24/10/2026
This summer, Sven Gelhaus (Sven Gelhaus | Ultracycling) climbed 100.000 metres in 14 days, almost entirely on one road: the Großglockner High Alpine Road. Every day started at 6:00 am at the Ferleiten ticket office.
Here’s what that means in numbers:
• He climbed to the edge of space, the Kármán line: the 100 km altitude often used as the boundary of space.
• That’s 11.3 Everests stacked on top of each other.
• 66 ascents. His total equals climbing from Ferleiten to the Hochtor about 66 times, though he mixed routes to Fuscher Törl, Hochtor, Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe and sometimes the Edelweißspitze.
• 7.150 m+ a day. That’s about 80% of an Everest, every single day for two weeks.
• 158 km a day, with 45 m of climbing for every kilometre ridden.
- Nearly double the Tour de France. The 2026 Tour climbed 54.450 m over 3.333 km in 21 stages. Sven climbed 84% more in two-thirds of the days, and his route was almost three times as steep on average.
- What goes up must come down. He also descended about 100 km of altitude, and roughly half of his 2,207 km was downhill: cold descents straight into the next climb.
• The weather finally played along. 3 rainy days out of 14 (21%).
• 5 to 6 hours of sleep per night, with 14 alarms set for a 6:00 am start.
And all of this, of course, based on many years of training.
📸: .visions
