Reporting the amazing new bicycle speed record set by Austrian Markus Stoeckl in Chile.
A new bicycle speed record has recently been set in Chile. 33 year old Austrian Markus Stoeckl clocked an incredible 210.4 km/h (130.7 mph) on a snow-slope in the Chilean Alps. While faster speeds have been reached in streamlined capsules, this speed was attained on a conventional Intense bike with Shimano components - including off-the-shelf disc brakes to bring the flying Stoeckl safely to a halt. Conditions were far from optimum on the 2000-metre long, 45-degree slope and it seems certain that the record can and will be surpassed in the near future.
Although extremely impressive, to me such gravity-assisted record-breaking seems a bit of a sideshow compared to the speeds that can be reached on level ground by pure muscle-power - see an earlier article for more on this.
