Elias SchwƤrzler has done it again. After setting a world record of 272 km/h on a bicycle, SchwƤrzler is now the first person in the world to ride on top of a hot air balloon and jump off with multiple frontflips.
Two years of preparation led to this one moment: Elias SchwƤrzler 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 SchwƤrzler has ever pulled off.
Rather than riding in the basket, SchwƤrzler 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, SchwƤrzler 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, SchwƤrzler 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.
