The Pan-American Championships are open to riders from across North and South America, but thus far during the four-year event, the vast majority of riders have hailed from the U.S. and Canada. That trend was no different in 2017, with a total of three South American riders lining up across the five UCI races on Sunday.
One of those riders was Hector Fernando Riveros Paez of Colombia. Riveros Paez, who is currently living in Austin, TX, is primarily a mountain biker, but he has been dabbling in cyclocross since 2014. He is not a stranger to the pages of Cyclocross Magazine after tearing it up in the Pacific Northwest last season and this year, his Stan’s NoTubes p/b Maxxis/Construction Zone team signed him to do the seven races of the US Cup-CX series and the Pan-American Championships.
This 2012 profile of Riveros Paez by Mary Topping provides some background on how he came to live and race in the U.S. The tl;dr is he fell in love and the rest is history. Riveros Paez and his wife Victoria recently had their first child, so perhaps the famed #dadwatts played a role in his success over the weekend.
At Saturday’s Derby City Cup race, Riveros Paez put himself in the elite lead selection early in the race before finishing sixth and at Sunday’s Pan-American Championship, he rode to an impressive fourth.
Cyclocross Magazine caught up with the Colombian after Sunday’s race to talk about how the weekend of racing went, learn more about his story and perhaps prod him to race more cyclocross in 2018.
Stay tuned for our continuing coverage of the 2017 Pan-American Championships and Derby City Cup.
