Max Stöckl is used to breaking speed records on a mountain bike, however the daredevil from Oberndorf had not encountered anything like the legendary Hahnenkamm downhill course before. The 43-year-old rode down the 3312 metre piste with a spine-chilling 27% average gradient on a regular mountain bike that you could buy from the shops and put together, incorporating 15 millimetre (0.6 inch) metal spikes on the tyres for added grip. After hitting a top speed of 167.6km/h in Chile’s Atacama desert to break the speed record for a standard mountain bike in December 2016, Stöckl followed in the footsteps of Max Verstappen and Marc Marquez by travelling to the most difficult alpine ski slope in the world. Whereas F1 star Verstappen and MotoGP champion Marquez took their motorsport vehicles for a spin on the slope, Stöckl launched himself down it several times – hitting top speeds of 106km/h. He revealed: “Racing down a straight icy hill is a totally different thing to anything else I have done. It definitely reached and exceeded my expectations. It was more fun than I thought it would be. Coming down the final shoot and jump was a great rush.” Stöckl wanted to do something that nobody had ever done before ahead of the 78th running of the famous Hahnenkamm downhill ski race in his home country on Saturday January 20.