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130mph? On a bike. Yeah… right. Yes, right!

Enough with the news about Floyld Landis for a moment… gravity beats chemistry as Austrian rider Markus Stoeckl used a Chilean ski slope with a 45 degree drop to get up to speed. The 33-year-old broke the world record for downhill series mountain bikes by clocking a speed of 130.7mph (210.4km/h) on the La Parva run in Chile last Friday.

Stoeckl, nicknamed ‘Hercules’, held his breath for the 40-second trip to prevent the visor on his helmet from steaming up.

‘At the end of the run, I had the feeling that I was somehow watching the run myself,’ he explained.

‘The planning for the trip to Chile was so hurried that I ended up having to use my street shoes for the world record run!’

Go see Another video (non-embeddable) on this Italian site.

Velociraptor quips: I once drove a 4-cylinder rented Renault on the Autobahn. It seemed as if I was at a dead stop as the Mercedes and BMWs blew by me. But I think it could have done 130mph, too… if dropped from an airplane. Hmmm… gives me an idea!