Video: Daredevil reaches 263km/h on a mountain bike…

One bloke in France has set a new land speed record by reaching dizzying speeds of 263km/h on his trusty old mountain bike.

Do you remember when you were younger and you’d try to keep up with the traffic on the road? If you cycle to work, you probably still do it. Chances are, you never really go over 40km/h.

Well, a man by the name of François Gissy, who used a Swedish designed hydrogen peroxide powered rocket on the back of his mountain bike, managed to reach speeds of 263km/h (164mph) on Sunday, which is roughly the same top speed as a 1967 Ford GT 40. Blink and you'll miss him.

The above ‘rocket powered record’ was set on an old French military base in Mulhouse, but while the mountain bike reached incredible speeds, they weren’t enough to surpass the current flat surfaced, motor-paced land speed record of 268km/h set back in 1995 by Fred Rompelberg.

In fairness, Fred was on a fancy aerodynamically designed racing bike with a drag racer driving in front to reduce resistance, and not a mountain bike with a rocket on the back...