Red Bull Cerro Abajo Stuttgart: The City’s About to Become a Race Track — If the City Gets Out of Its Own Way – MTB Report

It’s there in black and white on the UCI calendar: September 4–6, 2026, Stuttgart. Sounds like a joke. Feels like one too, given the city’s history with mountain biking. But the plans are real, the politicians are on board, and the clock is ticking.

Published by Radical Life Studios / MTB Report

The world-famous urban downhill race Red Bull Cerro Abajo could be heading to Stuttgart for the very first time in September 2026 and the plans are getting serious. Valparaíso does it. Genoa does it. Guanajuato does it. Now Stuttgart, yes, Stuttgart wants a piece of the action. Riders. Full send. Through the city. Stairs, ramps, tarmac, chaos.

Hold on a second. Isn’t this the same city that restricts mountain bikers to a two-metre-wide corridor on public paths — and considers that a generous compromise? The same city where getting a trail approved takes longer than most infrastructure projects? The same city that’s spent decades treating mountain bikes like a public nuisance?

Yeah. That one.

Welcome to Stuttgart, where logic is optional, and the city bowl is suddenly being pitched as a world stage.

The Course Is Drawn — On Paper, At Least

The start ramp is planned for the viewing platform in front of the Tea House in Weißenburgpark. From there, riders would drop through the park via stairs, paths and ramps toward Hohenheimer Straße, continue through the Bopseranlage green space, along Carola-Blume-Weg, through the Heusteigviertel neighbourhood, and finish at Wilhelmsplatz in the city centre.

The course would stretch approximately 1.3 kilometres with around 150 metres of vertical drop. Roughly a minute and a half of flat-out, no-margin-for-error urban racing. Stairs, berms, drops, obstacles — all of it, naturally, considerably wider than two metres. But let’s not bring that up in the town hall just yet.

The organiser describes it as a „unique course through urban space with distinctive spots and strong storytelling potential“ and an „optimal spectator experience“. Translation: it’s going to be absolutely mental and the whole world is invited to watch.

What’s Actually at Stake Here

The current Cerro Abajo 2025/26 season is already well underway, Genoa in August 2025, Valparaíso in February 2026. According to the organiser, the event series has generated over a billion impressions in recent years.

A billion. For a city that’s historically responded to mountain biking with warning signs rather than welcome mats, that’s a number that should make even the most cautious city official sit up straight. Genoa’s debut drew over 35,000 fans to the roadside in a city that had zero urban downhill pedigree beforehand. Stuttgart’s natural bowl topography would blow that out of the water.

And here’s the kicker: Stuttgart wouldn’t pay a penny, all costs are covered by the organiser. Global exposure. Zero budget impact. In a city currently watching every cent of its public spending, this is about as close to a free lunch as it gets. All Stuttgart has to do is say yes.

The Politics: Almost Everyone’s In — The Bureaucracy Is „Reviewing“

This won’t fall apart at the council level. Stuttgart’s city council factions are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about turning the Kessel into the backdrop for a global mountain bike spectacle. The CDU see it as a clear win for the city. The Greens‘ Florian Pitschel put it plainly: „We’re well up for it.“

What’s left standing between Stuttgart and one of the greatest sporting events it’s ever hosted? The specialist departments. The project is currently in the early pre-approval stage. The relevant authorities still need to determine whether an event of this scale can be permitted, what conditions would apply, and whether any changes to the course would be required.

In other words: it’s now grinding through exactly the system that has previously come within a whisker of killing off every trail, every compromise, and every common-sense decision in this city. Fingers crossed.

The Beautiful Irony

Let’s just sit with this image for a moment.

Stuttgart. The city that tolerates mountain bikers on paths exactly two metres wide and frames that as progress. The city where a sanctioned trail requires more committee meetings than a regional budget. The city whose relationship with mountain biking has been, to put it diplomatically, complicated.

This city is now the proposed home of the most extreme urban downhill race on the planet.

And honestly? Maybe that’s exactly the point.

Because things are shifting slowly, but unmistakably. More and more municipalities across Baden-Württemberg are waking up to the fact that the two-metre rule isn’t conservation policy, it’s just a failure of imagination. Mountain biking isn’t a threat. It’s an opportunity for recreation, for tourism, for a city’s image. Cerro Abajo would be the loudest possible proof of that. Delivered on live television, to a global audience, in Stuttgart’s own backyard.

Stuttgart’s Moment

The local community is swinging between disbelief and pure excitement. Understandable. When you’ve spent years fighting for every metre of legal trail, you don’t celebrate until the start gate is actually bolted in.

But the signs are good. The district council is on board. The city council is ready. Red Bull wants it. The UCI has the date. The course is sketched out. The bowl is right there.

All that’s needed now is for the administration to resist the urge to drown this moment in permit paperwork and instead seize it. Stuttgart has the terrain. Stuttgart has the community. Stuttgart has the opportunity.

The Kessel is ready. The world is watching. Time for the city to deliver.

We’ll keep you posted the moment the approval comes through. Or doesn’t. With Stuttgart, you can never quite be sure.