Biking
Mountain biking on a glacier at over 6,000 meters in elevation — it shouldn’t be possible, right? Well, apparently French mountain bike freerider Kilian Bron didn’t get the memo.
Near the rime ice-crusted summit of Huayna Potosí in Bolivia, Bron prepared to ride down a mountain that headline writers would later describe as “conquered.” But Bron — who started mountain biking at the age of 13 — was clear about the math: he rode 95% percent of it. That 5% distinction in his 75-minute documentary MIRAGE released online on September 10, 2026, tells the real story. In that small percentage lies the cold, physical truth of a high glacier in the Andes.
Bron first attempted to ride from the summit of Huayna Potosí three years ago but mountain conditions didn’t allow it. The mission was aborted, and he returned home unsuccessful. Mirage finishes where he left off.
Co-directed with Valentin Birant, with cameras handled by Pierre Henni and photography by Pierre Vieira, the film is less a single mountain stunt than a long overland journey across South America. The crew started in the red canyons of Salta and Cafayate in northern Argentina, moving through the sacred indigenous territory of Quebrada de Humahuaca before crossing into Bolivia. Driving two 4×4 trucks that suffered three flat tires on the dirt track to Tolar Grande, the team spent 20 days acclimatizing and shooting before they ever put bike tires on their main peak. They traveled past the salt flats of Uyuni and the volcanic slopes of Tunupa, learning the altitude while setting camera angles and timing radio runs.
-
1
Alta, UT, Report: “How Much Did It Actually Snow?” | Dispelling the Misinformation in Little Cottonwood Canyon
-
2
The 13 Largest Ski Resorts on Earth, Ranked by Size
-
3
23-Year-Old Local Speed Rider Dies on the North Face of Chamonix’s Aiguille du Midi [UPDATED]
-
4
Norwegian World Cup Champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde Tears Achilles While Training in Chile
-
5
SnowBrains 2026-27 Ski Season Forecast, Region by Region: El Niño Favors the High Sierra Over the Northern Rockies
At the center of the high-mountain push was Ana Lía Gonzáles Magueño — known to the crew as “Liita”— an Aymara climbing guide from the rural community of Zongo, Bolivia. Making her 52nd ascent of Huayna Potosí, Liita provided the route-finding, safety decisions, and cultural footing for the French team. Where typical sports films talk of subduing a peak, Bron’s documentary records traditional offerings made to ask the mountain for permission to climb. In the film, Liita speaks of the mountain not as an obstacle, but as a teacher and a grandfather.
“Every step is very important to me, because I know the mountain sometimes challenges me, but it has never discriminated against me; it has taught me,” Liita said in the film. “I feel very loved in the mountains, because it feels like I am visiting someone very dear to me. The mountain is like a grandfather to me.”
Getting to the upper slopes of the 6,094-meter mountain took a heavy physical toll. At the high refuge, team member Nix came down with a fever near 39°C. Moving on three hours of sleep, Bron and the crew started up at 4 a.m. into -25º Celsius cold. In a public Q&A following the shoot, Bron explained that the team set a strict 2 p.m. cutoff on the glacier to stay ahead of solar warming and crevasse hazards, spending four hours filming the descent down to the lower hut.
The terrain demanded constant work, navigating hard wind-scoured ice, soft snow, and loose rock gardens lower down. That was the unridden 5%. Speaking to the French magazine GEO, Bron said that the long overland travel from northern Argentina into Bolivia ultimately meant more to him than standing on the summit. Following a French cinema tour that included a screening at the Grand Rex in Paris, Bron proposed his next objective during a recent lecture: climbing Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere at 6,961 meters, before attempting a continuous descent down to the Pacific coast of Chile in 24 hours. For now, MIRAGE stands as a study in high-altitude mountain biking and travel, showing that real stories are those which happen in the spaces between point A and point B.
- Related: Momentary Access: Italian-British Duo Secure Historic First Ski Descent on 6,162m Ranrapalca, Peru
