Boundless

This is the biggest race in Austria.

It is an epic race.

You've got 16 hours to finish this race

and only about 50% complete the course.

- These mountains are enormous and we're gonna be climbing

them up on bikes, this is crazy.

Man, I'm hurting all over, this is brutal.

Climb, climb, climb, climb, climb.

- We're climbing stuff that's 20, 30 degrees, paved.

This is a damn hard race.

Now the real racing starts.

We all (beep) through there and it's just gonna get mental,

the level of dangerous is right through the roof here.

Never in my life have I

done a mountain bike race this long.

I hope I make it to the end.

This race is too big to fathom, the climbs are so long,

it's like mentally beating on you.

I don't know what's gonna happen.

- Turbo and I are heading into the unknown.

It's a new year and new set of races.

These races are the biggest,

baddest and scariest on the planet.

It'll be a miracle if we survive the next six months.

- This will truly be a test of what we're made of.

- We're pushing way beyond our limits,

over 2,500 kilometers.

- This is gonna be the most insane year

of our lives.

So we're here in Austria in the Salzkammergut region,

which is kind of the mountain playground for Austrians.

- We're here for the Salzkammergut Trophy Series Race.

This has gotta be the biggest race in Austria.

It's a 211 kilometer mountain bike race

through this region.

It's got 7,000 meters of climbing.

It's widely regarded in Europe as one

of the toughest mountain biking enduro events around,

certainly is a hell of a way

to start our journey for this season.

We're gonna be doing switchback climbs,

we're gonna be doing hair-raising descents.

It's gonna be nutty, we got two days until the race.

So today's just to get the lay of the land.

We're gonna meet up with some mountain bikers later on

and just check out some of the terrain around here.

So up here with our new buddy, Daniel,

he's a local free rider here,

knows the trails around this area, inside and out.

So he is a great tour guide for a lot of the trophy trails.

We call it (speaking foreign language),

it's one of our favorite spots.

Now we show you a short part for this trail.

This is what we gotta do, man.

We're racing on this stuff so we gotta get out and test it

and see what it's like,

'cause we're gonna be riding this on Saturday.

We hadn't a clue where he is gonna take us.

He's just taking us to one of his favorite spots.

We didn't know what to expect.

The beauty of hooking up with locals when you

go to a different place is they're

gonna take you to the hidden gems.

They're gonna take you to the places where you'd never

be able to find.

They're gonna take you on a killer ride.

- We've got the right skillset for this race.

This race is gonna challenge us mentally,

physically, it's gonna push us to our limits,

but you don't get a true appreciation of riding

and racing until you're actually on the trails themselves.

We're riding close together,

we're all going fast and it's tough.

You gotta be on your toes doing this stuff.

You're riding right on the ridge here.

If you take a turn to the right there,

you're gonna go right over the edge there

and you're gonna drop about 300 feet.

It's tight, it's twisty,

and the rocks just kind of bounce you around,

so you've gotta stay loose, let the bike flow.

It's a technical piece of trail

and it's more difficult the faster you go,

so we're riding fast, we're riding tight.

You know, there's a rider right behind you

and there's somebody right in front of you.

We've kind of gotta look ahead and look through that rider

to anticipate what's coming

and just hope that they don't crash.

Somebody crash?

On a training run, them down hillers,

kinda like the gnarly stuff here

and I don't think it's a good idea before race day.

I just bailed over the bars there.

After that I thought, hold on a sec,

I gotta slow down a bit.

- You know it's, there's too much risk right now.

I mean, there's no point

in hurting yourself before the race.

I don't wanna see Turbo getting banged up

and obviously I don't wanna get banged up myself.

This is out of my comfort zone

and to prepare for it wasn't easy.

I've still gotta prepare at the same time

for another nine races,

which include a variety of other sports.

A lot of people have said,

"Well, why don't you train harder for these races?"

Or, "Why don't you prepare?"

Or, "How can you fail on some of these?"

Most athletes will take one big race,

they train hard for it and they prepare for it.

We're traveling across the world,

we're dealing with different food and all the jet lag.

They're not ideal conditions.

Obviously we're gonna do our best.

Some days we're gonna have great days,

other days we're gonna come a little bit short.

This year I'm trying to focus

on getting more training when we're on these trips.

So even though it's a bike race,

we really want to get out here and get some running in.

You know, it's important to keep the body moving.

The tops of these mountains,

you've got a great vantage point to really scope

out the race course and it's just gonna

be like riding a saw blade.

There's 7,000 meters of elevation

and, you know, we're gonna have some big climbs on the day.

So it's good to get the bird's eye view

and really see what you're gonna be dealing with.

I could see a significant area of the race course.

I've got this wide macro view of everything.

Okay, I'm going all the way around that lake

and then climbing up this mountain.

Then you really get an appreciation of the magnitude.

When you got a big race coming,

you kind of want to clear your mind away from the race.

Doing this was perfect for that.

Now of course in the back of your mind,

you see these hills, you think,

"Oh, I got a lot of climbing to do."

These mountains are enormous and we're gonna be up

and down on these things on bikes, this is crazy.

- It's really good for us to get a real sense

of what the race course is all about.

It's always important to meet up with a local pro.

You really have a true appreciation

for consummate professionals.

Tell me how the race starts.

Fast, be careful with your,

with your body and it's very long and very difficult

with the meters of planting.

I don't know the other race in the world,

they have so many.

With so many, I don't think so.

You just see these people,

you talk to them and you know these guys are professionals.

They're amazing at what they do.

Luis Pinto had a crash in his last race.

He actually had a broken rib.

Oh, no!

This guy is amazing, but kind of crazy.

So all you do is long races.

Yes, I like stage races.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, what about this one, hills?

Yeah, long uphills, not so easy.

After 150k, it's the, the big climb.

7,000 meters for climbing is very,

very much and I think this is the problem.

- In the hammer where I train, we, we're under this garment,

so we got a lot of hill, here in the Alps, it's big hills.

These are big long climbs.

What advice could you give us for tomorrow?