As recently as the beginning of June Jakob Wagenhofer sets a new world record for triple Everesting set up. He covered 525 kilometres and 26,846 metres in altitude in 40 hours 33 minutes and 39 seconds. That was around 50 minutes faster than the previous record. Then came Max Riese, who covered 26,553 metres in altitude and 479.2 kilometres on the Gaisberg in 37 hours and 37 minutes, beating the record by almost 3 hours.
Who is Max Riese?
Max Riese is an ultracycling athlete with a penchant for the extreme. Born in Dresden, the 35-year-old lives in Salzburg. He works closely with tourism regions and develops gravel experiences such as the Lynx Trail or the Wossa bikepacking route. These are two bikepacking routes where you can not only experience nature, but also learn a lot about the region you are travelling through.
Obviously, Max not only works in the field of bike experiences, but also experiences them himself. He has ridden many unsupported bikepacking events, so the tougher an event seems to be, the greater the chance that Max will be at the start. He reveals how he came to do the Triple Everesting in the interview below.
Triple Everesting
Max Riese has cycled up Mount Everest three times, so to speak. His climb of choice: Gaisberg, Salzburg's local mountain.
Statistics
| What? | Value |
| Start | 20 August 2025, 4:57 am |
| Distance | 479.2 kilometres |
| Rise | Gaisberg |
| Repetitions | 95 times up the Gaisberg |
| Altitude metres | 26553 metres altitude |
| Total time | 37:37:43 hours |
| Calories | 23,632 kcal |
| Average performance | 172 watts |
A word with Max
"It was ... special" wrote Max Riese in response to my request for a photo of his world record ride. Naturally, I wanted to know more about this and asked him to describe this "special" in more detail.
Max Riese: We all knew it would be monotonous. But it was less bad than we thought. There were always people doing one or two laps. There were always people on the side. After the night, I was so exhausted that I didn't recognise some parts of the climb, which I'd ridden hundreds of times before. But it's certainly not my dream activity that I'll be repeating any time soon. It's nicer with beautiful and varied landscapes.
When did you decide to do the Triple Everesting?
At the end of last year, I was planning how I could best represent which bike and my partners. For me, the Triple Everesting was still more of an in-between project. So I'm all the more amazed at how much attention it's getting now. From my point of view, it's clearly more attention than my Tour Divide finish, where I narrowly missed out on the podium.
Not again so soon, you say. The "old" record wasn't even old yet, the Austrian Jakob Wagenhofer set it this year in June. What happens if someone disputes your record?
Jakob is a super likeable guy. I felt really sorry for him. I actually only saw a fortnight ago that he'd got it. If someone sets a new record, I don't think I'll try to get it back. But I'm sure it will be under 30 hours. That was actually my goal too.
But?
I slept a little with the electrolytes in the heat on the first day. Then, of course, my performance collapsed and I carried my tiredness into the night. I stayed up for at least 4 hours.
You said that the world record was an "in-between project". What comes next?
Next weekend the Frthr Perseverance. In fact, I'll be riding all three Frthr events until the end of November.
The wheel of choice
Max set his world record on a previously unreleased bike: the Cervélo R5.
Sandra Schuberth
Editor
