2012 JD Swanguen's Colombian Urban Downhill Experience

JD Swanguen's Colombian Urban DH Experience from John Hauer on Vimeo.

 In January I had the opportunity to participate in the Chiguiro Extremo Urbano DH event through the streets of Manizales. Coming off an injury plagued 2011 season, I was excited to find myself in the mountains of Colombia healthy again. The event was very well organized, it had everything we needed for an urban downhill to be interesting.

On Friday, the race began very early and we only had an hour and a half to learn the track and look for lines. The cable car was available to us at 8 am to take us up for training. We went up by cable car to the top of the city, started on top of an elevated platform on top of a guard rail used to keep cars from falling down the treacherous stair-set below. After the first stairs was a daunting six foot wall-ride that lacked a wide enough landing for riders who miscalculated the tricky obstacle. The stairs were steep, where you could make different lines, jumping from one to another. The placement of the wooden ramps added a good degree of difficulty, right out of the corner exits. After the last chicane came the final long sprint into the finish arena where a massive freestyle-moto-looking ramp was waiting.

In anticipation of the afternoon's finals, local spectators gathered along the course tape, lining up 3-4 rows deep from start to finish arena. There was so much energy coming from the sidelines and we had only just opened practice.

In my race, I pulled up to the starting line as rain had just begun to come down. With the streets below beginning to get ever shinier, most definitely slipperier, I took a deep breath and tried to focus as the clock started counting my six. I was surrounded by ecstatic local fans encouraging me to push harder and go bigger as I took the drop out of the start gate. I connected set to set making doubles out of the steep stairs, avoiding the dangling electric power-lines above, hit the wall ride fast, and put in pedals out of all the corners. Just after the half way point there was a big pre-fab double, my run was going great, I decided to show the fans how I felt about it and threw them a nice toboggan. Hit the rest of my lines and pedaled all the way to the finish. I put in a solid ride and landed myself on the third step of the podium.

I knew I made the right choice in bike setup after the first run. With the X-Fusion Vector HLR on the back of my Intense M9 FRO, I was able to attack the course while the bike kept me smooth and planted to ground. Although not the result I was looking for, I had a very successful trip and start to my 2012 season. - JD Swanguen