Red Bull Hill Chasers – Park St, Bristol.

Hill Chasers is an event devised by the people at Red Bull in pursuit of finding the fastest type of bicycle up a 170m stretch of Park Street in Bristol. The event is super simple, 32 riders line up 2 riders at a time and race up the street, first one up goes through to the next round. It is far from being a straightforward sprint up a hill though! 2 sets of barriers on the way up mean it is only wide enough for one rider at a time. Go too fast at the start and risk the trailing rider coming out of the slip stream in the final meters or sit in and hope for the best out of the final gate – this is the easier option but with a relaxed outlook at the event and the only rules being no punching the opportunity for ‘leaning‘ on opponents and ‘drifting’ is there and is exploited in some cases as it should be.

            So back to the action, first up I was lined up against a qualifying roadie, I was really nervous about this round, as it was the first time starting out of a hydraulic gate and the first outing for my new GT Zaskar 9r. The starting orders were announced and then I was off. I got a good start and made it to the barriers first but the race was far from over, I had a guy on a super light everything carbon road bike and a big gear that he was just starting to wind up towards the end of the 170m course. He was coming up the outside of me and I couldn’t go faster, luckily the line came and I was marginally ahead, although at the time I thought I had driven for 5.5hours and was going home after 20secs.  I made it through the next 2 rounds fairly comfortably despite a close call with the barriers and a ‘pack’ of photographers at the finish line.  Now down to just 4 riders things were getting interesting, after almost being nudged into the barriers in the last round it was time to get a bit more aggressive and close some gaps instead of relying on straight power to progress to the final. I was drawn against Ben Simmonds of team Wiggle, a pretty handy all round rider, riding a bike that was ridiculously light I knew he was going to be tough to beat especially with my first round experience against a road rider. I went fast out the gate so I was in control through the barriers, out of the barriers I could sense him moving up so started to drift slightly in the hope he would panic and slow enough to let me cross the line first – he never so it was back down the hill for the 3^rd place run off.  After a bit of hanging around waiting I was told that Lewis Lacey (2011 Frome Cobble Wobble Champion) was unable to partake in the run-off and I had finished 3^rd and won myself another awesome Charge Plug bicycle! Not a bad way to end the evening especially with a crazy day of bike building and car driving.

Charge bikes video of the event can be viewed here.

The new GT Zaskar 9r custom. Thank you GT Bicycles, Crank Bros, Sram, Rock Shox, Accelerade, Eye wear outlet, Muc-Off, Lezyne.

Only one more needed to complete the set.