The second edition of the Criterium Valencia, held just a few days ago has been a success and, once again, it has left its trace in the “new” history of the Spanish Criteriums.

Due to the extreme weather conditions that occurred the day of the race, the most successful slogan it would be something like “Criterium Valencia, the great flood” but, as always we try to go beyond, we relate you how was everything and then decide by yourselves if it’s the right slogan.

Fixed gear racing is more than the final ceremony of events taking several days, where people, riders and the crews, are part of a great movement that for months continues to increase, especially in Europe.

We go direct to the Chronicle of the “long weekend” lived in Valencia.

Everything began on Wednesday at Dandy Horse with an express course of maintenance for fixed, by Iván Peña from DeQueBikes.

On Thursday took place alleycat “Beer and plátanos” organized by the expert in this type of racing in Valencia, Oscar a.k.a. “No soy un artista” from RIDEHARD.

They would not leave any gap, so on Friday they organized a Velodrome session at the Luis Puig facilities for all cyclists who were federated, as they did in the first edition.

That night, taking advantage of some members of The Roosters went to the Criterium, they projected the video of their last adventure in an atmosphere of friendship, reunions and, of course, beer and laughs.

For the race-day, it has been slightly complicated due to the bad weather. It began the day with a bit of rain just before qualifies which afterwards the riders were divided into two groups: amateur and pro.

The result, by the voice of the same riders, was two races very balanced where, in both categories, the participants were able to compete with same level riders.

The amateur race was characterized by a homogeneous level throughout the race, and it has been decided on a volata in the last meters leaded by Alejandro Ayora followed by Alejandro Navarro and Jose Vicente Bolea.

As for the pro category, rain would not miss the opportunity to add more stress and difficulty to the race and began to rain cats and dogs. In short time the track was almost impassable, with huge puddle of water where water nearly reached the ankles of the riders.

There were several falls, in spite of this, no one was ready to give up. The fleeting storm failed to scare away any rider, they continued pedaling through an amazing curtain of water that, with great difficulty, managed to lead their bicycles in each of the curves or doing a sprint.

Due to the climatic conditions that he Organization faced, they decided to shorten the race to not lengthen this dangerous but epic race.

The victory was for Mario Paz Duque of IRIDE, followed by the riders, Pablo Rodríguez and Luís Junquera, both from the POLOANDBIKE team.

Mario manages to get another victory in a national Crit, after Criterium Toledo and Criterium Pontevedra. He is the main protagonist of this season.

After the storm held the delivery of prizes, raffles and a great atmosphere after what the people have been lived and with the feeling of having participated in something very big.

In the night, people put “upside down” Valencia local gig… here are the words of an anonymous person, just to have a quick overview:

“People got krunk a bit of everything and scattered across several local gigs of the city, because what Valencian can be proud of, is the number of local for party and things to get krunk  ha, ha, ha…”

What we like most of the national Criteriums is this spirit of living each event as an occasion to meet, compete, have fun and partying. You can change the name of the city, but the atmosphere is always the same!

Congratulations to the entire organization and collaborators who have made possible this weekend and this great race.