Austrian rider Mario Neurauter dropped more than 12 feet onto a small target and crushed it with his back tire, locking in a Guinness World Record at a September festival.
UPI reported that Neurauter rode off an elevated platform 12.46 feet above the ground and put his rear tire squarely on a small red cardboard box. The box gave way. The landing stuck. Guinness World Records logged it as the highest vertical drop on a bicycle on to a target (male).
The stunt went down at the Bike Republic Sölden Festival in September 2025. The news hit in early October. No government grant. No committee. Just a rider, a bike, a box, and a measured drop.
That is the whole game here: skill under pressure, with no soft landing if the tire misses.
Neurauter did not treat the box like a side detail. He told Guinness the aim point was the hard part.
He said to Guinness World Records:
"I wasn't scared, but I knew that hitting the box would be tricky. I hadn't trained for it specifically, so I didn't know how many attempts it would take. In the end, it worked out pretty well,"
He had not drilled the target run in isolation. He still found the box. The back tire did the rest.
Guinness posted video of the attempt on its Instagram account, giving the public a clear look at the drop and the crush. The record title is narrow on purpose: highest vertical drop on a bicycle on to a target, male category. Height alone was not enough. The tire had to finish on the mark.
Neurauter did not stop at one try at glory. During the same festival weekend he also went after the highest vertical drop on a bicycle and the highest 360 vertical drop on a bicycle onto a target.
Guinness said evidence from those two runs is still under review. The box-crush drop is the one already in the books at 12.46 feet.
Sölden’s festival stage gave him the platform and the crowd setting. The governing piece was simpler: a measured height, a small red box, and a rear tire that had to hit home after freefall.
Guinness World Records framed the ride as a breakthrough for a mountain biker with pro ambitions. The certified result does not need extra spin. He left the ramp, found a tiny target, and walked away with the mark.
In an age of padded scores and participation trophies, a record that lives or dies on one tire patch is a useful reminder: results still count.
