The Republic of Chile is a country in western South America, and it has a long history in trials. Though, with a population of 17,5 million, just around 200 of those ride trials.
Here are 10 facts about trials in Chile:
- Trials in Chile began in the middle of the 1990s, as a mix of street and MTB.
- Around 2002 the riders started to identify themselves as pure trials riders.
- The rules at the first unofficial competitions were based on what the trials riders understood purely from watching videos. Remember, this was before the Internet and YouTube.
- From 2009 to 2014, world class riders were coming once a year to do shows and ride with the local riders: Vincent Hermance, Dani Comas and Benito Ros (5 times) have been there.
- Pablo “Chokapic” Nuñez became the first Chilean ever to ride a UCI Trials World Cup, in Aalter, Belgium in 2007.
- The following Chilean athletes have also participated in a UCI World Cup: Sebastian Montenegro in Pra Loup 2013, Jordi Muñoz in Krakow 2014 and Matías Alegría in Albertville 2015.
- The first Chilean rider to participate in an UCI World Trials Championship, was Matías Alegría in Andorra 2015. He got 27th place.
- At the UCI Urban Games in 2018, Chile had two participants at the same event for the first time ever: Matías Alegría in elite 20″, and Daniel Calderon in elite 26″.
- Chile is the only Latin American country that had riders at the official UCI ranking between 2013 and 2019.
- Due to problems with UCI and the Chilean National Cycling Federation, it has not been possible to organize competitions after 2017.
