Pet Mutul
The Pet Mutul, sometime simply referred to as the Pet in Mutli but also known by many different names throughout the Mutul (Ch'olti: Set Xmutul; Ch'orti: Mak Mutul; K'iche: Sutinak Mutul) is a yearly Cycle race held in the Divine Kingdom which was first held in 1894 and has been held continuously since 1924. 130 years old and with its 111th edition held in 2024, it is the oldest cycling competition in the world[citation needed].
History
Early adoption of the bicycle
The first models of bicycles first appeared outside of the Mutul in the years 1810s but struggled to find their place, incapable of challenging horse-drawn carriages. However, this competition did not exist in the Mutul, where horses were almost unheard of. The country's reconstruction in the wake of the Sajal War was the perfect occasion for early bicycles to make their entrance in the Divine Kingdom. Contrary to other parts of the world, it was immediately aimed at the working class and notably the coolie-workers of K'alak Muul who did all of their activities on foot. To make them less awkward to use, rubber tires and Treadles were adapted to the velocipede in the late 1830s and quickly artisans and shops appeared in almost every street of the capital and then in every large industrial city. And so the daily use of wheeled-vehicles had become mundane by the time the Bicycle pedal was invented in the 1860s, and velocipede racing was already a popular pastime.
Unsanctioned races happened throughout the Mutul possibly as early as the 1840s with the first documented race in 1861. The first stage of professionalism reached cycling when sport magazines and enterprises began to organize their own races. The "Bicycle craze" spread far and wide and early-days cyclists became the frequent victims of unscrupulous promoters who would leave events with all the money before drivers were paid. In 1874, a meeting was held in K'alak Muul between the Aj Tun Ji (Chief-editor of "On Two-wheels"), Ajaw Toj Ok Mam (Chief executive of the Capital Bicycle Workshops), Ix Balam Chi Way (largest promoter outside of K'alak Muul' area) and twenty other representative of the bicycle-manufacturing, newspapers, and promotion industries. The talks ended with the formation of the Worshipful Company for the Promotion of Bicycle Racing the following year and the reveal a cycle of 13 sanctioned circuits of races, of 18 races each, covering the entirety of the Mutul. They also began to build large Velodromes for Track cyclings, which would go on to become extremely popular in the Mutul as well. With time, track cycling events would replace some of the races as permanent fixtures.
By the 1880s talk began to crown this network of sanctioned races with a "Grand Tour" that would represent the summit of bicycle racing in the Mutul as a way to give a windback to newspapers sells and betting revenues which had been diminished by the velodromes craze. A change of leadership within the Worshipful Society allowed for the plan to become real. In 1892, the Long-distance cycle race structure was completely shifted in preparation for the event that was to be held the next year: the first ever Grand Tour in the Mutul, the Pet Mutul: A thirteen days long monster of a race from K'alak Muul to Yu and back.