Silvan Marfurt & Ralph Van Den Berg Set a MTB Record of 20,845 Vertical Meters of Descending in a Single Day
Photos by Martin Bissig
The two Swiss Silvan Marfurt and Ralph Van Den Berg break through the “sound barrier”: In one day, they conquered 20,845 meters / 68,389 ft of vertical descent on the Davos Klosters single tracks. A new mountain biking record.
The rules: No trail can be ridden twice, and no e-bikes. This is what the two amateur mountain bikers Silvan Marfurt ( 1988 ) and Ralph Van Den Berg ( 1985 ) stuck to on Tuesday 20th July when they set a new world record. In 16 hours, the two conquered a descent of 20,845 vertical meters / 68,389 ft in Davos Klosters. Hardly surprising! The Swiss biking destination is known for its almost infinite number of single track trails and its Bahnentour, or “cable car tour,” which is what inspired this world record. “The Bahnentour, with its descent of about 10,000 vertical meters / 32,808 ft, is my favorite Davos Klosters tour. I rode it several times to prepare,” stated Ralph Van Den Berg.
Cutting it close
The two headed out at four a.m., marking the start of a non-stop ride where every descent was on a different trail. They were on a very tight schedule. After 16 hours of trail and cable car riding, their GPS device showed that they’d reached the desired descent of 20,845 vertical meters / 68,389 ft. They’d made it! They beat the official single track world record by 229 vertical meters / 751 ft.
Single track world records a Swiss tradition
The single track world record is a long-standing tradition and is held mostly by the Swiss. In 2010, Thomas Giger, together with René Wildhaber, set the first benchmark with a descent of 12,555 vertical meters / 41190 ft. He beat his own record three years later along with Thomas Frischknecht, descending 13,572 vertical meters / 44,527. Twins Caroline and Anita Gehrig beat the record in Vinschgau in 2014, descending 15,117 vertical meters / 49,596. One year later, Ken Imhasly and Alain Gwerder were the first to cross the 20,000 meters / 65,616 ft threshold in Wallis, until they ceded the title to Silvan Marfurt and Ralph Van Den Berg in Davos Klosters.
Ralph Van Den Berg (left) and Silvan Marfurt (right) made it! They set a new world record in Davos Klosters: 20,845 meters / 68,389 ft of vertical descent in 16 hours
Author Info:
Member since Mar 16, 2018
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
One would be interested to know which lift has the best numbers in this regard. Perhaps a combo of lifts. Which resort is the highest, which has the most VD, which one has the quickest route to the bottom?
I see this WR falling!
Using blevo or mission control, and I'm sure bosch/shimano etc must have equivalent apps, you can change the amount of assist from the motor, blevo even has a smart power feature. For example, if I use blevo's smart power feature to set my kenevo to keep my power in zone 2 I can get over 100km. I regularly do this in the summer, and not flat rides either, proper rides with real climbs and descents. I can't do get close to that on the spark or remedy.
My favourite bike is my remedy, and I prefer non-ebikes for sure so spare the pitchforks, but there is so much BS out there about ebikes. If you want a harder workout or a longer range you can just turn the assist down.
I know that someday ebike batteries will catch up with my legs, but for now, my legs have more life than lithium. This isn't me hating on ebikes, I think they're cool, but their range is limited, and you, my friend, are limitless =)
It's not about the software, the software just allows you to alter the assist, and if it gives you less it can do that for longer. It's a question of physics; energy, power output and time. In proper terms, a 500Wh battery will provide 500J of energy per second for 1 hour before it goes flat, or 100J of energy per second for 5 hours, or 50J per second for 10 hours and so on. You can't argue with energy conservation.
What I'm saying is that by lowering the power output a given energy store will last for a much longer time and distance. Yes the rider will have to put more effort in on that ride, and you won't be smashing up climbs at the same speed as you could in turbo, but you can definitely get an ebike to last whatever you ride you want and it'll be easier than on an analogue bike. The biggest I've done is 125km with 10000ish feet of climbing, over 2 days, but on one battery. The assist was so so low, but it still helped me do a ride I couldn't have done otherwise, it made my 180mm coil 50lbs bike climb like my road bike. For example, I've just checked, I've turned my assist down to 1% and the range indicator is saying almost 200km on a full battery.
As I said, I prefer non-ebikes, I'm not doing an "ebikes are great" argument, but loads of people just don't think when talking about them. Yes I can drain the 500Wh battery in 1 hour by smashing up climbs in turbo, but I can also use it to make my heavy, slow 180mm bike pedal like a road bike and ride it all day long. We're all only limited by fitness and the food we take as you said, but given the same fitness and same food you can go further on an ebike, as long as you set the assistance with that in mind rather than setting speed records.
"Yes the rider will have to put more effort in on that ride, and you won't be smashing up climbs at the same speed as you could in turbo, but you can definitely get an ebike to last whatever you ride you want and it'll be easier than on an analogue bike"
If they were to weigh the same, correct....any added power from the motor you'd be better off, problem is as power goes up so does weight...you need XXJ to offset weight, once the bike cannot supply that anymore (at a bare minimum) you are screwed....that could be 3 hrs or 10 hrs....@Lokirides has a valid point, analog bikes take less energy to ride long distances