Austria

Austria's monument. From Fusch the Hochalpenstrasse climbs 21 kilometres through the Fuscher valley, past the Ferleiten toll station where cars pay and bicycles roll around the barrier free, to the hand-laid cobbles of the Edelweissspitze at 2,571 metres, the highest point of the road. The Tour of Austria has crowned a Glocknerkönig here since 1949 and counts 30 ascents of this side against 29 from Heiligenblut. In 1971 the Giro d'Italia crossed the pass and awarded the only Cima Coppi in its history outside Italy, then returned in 2011. Ride both sides in one day and you have done the full monument.

The wild card. The Hahntennjoch is the only canon pick with no toll booth and no ski station, a narrow, austere crossing of the Lechtaler Alpen that closes all winter and still feels remote in high summer. From Imst it climbs 14 kilometres at nearly eight percent, with sustained nine and ten percent ramps through the middle, over bare avalanche country to the 1,894 metre saddle. The databases rate it the hardest true through-pass in Tirol. The Elmen side via Bschlabs is wilder still if you want to make a loop of it. The silence is the reward.

Austria's steep icon. The Panoramastrasse above Kitzbühel climbs ten kilometres at better than twelve percent with a maximum of 22, no hairpin rhythm to hide in, just relentless gradient up the open mountainside. The International Kitzbüheler Horn Race has run here every year since 1971, the Tour of Austria has finished its Königsetappe at the Alpenhaus since 2000, and Beat Breu's 29:11 to the Alpenhaus still stands among the great uphill records. The race canon stops at the Alpenhaus after seven kilometres. The road continues to 1,986 metres, and the full climb is where reputations get settled. Cars pay the toll. Bicycles climb free.

The hairpin stack. From Partenen the Silvretta Hochalpenstrasse solves a near vertical valley head with 34 numbered bends, the most concentrated switchback wall in Austria, lifting you to the Bielerhöhe and its reservoir at 2,032 metres. The race history is thin and it does not matter, because this is road engineering as pure spectacle, a wall of tarmac ribbons you can read from the valley floor. The ramp rises out of Vorarlberg, which makes it this plate's western outpost. Descend toward Galtür and the same pass turns gentle, a four percent run down the Paznaun. Cars pay at the barrier. You do not.