Friday Photo - Glacier Bike Downhill

Is this an invasion force? (photo courtesy of DailyMail.com)

Now here's a really wild mountain bike race called the Glacier Bike Downhill. It starts on a glacier about 3,500 meters (roughly 11,500 feet) above sea level in Switzerland. The competitors start off by running to their mountain bikes and then go screaming downhill, at speeds up to 90 miles per hour. The race doesn't last long - The winner usually finishes in less that eight minutes.

The photo above and the video below are from the 2012 race. Winning times through the years are listed at the Glacier Bike Downhill website. The winning time in 2017 was just five and a half minutes, which is about two minutes quicker than any other year. I don't know if they changed the route or if the conditions were easier than usual. Here's a video from a helmet mounted camera on the rider which finished tenth in the 2012 competition: