He Rode a Mountain Bike on a Flying Hot Air Balloon. Then He Jumped

WORLD’S FIRST: Mountain Bike Ride on Hot Air Balloon
Elias Schwärzler has done it again. After setting a world record of 272 km/h on a
bicycle, Schwärzler is now the first person in the world to ride on top of a hot air balloon
and jump off with multiple frontflips.
Rankweil, 21.07.26. Two years of preparation led to this one moment: Elias Schwärzler rode
his SCOTT Genius Custom Trail Bike on a hot air balloon in flight at an altitude of 950
meters, launched into a double frontflip into the void, and landed safely under parachute. The
stunt is considered the first of its kind in the world, uniting three completely different extreme
sports disciplines in a single moment for the first time: mountain biking, ballooning, and
BASE jumping. A new WORLD’S FIRST!

What looks at first glance like a brief, spectacular moment is in reality one of the most
complex and dangerous actions Schwärzler has ever pulled off. Rather than riding in the
basket, Schwärzler balanced on top of the balloon’s thin envelope with the bike at 950 meters,
with nothing to hold onto and no solid ground beneath him, only the taut, scorching hot
balloon skin heated to 100 degrees. There was no second chance and no room for error. A
mistimed takeoff from the bike, a poorly timed rotation, or a fraction of a second’s delay in
opening the parachute would have turned the masterpiece into a catastrophe. Every
movement, from the final meters of approach across the envelope through the takeoff to the
double frontflip in freefall, had to be executed with total precision. Only once the parachute
had opened safely and the landing was clean was it certain that the stunt had succeeded.
For the Austrian freeride and stunt rider, this marks the next milestone in a career already
crowned with an official Guinness World Record. In 2022, Schwärzler rode a standard
production bicycle, the SCOTT Gambler, to 272 km/h, making him the fastest person in the
world on a bicycle. With the balloon stunt, he now sets another exclamation point in a string
of projects that draw attention far beyond the traditional biking scene.

The idea for the project was born roughly two years ago. Since then, Schwärzler and his team
have worked on the technical and logistical execution. From mounting the bike to the balloon,
to fine-tuning the exact takeoff height and rotation, to ensuring a safe parachute landing,
every detail was planned, tested, and reworked over months until all the elements came
together reliably. The result is a stunt that has never been attempted in this form before: the
interplay of balloon flight, mountain bike riding, and skydiving in a single continuous
sequence, in which every individual element had to work flawlessly.