Markus Stoeckl, The FASTEST DHer on Earth!
Today Soul-Riders spoke to Mr. MS Racing himself, Markus Stoeckl while he was in an airport waiting for his flight. In September last year Markus attempted to break the Land record for a Mountain Bike in Chile and did he break it, he smashed it by 23 km/h to set a new world record of 210.4 km/h.
Markus was on an assignment in Portugal when he was told the old speed track in La Parva, Chile had just been renovated. Markus jumped at the opportunity and jumped on a plane to South America. So he packed his all new Intense M6 and he didn’t forget to pack his old helmet & speed suit either!
Only one week later at 11:18am on Friday the 14th of September, Markus was standing at the top of a 2000 meter slope which was 45 degrees steep. It was springtime in South America so the condition weren’t exactly perfect. As the day went on, they could not gradually raise the starting point to go faster and faster. In fact the final run was hundreds of metres below the previous starting point where the top speed recorded was 178 km/h.
Markus’ visor on his helmet however, kept fogging up so Markus decided to hold his breath for the entire 40 second run. “I knew that this would be my only chance.” There was a rumor that Markus had to wear his street shoes for the record after the rush of getting there but it is far from true. He was using his normal riding shoes which are the new 661 Filter SPD shoes which were more than capable of taking up the challenge.
Q&A Time!
SR: Well Markus, you rushed straight into this record and smashed it, with a little more preparation, are you going to have a go at breaking anymore records?
MS: Right now we are searching for a longer and steeper mountain face so if we can find one and if there’s a chance for a faster run, then we are going to attempt it again and of course with more preparation.
SR: Are you going to use your street shoes which broke your current record for these other records?
MS: There was this story about my shoes, but these are my real bike shoes, not really aerodynamic ones, but we will change this for the next record trial as well.
SR: Besides breaking records, you also have your own mountain bike team, tell us a bit about your team.
MS: Yes we’re called the "MS Intense Factory Team." We started with some Austrian Riders, at this time the Team was called "MS-Racing Team but after the first Year we started talking to Jeff Steber from Intense Cycles so we combined the 2 Team’s together being MS-Racing and the Intense Factory Team. So we have been able to get real good support from Intense and so the international riders had a great support in Europe from our side. Till today we worked really hard on developing the team every year and that’s not at least the benefit from all the hard work which the guys Lukas, Christian and Peter put in place as well the Riders from the first years of Georg Engel, Petra Bernhard und Mathias Haas who helped us a lot to get prepared for our job with Chris, Sabrina, Claudio, Vanessa and Darren. After having all these very talented Riders in the Team we are now on a point where we had to think about the future of the Team and we had to make a very hard decision and changed our Athletes line-up to get more young Riders into the Team and make the whole Team more effective. Our Riders for 2008 and 2009 are Matti Lehikoinen DH, Anneke Beerten 4X and DH, Mio Suemsa 4X and DH and last but not least the very young and talented J.D. Swanguen who will be our cross over Athlete that will show up at several different Events. We also have really good relationships with our Sponsors which are Intense Cycles, Manitou, Shimano, Titec, Intense Tires, Sunn Ringle, THE and so on. With some of these long time Partners we also working on new products. I think that we are almost where we should be after these 3 years and I hope that we can reach our goals for this year, I’m not the guy who talks a lot before the season is over but I’m very optimistic if I’m looking at the past and into the future of Ms intense Factory Racing Team.
SR: You have some very exiting new riders joining the team this year, how are they adapting to the team & there new bikes?
MS: Matti was in California for some testing of the new M6 and he was really happy with the Bike. I think that all the Riders we choose, are really nice guys and girls and I’m looking forward to some nice Races in 2008
SR: How is Matti recovering after his horrifying crash late last year?
MS: This crash was very shocking for all of us, but I don’t want to talk too much about these things. I’m feeling very happy for Matti that everything worked out like this and he seams very optimistic for the season.
SR: With the new season coming up very fast, are you exited about the prospects of the World Cup series this year?
MS: This year I’m visiting some races as well, which is good because last year I was to busy with my work, but there are some stops which are looking very interesting to me.
SR: Will the team be making the journey over for the Canberra round over in Australia?
MS: Yes the Team or parts of the team are going to Australia, we still have to figure out who is going but Matti and Anneke are going there for sure
SR: I hear the team has a very trick looking Transporter, just how good is it?
MS: Yes it looks really cool, it seams a little big for the mountain biking but with this Bus we have the perfect tool in place to keep the riders rested by having a small home for the crew over season and that’s what it is, it’s our home. But there is some nice stuff coming up for 2008 as well and we will host some nice parties at the booth.
SR: For the people out there who don’t know much about you, Where did it all begin & how has it got you to where you are now?
MS: It all started where my cooking career ended, I had my first mountain bike 18 years ago and 11 years ago I got my first DH bike right after this I decided to quit my job and started my own company in the Event business. Besides I was racing at DH Races all over Europe but never had enough time to train. That’s also the reason why I started the Team because I thought that if the team is running really well than I don’t have to work at Events anymore but exactly the other thing happened. I had to work more and had to stop racing all together because my ideas could not be financed through our Sponsors. But after so many Events I had a really clear picture of how MS-Racing should look at the end and that goal was just to big in my head so the chances of becoming a really fast (for example "Matti") Rider in my age was really small (haha). Yes I was able to win some races and to break the record but the real heroes on the bikes are the DH Pros who I have named and I have really deep respect of all the guys
SR: Well thanks for taking the time today to have a chat with us and I’m sure everyone out there will have learnt a lot more about yourself.
MS: Thanks for the opportunity to get some space on your site and I’ll see you at the races. Also if ever anyone has a question to ask me, they can come to the MS Racing booth and have a red bull and a chat with me.
