(whooshing)
(upbeat music)
- [Biker] Red Bull organized a training camp
in Nevados dos Chillan, Chile
with a special coach, pro rider Tomáš Slavík,
a former four-cross world champion
and two-time winner of Valparaiso Cerro Abajo,
one of the toughest
and most spectacular city downhill races in the world.
(upbeat music)
This training camp is the opportunity
for local heroes to prove themselves.
But how do you even get to the training camp?
Well first, you have to qualify.
Red Bull selects four different tracks
throughout Chile and times are set using
an app downloaded to a phone.
Fastest three riders from each track,
win their chance to be at the camp.
And finally, well, from the twelve riders at camp,
only one rider will be crowned the fastest
and the prize is
to trial at Bogota, Colombia
to race another
of the world's toughest urban downhill races,
the Monserrate Cerro Abajo.
Morning, we're here for a day's training
with Tomas Slavik at his camp here
in Nevados de Chile bike park.
It's 7:00 am in the morning and behind us,
we are starting the day bright and early with some sprints.
The warmup is three 70% sprints over about 100 meters,
then we stretch, then some 100% sprints, and we breakfast.
It's a good way to start the day.
(upbeat jazz music)
Hands in the air like you just don't care.
Pretty tight.
- [Tomas] Full effort, 100%.
- [Biker] As soon as he puts the power down,
you see that front wheel lifting off the floor
and almost the first 10, 15 meters are
on the back wheel on the land
from where he just got on the gas straight away.
So I think it's time to get on the gas.
- Riders ready.
(timer beeping)
Go, go, go, go, go, go.
- What makes an efficient sprinter then be?
What makes a good one?
- You know, some of the guys, they can be really strong,
then you have the weaker guy.
Well, the weaker guy is faster
because he's getting better frequency,
along with the canons.
He's having better pedaling technique,
he's not doing any crazy movements.
He's having good working core.
It's also really important is not just legs,
your whole body.
Is keeping a straight line.
And that's the keys how to make your sprint fast.
- Cool one.
Good technique overpowers sometimes then.
- [Tomas] Go, go, go!
Push through.
- Third aspect is we've thrown
in a different dimension.
We're starting way further up and actually
up on the gravel.
It's four at a time this time
and we're coming into 25 meter with 70%.
And we've got turn onto the road,
and then absolute full gas.
150 odd meters all the way to the end.
And, yeah, it's going to hurt this one.
- Yeah in Bogota,
I would say the experience almost double size.
So, let's say, if this was 15 seconds I would reckon,
15 seconds, and there it's over 30 for sure.
Over 30 seconds.
And the utter difference is that
in 3,000 meters altitude
and that's completely changing the game.
- Yeah, and it's interesting 'cause out here,
we're about 1500 so twice as high,
twice as long, twice as tough.
- That's why I'm trying
to give the guys a little bit experience
of the pain on this one,
because there you really suffer.
- [Biker Voiceover] It was now time to top off the tank
with all the other riders
and chat over what we'd learned from the morning.
As the day started to kick into action,
the sun lit up the mountains and the lifts.
We got ourselves ready for a day of riding ahead.
Starting with a few warmup runs,
which I have the pleasure of accompanying Tomas with.
(upbeat guitar music)
- [Tomas] You're off and in with Slavik.
- Okay, so me and Tomas just cruising
up on the chair lift now.
We've done a couple of runs.
And now, Tomas, tell us why in the training course,
why do you do these two or three runs?
- You know, the first thing is that we warming up
is the most important thing.
Like the guys are really pushing a lot,
so we just want to avoid any crashing or hurting themselves.
So, we just ride a track like four or five runs.
That's when we got to do and see
how they ride then see their body position
and see who's the best and who's the worst.
- We get a bit more technical don't we?
- Yeah, exactly. - Nice.
Everyone's a bit too eager at the moment.
- Yeah, yeah. - A bit too keen.
Try to wear them out a little.
- It's South America, those guys are wild.
In every single way.
♪ Put the place up ♪
♪ Warm my face up ♪
♪ She watch the boys shake ♪
♪ 'Cause she shake, she shake, she shake ♪
- A whip throw down going on.
For real, business kicks up there.
♪ Stab me in the back ♪
- We're still warming up.
It's still hitting the challenges in front of us.
Like what are we going to do in the afternoon after lunch?
And now we're just warming up and getting guys comfortable
on the surface, on the jumps, and see how they ride.
Then we're looking if some of them are looking sketchy
or they're doing something wrong.
So we just checking it out and we have a little chat
about it at lunch and then we go
for challenges which are going to be challenging.
♪ Put the place up ♪
♪ Warm my face up ♪
- But now we're just moving a little bit higher up
to a berm
to see their technique in the turning.
Like if it's good or bad
or give them some tips for going faster in there.
So that's the next plan.
We out.
- So now we've moved on from the hip
and we're just talking
about cornering a few techniques and things.
Now we're going to have a play on this big old berm.
- You don't need to necessarily smash the berm
and go as snarly as possible.
I think the key is just to go to keep the flow,
to carry the speed where you feel comfortable,
to have a good technique during going through a turn,
and, especially, what's most important
to speed up out of the turn.
Just don't go and drift and lose all the speed.
We just need to speed up out of the turn
and that's what saves you so much energy
and so much time in the end.
Because then you don't need to accelerate
for next straight which is coming up.
So, this is the key,
sometimes just keep in mind, ride smart,
and sometimes slower is faster, okay?
- You can see everyone is pretty keen to impress here,
'cause it's like who can hike up the hill the furthest
to get a run into this turn, but I admire their eagerness.
- I think the biggest mistake of the riders here
is going to be that they will go just way too fast.
(energetic horn music)
- Nice, that was nice.
Super stable.
Super stable and nice.
(cheering)
This guy went for style.
(laughing)
Style from one to ten, it was ten.
Oh, Mr. Rich.
That was slow.
(laughing)
- So that was first one through
for it tilt on a little bit steady
as Tomas may have noticed.
But I think now, we can come in with some pace.
- Ah, it was too much lying inside
so that he was almost falling down.
If he stays more outside with his body,
would be way faster and way more stable.
He's just telling them actually what we were discussing
in the beginning of the training
about body position, about the weight.
Where you should put your weight
and your pedals and everything.
It's the basic things.
With these guys, it's almost stupid to learn them this.
They're super fast, but they still do this kind
of tiny mistakes which, if we tell them,
it's making them really, really faster.
- [Biker] Back to basics, basically, yeah?
- Back to basics, yeah, exactly.
- So it's afternoon of Slavik's training camp.
We're out here, hitting this pretty gnarly gap.
It's a good size of this canyon.
I think basically, with this camp,
you move on from skills and any second now,
flying himself, showing us how it's done.
This one's testing, I guess, your nerves.
How you handle a high pressure situation
before we move onto something a bit more technical.
There's a lot of eyeing up going on.
It's exceptionally dusty rolling down through there.
Everyone's sort of milling around,
seeing what the crack is.
But,
yeah!
She's a fair size, I'll give her that.
(air whooshing)
(happy tropical music)
- Why have you brought us to an obstacle like this?
- We want to see the guys on such a big jump like that.
It's a big jump, but at the same time,
you're entering the jump like double speed what you need
for a jump.
So we trying to learn them to scrub,
to push back down, and then really make a fast jump.
Which one you need for the urban races,
because there's little jumps
which are kind of small so you need to know how to scrub.
- [Rider] Through the house.
Oh my god.
Over-jumped that.
- [Tomas] So it is exactly reason
why we are here on this one.
- So we've got loads of different viewers out there.
What tips would you give them
for hitting an obstacle like this?
- You see the hole under it?
- Yeah.
- It's a big jump so you need
to have some really, really advanced skills.
Otherwise, it can go pretty wrong.
My advice is don't go too fast on this jump.
You need to have the particular jumping skills
and I prefer to go a bit slower.
If you case it, it's not such a big damage
then if you over shot it.
So that's the most important things and good luck guys.
(laughing)
So we just got to the bottom of the track.
We got to the nice long rock garden.
We chose the line for the guys.
It's like four gates.
It's very similar to a stair case.
Because you need to stay in your line.
You need to be really precise.
But at the same time, you need to go fast to protect self.
There's the thing.
First we start really slow speed,
because those guys,
they would rather go full speed first run.
But we want to work our way out to a really high speed,
but we're going to start with a slower speed
then let's see how the guy's going to do.
(upbeat EDM music)
Oh!
Dude, this guy really send it.
That was a bad line.
Dude, here you can hear just by the sound, it's like
(imitates bike thudding)
I think you can be blind here
and you can recognize what's good and what's bad line.
Yeah, yeah.
Dude, Mills killed it.
All right, he went over those two biggest rocks out there.
Good line.
Oh, what was that?
Whoa!
Dude those guys are just fighting for a spot
at Monserrate now.
But really nice.
Really nice.
This is going to be exciting.
Holy!
Full effort, full effort.
- So we're here on the second toughest feature.
I'm getting pretty tired.
It's a long day.
Slavik's training camp is pretty intense,
but he's just been going through with all the guys.
Why these kind of obstacles are good
and how they relate to urban stuff.
Generating speed, staying smooth.
Keeping it quiet probably is often the best thing.
'Cause it means you are riding smooth.
Okay, these guys are stretching out.
They're finished up for the day.
They've got another full days' riding ahead
of them and training tomorrow.
Which is going to culminate in a downhill race
at the end of it.
The winner doesn't necessarily get a spot
to the urban downhill race,
but is going to give him a really good indication who is.
Now unfortunately, we're not going to be able to race,
but we are going to pop down and see who takes top honors
and goes home with the glory.
(electric guitar music)
So the guys are up there right now,
putting all the tips they learned yesterday today
into practice and hopefully, it's going to pay off for them.
Here he comes.
Guy's looking pinned.
Sends our last jump.
(cheering)
With the camp coming to a close,
it had been an incredible experience.
It had been great to strip things back
to basics and really start from the beginning.
Looking at power, technique, and fitness.
You can see how competitive everyone was.
And how much they wanted that spot.
All the riders were still so friendly
and got along brilliantly.
Yeah, you know we were having intense, super fast guys here.
It was such a hard thing for us
to make a decision who is going to go to Colombia.
It's not just being fast on a trek.
It's like a puzzle.
It contains from so many small pieces
and we are really trying
to choose the right guy
who we really think is the right person
for racing such a crazy race as
Red Bull Monserrate Cerro Abajo race.
We got Nico Rodriguez.
I'm happy for you because you really deserve it.
And I can't wait for the result what you're going to do there.
At least he's going to have fun and good times there
because he's really the man who deserves it the most here.
So good times, good times.