then rolled to the TT course. The terrain was flat, only had one dip but you could carry your speed quite well over the 13 kms of the course. I haven’t done an effort like that since the summer and it definitely hurt, with an average heart rate of 191 BPM I averaged just over 40 km/h, it was hard.
(TT staging, and the start of the TT course)
After the Time Trial we headed to a hostel where they had a complimentary dinner for the riders competing in the event, food was delicious and made me realize how well organized they were.
Saturday morning was something I had been waiting for, the 69 km stage with a mountain finish. The climb was brutal, 12.6 km @ 9.8% with the last kilometer being just a straight 20% wall. Right before the climb started the pace was bananas, making the group of 120 riders split in half and as soon as we started climbing I was riding my smallest gear, 39-28. I knew a lot of people were riding compact or just changing their gearing a little bit, that would’ve helped a little bit I think because the ramps were so brutal haha.
Some serious looking switchbacks
The first group went off immediately after 3 kilometers, I couldn’t keep that pace for the rest of the climb so I said fuck it and rode my own tempo the way up. The second group caught me and kept riding by while I was too busy fighting with the huge bumblebees that were attacking me or whatever the hell they were and splashing water over myself because I couldn’t stand the heat while climbing such a stupid wall.
When I got to the last 2 kilometer mark I knew it was going to be good for me, the hardest part of the climb with over 8 switchbacks, I caught the second group and went around them powering up the 20% walls that look like they had no end until I hit the last km mark and that was just nuts. 20%, straight to the finish, you could see the people in front of you so close but the 2 meters they were in front was actually hard to get to, most people were zig zagging their way up.
I got to the finish 14 minutes behind the first guy, then total climb was 1,100 meters, finishing it in an hour and two minutes, averaging 12.2 km/h.
The top, after stage 2, and driving back down while people are still race/walking up
Driving back we saw people walking up the climb, some of them just sitting on the side of the road hanging out.
Sunday was insane. The people race in an aggressive way right from the start, there was a climb on the way out of town and I remember a kid fighting for the wheel I was sitting on, pushing against me and eventually bounced off of my elbow and crashed, that was within the first 5 kilometers.
We were going between 40-50 km/h on the flats with people shuffling all over the place fighting for position for no reason, when we got to the turn around spot the attacks started, making me excited trying to attack and chase, group got back together at the top of a long rise and we started descending, I was sitting top 10 when the guy in front of me decided to get out of the saddle and look back while we were going 65-70 km/h, by the time he turned around he got scared from being to close to a wheel and slammed on his front break, making him do a front flip and land on his head/collarbone and slam his back against the rough concrete while going really fast. Because I was on his wheel his bike landed in front of me and I aimed to land over it, unclipping my left foot and leaving my bike sliding on the non drive side while I was rolling and sliding. While I was sliding backwards on my butt, I saw someone’s wheel fly across the road and take out two guys that were in the middle of the road avoiding the main crash.
I got up, checked myself and my bike, covered in blood while the team car and ambulance were parked next to me. “I’m fucking fine”, I said in English quite confused from the slam, listening to the other 10+ people on the ground screaming. I got a guy to use the pins of my numbers to pin the massive hole I had over my left cheek and kept going.
I tried to get back to the group but it was too hectic with the traffic, rode the 60 kms left almost solo, finishing 14 minutes back.
There’s the story of my first road race crash, going decently fast in a country I used to call home 8 and a half years ago.
Cleaning blood up, and a beer.
I’ve been in bed for 3 days, the road rash was a little deeper than I thought at first, still thankful I didn’t break anything and I can walk sort of fine.
Heading to my hometown tomorrow, won’t be able to ride but I will get up to something special, I will keep you all posted.
Stay safe,
Fabian.
Bonus: Here’s Fabian’s Strava files for each of the three stages:
Stage 1: https://www.strava.com/