Chilean Holiday: Quintero Dreaming

Words/Pictures: Fabian Merino

Broad Street Cycles racer Fabian Merino is nearly at the end of his trip back to Chile. Before heading back, he made sure to make the best of the amazing road riding Chile has to offer. Here’s his weekend in Quintero:

My parents mentioned they wanted to stay in Quintero for a few days, a little town next to a beach up north, about 200 kms from Santiago and 40 kms from the beautiful city of Valparaiso and I knew exactly what the riding was going to be like: a lot of categorized climbs.

Packed my bike, jumped on the bus and after a 14 hour night of traveling we made it there. I decided to take it easy and not ride my bike the day I got there so I got to eat and hangout with family friends that own a restaurant there, I took advantage of the seafood plates there and I was never disappointed.

The next day I woke up early, ready to go explore and ride up some hills for a few hours. The route I had planned was about 120 kms, it started with a painful cat 2 climb that averaged 10% for 5.4 kms and the rest was along the ocean and packed with cat 4 climbs that added up my ride to 2,400m of climbing.

Top of La Canela // A small kicker while descending the other side

The first climb was called La Canela, steep pitches on a straighter road, some of the ramps must’ve been up to 20%-22% and the switchbacks were the easy parts of 10%. The road basically went up into the hills and came back out towards the ocean again. I had a feeling that the descent was going to be amazing and it was. Really technical road with a ton of breaking, easy to misjudge corners, loose dirt/gravel and thankfully no drivers made me stay 100% focused during this crazy twisty road.

Descending off La Canela

After that I really just wanted to go back up but I decided I was going to do it the next day going the other way. The road along the ocean was a lot harder than I thought, a constant up and down 7% with a ton of corners but the beautiful view helped me forget about the climbing I was doing. There was a lot of people riding bikes on this road, a lot of pro tour kits on mountain bikes had me really confused the whole time and every once in a while I got distracted from the beautiful view by a guy wearing a BMC jersey and a Tinkoff bib, such a pretty combo.

The road back to town

I got back to the hostel I was staying at pretty tired, ready to eat some delicious food and roll down to the beach. Resting was a lot easier for me up there, I had no internet anywhere and sadly that constant distraction of looking at shit on your phone/computer doesn’t help you sleep so I was having the best sleeps ever.

The next day was pretty harsh, I was excited to go out and do 3 more categorized climbs in the sunshine after the first day, that feeling of exploring new roads definitely gave me a lot more energy than I had.

Day 2 before the first climb // On the first climb

The route was 137 kms, starting with a cat 2 climb that averaged 4% for 13 kms followed by a cat 3 climb averaging 7% for 3.5 kms and finishing the ride with a cat 2 climb that averaged 4% for 15kms (the one I did the day before but going the other direction), all of this added up to 2,800 meters.

The road was really good for most of the ride probably because it was an exit to Chile’s main highway that I rode for a short amount of time. The first climb was awesome, great view, not steep and because of the morning fog that the city was getting the sun didn’t get to me until later on the day. A few kilometres after the descent was the highway, I turned off to a by-pass of a tunnel where the second climb of the day was and while riding up it I got a few friendly honks of people driving by with bikes on the back of their cars, it was awesome.

Day 2 second climb (above & below)

I had a few kilometres of flat-ish roads until the last climb, one that I knew was the hardest so I stopped for some sweet treats at a gas station before rolling up to it, I was very tired and I thought about skipping it but then again, the excitement of riding up stuff got me really into it.

flat before second climb // snack before last climb

Going up this climb the other direction was a lot harder, especially the last kilometer or so because it probably averaged over 12% and I felt like dying every time I went around a steep corner because it felt like it wasn’t going to end, ever.

The descent on the other side was pretty scary, steep and straight with sharp corners so I was constantly on the breaks. Made it back fine but with legs that were screaming at me after 2 days of hard riding.

Views from the days third climb

Another recovery at the restaurant and beach got me smiling before leaving town the next day to stay in Viña Del Mar for a few more days and riding up more stuff I’ve never seen before.

My legs hurt just by looking at the maps around this area.