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The 30th edition marked three decades of the toughest event in off-road motorsport, and ended with Manuel Lettenbichler delivering a masterclass across a gruelling three hours to match the event’s all-time win record on the Iron Giant.
June 2026, Eisenerz, AUSTRIA – Since 1995, the Red Bull Erzbergrodeo has been built on one core idea: point the world’s best off-road riders at the largest iron ore mine in Central Europe and see who survives. What began as enduro enthusiast Karl Katoch’s experiment – 120 riders taking on the Styrian “Mountain of Iron” – has grown into the pinnacle of hard enduro and one of the most talked-about events in motorsport, drawing more than 1,500 amateurs and factory professionals from over 40 nations to south-eastern Austria.
At the event’s 30th edition, which drew over 57,000 spectators across the week, it was Manuel ‘Mani’ Lettenbichler who once again conquered the Iron Giant. The Red Bull KTM Factory Racing rider crossed the line in 3:05:39 to claim his fifth Red Bull Erzbergrodeo title, a feat only two riders had managed before Sunday: Britain’s Graham Jarvis and Poland’s Taddy Blazusiak. The 28-year-old German now joins them, and becomes only the second rider after Blazusiak (2007-11) to win five in succession.
The format remains as selective as ever. Across two days of the Iron Road Prologue, the entry list is cut to the 500 fastest riders, who line up for Sunday’s main race against a four-hour clock and a course that climbs and drops across the 1,400-metre mountain. In most years, barely a dozen of those 500 reach the finish.
As four-time defending champion, Lettenbichler arrived as the overwhelming favourite and the rider every rival wanted to beat. The field chasing him was among the strongest in the event’s history, the leading entrants holding close to 50 world titles between them . With 2025 runner-up Billy Bolt sidelined through injury, the main threats came from KTM teammate Trystan Hart, Triumph’s three-time winner Jonny Walker, rising British star Mitch Brightmore, Sherco’s Teodor Kabakchiev and Spain’s Mario Roman.
That density of talent, set against the mass-start chaos and near-vertical climbs, is what has carried hard enduro to a far wider audience than its off-road core. The fight for the Iron Giant has gone truly global, with 41 nations qualifying for the final race and 16 of them, from every continent, packed into the front row alone.
Lettenbichler was fastest off the line and leading in the opening moments, but after coming off his bike around five minutes in he briefly found himself chasing Mitch Brightmore. “I didn’t have the best start. It was so motocrossy and so dusty at the beginning that I was scared,” he said. “One time I caught a rock with the front wheel and thought, slow down a little, don’t risk it already at the start.” The reigning champion kept his composure and was back in front within minutes. “Then I pushed and got back to Mitch, and the speed was insane until Carl’s Dinner, where I really tried to push hard and put a bit of a gap.”
His one real scare came at the 13th checkpoint, Speedweek Machine, where Hart closed right onto his back wheel. Lettenbichler looked momentarily rattled but responded at once, opening a gap on the Canadian and stretching it through the remaining stages to finish more than eight minutes clear. “It’s crazy to win another title here,” he said. “You come in as the favourite, with everybody saying you’re going to win it anyway, that you’re going to make it five. To actually deliver on that is crazy. I can’t believe it. I think it’ll take a few days to sink in.”
Hart took second in 3:14:10, with Mario Roman third, exactly four minutes back, for his fourth Erzberg podium, and Kabakchiev fourth in 3:22:01. “It’s super good to be back on the podium, as it’s one of the biggest off-road races in the world,” said Hart. “We rode flat out for three hours, and for all these guys to get finishes is a huge accomplishment, because finishing that course inside four hours is no joke. I didn’t think it was going to be that hard, but Carl obviously wanted to make it a tough one for the 30th. He achieved that.”
The mountain, as ever, did most of its damage further down the order. Abandoned bikes littered the early checkpoints as amateur riders met their limits, a reminder that for most of the 500 starters, finishing is never the point; getting as far up the Iron Giant as possible is. Even the frontrunners weren’t spared: three-time champion Walker, who had been in fourth place, was forced out when a stick punched through his radiator, on a day that also cost him a chipped tooth.
The 30th edition was also the first with electric motorcycles permitted to race, lining up directly against combustion machines, and they more than held their own. Eddie Karlsson took ninth despite losing his rear brake on the very first corner and riding the entire race without it, finishing just ahead of Jarvis in tenth. The five-time winner, back on the start line at 52 riding the electric JARV-E he helped develop, came home with 14 minutes to spare.
Three decades of evolution have done nothing to soften the Iron Giant. If anything, the anniversary edition was one of the harshest yet, with punishing new sections added to the course and finish times among the slowest in recent memory. This year just 15 of the 500 starters beat the four-hour cut-off, and none made it look as easy as Lettenbichler, who stayed calm and collected throughout to read the mountain better than anyone. “My racecraft is pretty good, making the right decision at the right moment,” he said. “A lot of it is experience. I first came here in 2014, so I’ve been around this mountain a long time, and I know the trails and the rocks pretty well.”
Lettenbichler’s fifth win puts him level with the two most decorated riders in the event’s history; a sixth would put him alone at the top. Five years unbeaten on the Iron Giant, he heads into 2027 as the rider everyone else is still chasing. “It’s not going to get easier,” he warned. “Everybody is pushing hard, and we’ll see what the future brings.”
