Chilean Holiday: Week 1 – Fabian in Valdivia
Words and Pictures: Fabian Merino (IG: @justchilean )
Broad Street Cycles favorite Chilean import has temporarily journyed back south of the equator to visit family, get some warm weather riding in, and do some insane looking Chilean stage races. The first one is the Vuelta de la Leche this weekend, but before we get to that Fabian’s reported back on how he’s settling in to riding in the Southern hemisphere.
Left: Flying out of Victoria. Right: “El Torreon,” restored in the 1800’s is one of two remaining Spanish towers in Valdivia used to defend the city and one of the few remaining colonial structures. Below: friendly street dogs
So, after travelling for a day and a half, not sleeping very well and getting a delayed flight I made it to the city where my parents live in, Valdivia. I’ve only been here a few times and I’m not familiar with the city so it is very new to me.
I can tell you right away that the driving is not the same as it is in Victoria, I was terrified the first time I went out on my bike plus I got lost trying to get out of town because the roads are quite confusing.
The first ride I did was towards a place called Niebla, it’s about 20 kms towards the coast and it’s beautiful over there. After finding the right bridge to the road I was suppose to be in I started pedaling a bit faster without confusion but still scared. Cars give you enough space but the buses definitely don’t, there is no shoulder on this road but as soon as you get to Niebla it starts to be fun; rolling hills, every kicker is between 10% to 20% without much traffic and a killer view of the ocean so I kept going for a little bit longer.
The second ride I did was “flat”, to a small town closer to the main highway called Paillaco. I didn’t check the ride profile too much before I left but my dad kept telling me there was a long hill on the way there and he was right. Two category 4 climbs half way to the town on the way out, killer descent and flat again until the first part of the ride.
I got to the welcome sign and turned around, didn’t bother going into the town because it was pretty hot and quite humid. The way back was real nice, realized I had a headwind for the first 45 kms and now I was going 40 km/h soft pedaling, getting excited for the climb on the way back because I knew it was going to be one shot the whole way to the top and steeper (the climb on the way out had 2 steps). A 5.9 km climb with a really fast descent, thankfully this road had a “nice” shoulder, still not like the ones we have in Canada but nicer than the day before.
I got home very thirsty and my skin was already darker than it was when I left Victoria.
On Tuesday I decided to take a rest day so I could do some interval workouts on Wednesday to get ready for the stage race. My parents told me they went to this coffee/bike shop in town called Cicle a while back so I decided to go check it out. As soon as I walked in I knew I was going to spend a lot of time there, with a great layout and the repair shop hidden in the back I sat down and ordered a coffee. Eduardo, the barista came up to me eventually and asked me where I was from, we started chatting a bit and he remembered my parents going in there mentioning that their son that lived in Canada was super into bike racing and we basically became friends instantly. Everybody that was in there was very friendly, really good vibe and quite comforting to be in there hanging out.
Wednesday was interval day and I wanted to explore a new route for my 2.5 hour ride. I ended up a little lost for the first hour and climbing a steep, gravel road going somewhere I didn’t know so I decided to turn around and after that “warm up” I took the road to Paillaco again and did my workouts on the flat section before the climb.
Because it gets dark at 10 pm here there’s lots of time to do more after riding. After my mom cooked an amazing lunch my parents and I went downtown and walked around a little bit, ended up at a pub that had great beer and an insane “table for 2” thing on the menu that my Dad and I tried to finish but it was too intense.
Above: post ride seafood. Below: You can tour around inside submarine in the heart of downtown Valdivia, on the Calle Calle river. Submarine O’Brien, built in the 1970’s, was named after John Thomond O’Brien, who fought in the Chilean War of Independence.
Next up is the “Vuelta de la Leche” stage race located in Puerto Octay, about an hour and a half from Valdivia. With a 13 km Time Trial for stage 1, a 70 km road race with a 12.6 km HC climb at 9.6% finish for stage 2 and a 130 km road race for stage 3 I am in some sweet pain and trouble for this weekend.
Above, Leche’s stage 2’s finishing climb. Below, Vuelta stage 20: Alto de L’Agliru. Very similar profiles
Wish me luck!