Markus ‘Max’ Stöckl is driven by the need for speed. The general manager of the World Cup-running MS-Racing Mondraker MTB Team likes nothing better than to go down a slope as fast as possible and has been setting speed downhill mountain-bike records for over 20 years.
For his new V-Max project, 42-year-old Stöckl was aiming to beat his own speed world record for cycling down a gravel-based mountain on a production mountain bike. The current record was set In 2011 when Max bombed down the volcanic cone of Cerro Negro in Nicaragua at 164.95kph.
Stöckl and his six-man support team identified Chile’s Atacama Desert on the country’s Pacific Coast. Nothing thrives here, all that can be seen is boulders and stones for miles and miles.
