9-20-07 // News: Snow Speed Bike Record Shattered

In the 90's there had been lots of press on the adrenaline-charged world of gravity-propelled snow speed biking. Much of this was due to two dueling Frenchmen, Eric Baronè und Christian Taillefer, who set a series of world speed records racing in the French Alps wearing rubber aerodynamic suits with spoilers on bikes that only faintly resembled the mountain bikes of their day. These two sparred back and forth for quite some time until Baronè laid claim to a 222 kmph (137.9 mph) world record and the sport disappeared almost as quickly as it erupted. During this period a young man from Kitzbühel, Markus Stoeckl, also enjoyed snow speed biking, but competed in a factory bike class where he set a world record at 187.013 km/h (116.1 mph) at Les Arches, France in 1999.

Today, almost ten years laster, Markus Stoeckl is still in mountain bike racing circles, this time as the organizer of the MS Intense Racing World Cup team - home to Chris Kovarik among other professional mountain bike racers. According to Markus, who's nicknamed "Hercules," (he weighs 220 pounds, and stands 6 foot 4 inches tall), there have been no snow speed bike races, runs or championships since the nineties. While on an assignment in Portugal this summer he found out that the old speed track in La Parva, Chile was being renovated. He quickly jumped on a plane to South America after hurriedly packing his old helmet and speedsuit along with his new Intense M6 downhill bike.

Are you ready for snow biking—again? Alfredo Escobar for Sports&News

Just seven days later, on Friday, 14 September at 11:18 a.m., Stoeckl was standing at the highest-possible starting point directly beneath the cliffs in front of a 2000 meter long and 45-degree steep slope. The conditions for the record run were far from ideal. Because South America’s springtime weather had melted away much of the snow alongside the piste, shrinking it to a narrow strip set up between bare mountain cliffs, it was not possible to gradually raise the starting point for test runs. Stoeckl was even forced to hold his breath for the 40-second run because the protective visor on his helmet kept fogging over. “I knew that this would be my only chance,“ he said. The record run went off without a hitch. There were no problems whatsoever and after hitting a speed of 210.4 kmph (130.7 mph) he had beat his old stock bike speed record by over 23 kmph (14.3 mph).

Markus Stoeckl has now tasted success and wants to try to break the age-old record set by Eric Baronè – but with better preparation and a purpose-built mountain bike. Fernando Habash, who is in charge of the La Parva ski resort, has promised he would have a course optimized for record runs.

It's probably not OK to poke fun at someone's hat if they're nicknamed "Hercules" is it? Alfredo Escobar for Sports&News