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We arrived early to secure a place towards the front. At 8.30 a.m. the small Austrian village of Bad Goisern was already crowded, banners baring the names of a few big-name sponsors stretching across the narrow streets and rising above two-storey buildings on inflated balloons. Bad German-language electro dance music usurped the authenticity of the landscape and the villagers, almost all dressed in their traditional social Sunday get-up of lederhosen and Dirndl dresses, were making the rounds. There wasn’t an available parking space miles around.

The Salzkammergut Trophy is considered the most grueling one-day mountain bike event in Europe, and perhaps maybe the world. It attracts several thousands of cyclists from over twenty countries to Inner Salzkammergut, a vertically unchallenged region typified by pristine lakes, electric green meadows and 6,000 foot peaks. The scenic beauty, situated just forty-five minutes from Salzburg, is coupled with a millennia-long history of salt mining, a cocktail UNESCO found irresistible. The entire region a cultural and natural World Heritage Site.

The Salzkammergut Trophy’s popularity has less to do with cultural intricacies and glaciers than it does with hardcore mountain biking terrain. From the starting point in Bad Goisern, there is really only one direction for cyclists to go, and that’s up. And once they’ve reached the top, the only way down is via jagged vertical drops, precarious logging trails covered in loose gravel and the occasional paved road. There are few plateaus and no extensive valleys to ease the pain once you’re on your way.

There are four Salzkammergut Trophy courses in all, the most renowned being the 220-kilometer martyrdom ride that boasts 21,000 feet in altitude change, earning the journey opprobriums like ‘Pain has a Name’, ‘Ticket to Hell’ and ‘To Hell and Back.’ Not even the most gruesome stages of the Tour de France come close. Of the 200-plus extreme riders that depart on the 220 kilometer course at five a.m. of the mid-July day in question, between 50-70% fail to reach the finish line by the cut-off limit of 9.30 p.m. The best riders can traverse the rugged terrain in just under eleven hours.

The other distances - 100, 47 and 23 kilometers – may seem like mere child’s play by comparison, but to the amateur rider they are hellish in their own right.

With a stoic wink towards the press corps lined up in casual clothing at the start of the 47-kilometer race and ready to capture the mass departure with hi-tech cameras, I popped another mini-Snickers into my mouth. My own camera was wrapped in two towels and stuffed in my backpack, as shock resistant a concoction as conceivable under the circumstances. This was my third time competing in the 47-kilometer race but the first one I felt up to the task of reporting on. The other journalists would reach strategic points along the trail by Jeep. All I had was my bike. And by know I knew what to expect. Like the previous two episodes I was quite certain I would crash at some point, so before the starter pistol sounded I located the Red Cross tent.

Then the gun went off. The enthusiasm of the local crowds and daytrippers was immediately palpable. The roads leading out of Bad Goisern, a village of 9,000 nestled at 1500 feet between the Salzkammergut range, were lined with thousands of people routing the cyclists on with yelps and cowbells. During the race people appeared in the most remote corners of the course, the largest crowds gathering along action areas like precarious drops and hairpin turns. When I did fall at about kilometer six - my water bottle shot out from my holder and lodged itself in my wheel, about as likely an occurrence as being struck by lightning – there were equal amounts of gasping and laughter. I brushed off my embarrassment with a crowd-pleasing bow, then hopped on my bike and continued. My elbow and knee chafed and burning.

For the annual Salzkammergut Trophy, which this year celebrated its sixth edition, the Inner Salzkammergut forestry service opens up trails that are otherwise inaccessible to cyclists. They post signage throughout the mountains and reroute automobile traffic. The 47-kilometer race is a relatively uncomplicated route traversing a network of trails in isolated Austrian backcountry. The 220-kilometer course, however, requires a lot of diversion and backtracking. Without the forestry service’s help, the Salzkammergut Trophy as a race to hell and back would not take place.

The first climb gradually steepened and seemed to go on forever. The perpetual climbing made the first hour intolerable, cutting along nondescript logging roads. It wasn’t until 90 minutes into the ride that I reached the first panoramic point, which was so majestic that riders abandoned the race for a few moments of reflection and, in some cases, photography. What followed were tiny forest paths obscured by tree roots and pools of mud, sudden drop-offs whose degree of danger was indicated by the conspicuous presence of medical personnel. I eased past the dive where, two years prior, my cycling companions was carried off the hill in an ambulance.

Save a few easy slopes, the first 15 kilometers was climbing ad nausea. And despite having positioned myself near the front of the group at the start, at least half of the thousand participants had already passed me by, including a somewhat annoying group of jokers wearing lederhosen. Experience kept me from following them. Common sense and many hours of Tour de France radio told me to maintain my own pace. Also, as horrendous as the first climb was, there were two more down the road.

The first refueling station came at the end of a steep descent and was a godsend, as I had lost one water bottle during the crash and the other was long empty. I had decided in advance to avoid camping out at these oases of synthetic delicatessens, so I ravenously swallowed a Power Bar and started up the next ascent. The road was littered with wrappers and water bottles. The EUR 32 registration fee includes all-you-can-eat pick-me-up bars during the race, volunteer clean-up crews and free pasta after it and, at the finish line and for those who actually finish, a macho t-shirt that says so.

While the 400 kilometers of well-posted mountain bike trails attracts the gross of Inner Salzkammergut’s summertime tourists, the area also caters to hikers, climbers, kajakers and even divers. As a UNESCO site, there are archeological museums, tours through salt mines and gondolas that lift you to the glacier trails of the Daschstein massif. The most beautiful man-made attraction in the area is Hallstatt, a picturesque lakeside village that meets the most hackneyed Austrian postcard image. Consequently, it is the one village in the area where prices are superficially high. Admittedly, it was still worth it.

I continued my ascent, the second and easiest of the three. By now I was so removed from civilization that pulling out of the race would have been more difficult than finishing it, despite a third climb looming. Even as I cascaded through an isolated village and down a path so jagged that a large number of cyclists were forced to dismount their cycles for tire repair, I kept thinking of the final climb. An ebullient crowd applauded me from a nearby cafe terrace, perhaps the most remote I had yet to come across.

Actually, I had been thinking about the third climb for months. In the meager fits and bursts of training I had done to prepare for the Trophy, the third climb had been my motivation. My ambitions were modest and rational: I wasn’t expecting to stoically trudge up the hardened path like Lance Armstrong does Le Tourmalet. I was only interested in lessening the inevitable pain. But when you’re home base is the Netherlands, a country that is by and large situated under sea level, the idea of a proper training for mountain biking of this sort is absurd. My climbing preparation comprised riding up and down a small hill near my home half a dozen times. Daily I inspected my calves for muscular build-up. I was only kidding myself.

The first four hundred yards of third climb began with an 18% incline, which was pretty daunting in an of itself, even when you knew that the 100- and 220-kilometer events had an 800-yard stretch at 32%, which was impossible to climb no matter how many World Cup titles you were carrying in your back pocket. At the base of the climb, a scattershot of cyclists dismounted without even making an attempt to stay on their bikes. As I wheezed by, my legs spinning violently on the highest gear I could find, I saw faces both pail and sickly. Others were shaking their heads in disbelief, staring up at the bend and visibly wondering how far this absurdity could go on.

After two hundred yards I swore I would never, ever participate in the Trophy again. The cramps in my legs were inexplicable and disheartening. I had been meticulous in the amount of sugar and fluid intake, stopping long enough at each refueling kiosk to consume energy-inducing elixirs and unidentifiable boosters. During such moments you’ll eat anything, shoveling sticky and too-sweet objects into your mouth at random, items I wouldn’t dream of dropping into my cart at the supermarket. If they concealed IPO or other doping matters that guaranteed a rocket-fast climb to the top, all the better. It was an amateur event; at that point I was willing to take just about anything to facilitate the climb, legal or not.

I made it around the bend with much grunting and promised myself a short rest on my feet if I could make it to the next bend. When I made it to the next bend, I renegotiated, postponing my rest to another bend further up. This was no coincidence; it was tactic. I knew what I was doing. I was purposely kidding myself, and was pleased to reap the benefits of forced naiveté.

The road was wide, a wall of rock on my left and a deep gorge on my right. It was perfect weather for cycling, which robbed me of a scapegoat for my cramps. The two prominent reasons remaining were altitude and lack of mountains in the Netherlands. I was pleased that I seemed to be making progress, unusual – for me – at this point of the race. I was gaining ground on a few cyclists in front of me, and there was no one gaining ground on me from the rear, which was a good sign. I looked at my watch and saw that I had been on my bike for three hours. The strongest riders were already quaffing 50 ml beers at the finish line. And then my legs collapsed.

On the side of the road I consumed melted Snickers and muesli bars and gummy candies and washed it all down with an unidentifiable flavor of sports drink. Even though I wasn’t competing to win, I wanted to cross the finish line in a respectable time, so my pause was swift and my rest short-lived. At this point I also resorted to what I considered my secret weapon: a CD player that I had been lugging about in a backpack the entire ride. I had pre-programmed Coldplay’s ‘Clocks’ fifteen times to get me through the seven kilometers that awaited. I had no idea whether Coldplay could help, but the psychological boost of having brought the band along, of having a secret weapon at all, had gotten me this far.

Coldplay got me through the next seven kilometers. Speed wise, I stopped counting the reoccurring song at nine times. Either way, I wasn’t moving very fast. Butterflies hauled me in on both sides. Thirsty black flies had no troubles keeping pace, pausing on my perspiring skin before zooming ahead. But I was moving ahead and was still on my bike saddle, which was better than walking along beside it as so many other cyclists were doing.

Near the top of the climb there was another refueling kiosk. The remnants of previous riders passing through were scattered around a large area, attesting to how far behind I actually was. Cyclists hung limply over their handlebars to catch their breath. A woman dumped buckets of water over helmets and heads. Another three kilometers of climbing, she said. Serious climbing, she said.

She was right. I managed to stay on my bike for about five more minutes, but not even Coldplay could carry me up that hill. I walked beside my bike for a kilometer and then cycled the last kilometer to the most beautiful point of the race, a bucolic farm with 360-degree views and the carillon of cowbells filling the extraordinary silence. It was both a physical and psychological peak: we’d reached the highest point of the race, from here it was almost exclusively downhill.

The wide, dusty road leading back to Bad Goisern was steep and required an almost fetishistic attention to braking. The descent was peppered with brief, intense climbs, followed immediately by abysmal freefalls. Flying downhill at 55 kilometers/hour I caught brief glimpses of a lake down below. I passed a man in a tent whose job it was to tally riders as they flew by. Volunteers meticulously kept track of who was where and when to ensure that no one disappeared in the Austrian outback.

The last ten kilometers comprised a narrow vertical descent full of pitfalls and sharp stones. The danger was that while some people threw themselves down the hill, braking only when necessary, others maintained a careful, steady pace. I belonged to the throwing group and, ignoring the intense burning of my forearms and knuckles, emerged from the forest with enough speed and adrenaline to propel me across the final three kilometers. The closer I came to the finish line, the more populous the landscape became, locals clapping and cheering the withered figure I had become. In the last hundred yards I felt like a star and accepted their adulation with grace. When I crossed the finish line the pain I had suffered had diminished completely.

With bandaged elbow and band-aided knee I installed myself at the finish line to wait for my cycling companion to arrive. We hadn’t seen each other since the start. A large crowd loitered in the village center, watching the erratic stream of cyclists grunting over the finish line. Some rode in on two flat tires, others raised their hands in the air triumphantly. The greater the cyclist’s emotional display and the more dilapidated state of his bicycle and body, the more enthusiastic the crowd reacted to their presence. Not a single denigrating sneer, not even among from the groups of inebriated and irreverent teenagers. The universal respect shown for everyone who finishes the race attests to the prestige of the Salzkammergut Trophy.

Eventually my friend did arrive, running through the streets of Bad Goisern next to his bicycle and not on it. His front tire was flat. His late arrival caused a bit of commotion because he was only a few minutes ahead of the first rider of the 100-kilometer tour. People pushed up against the gates to see him anyway. He waved to the crowds like a beauty pageant contestant. At the finish line he hoisted the bike over his head.

For the next eight hours cyclists poured in out of the woods and over the finish line. Eventually, they emerged from hotels and campers showered and donning t-shirts that attested to them having completed the Salzkammergut Trophy 2003. The winner of the 100-kilometer came in just over six hours; the 220-kilometer well under eleven hours. I had finished the 47 kilometers in just over four hours, good 570th out of over a thousand riders. My body was scared and hurting. And while promised myself I’d never come back to Bad Goisern again, I moved towards the administration tent to pre-register for next year’s race.

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