When renowned Olympic mountain biker Andreas Hestler took part in last year's Lumpy's Trifecta at One Mile Lake in Pemberton, even he had his difficulties.
"In his defense he was pretty tired, because he had been riding numerous days in a row, but he only finished two of the three laps," race co-director Terry Evans said with a laugh.
"He was just like, 'this is unbelievable, how hard it is.'"
But the difficulty involved in the Trifecta — taking place Saturday, Oct. 4 — is part of the draw.
Should you make it through the increased heart rate and burning legs on each of the race's three climbs, the three unique trips back down will make it worth the pain.
"The descents are really awesome. If you're an experienced, high-intermediate mountain biker or above, they're really fun," Evans said.
"They're not like the hardest descents around, so if you're experienced... and you're keen, you can do all those descents."
But of course, before you can witness the descents, you've got to tackle the climb.
"It's fairly technically challenging climbing, because you're always on single track and there's a lot of tight corners and rocks to get up and over, but the thing that makes it the hardest is that the grades are really quite steep," Evans said.
The total average grade on the way up is about nine per cent, Evans said, but for a prolonged stretch you're looking at a grade of close to 20 per cent.
"There's pretty much no way you can go up there without really breaking a sweat," he said.
"And then the fact that you have to do that three times makes it quite the accomplishment just to finish this."
For more information, visit the Lumpy's Trifecta Facebook page.
