The coolest summer job

in the Salzburger Saalachtal

Nothing but cycling all summer long Getting to know one of the most beautiful areas in the Alps from the saddle. Organizing your time as you wish and earning money at the same time? It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?

Not for Reini from Lofer. He came out top of the many applicants and was able to enjoy the “coolest summer job 2020”. Read about how he rode nearly all of the 480 km biking routes in the Salzburger Saalachtal, recorded waypoints and collected important data and information for the new signposting of the tours.

Who could forget them?

Summer jobs – those were the ones your parents made you do to earn your own money in the holidays. Or you wanted to buy something great and had to bite the bullet. But summer jobs were never really fun. To ride around the mountains all summer, get to know the area from the saddle and do something valuable – that sounds more to our taste. But only one person can call something like that a job and that is Reini from Lofer who had the coolest summer job last summer. But one step at a time.

Everything began with a job advert

“The summer is approaching fast and it’s time to look around for a suitable summer job. If you love to be out and about on your bike and are a bit tech-savvy, then we at the Salzburger Saalachtal Tourist Office have the coolest summer job for you”. So Reini sent us an application. And the rest is, as they say, history. Equipped with a smartphone, an e-bike and of course an exact map of the area,

it was off to the mountains in July 2020. The tasks he had to carry out over the coming two months were as exciting as they were varied. The focus was to record all the waypoints on the bike and collect all the data which would be needed for the creation of the new and standardized bike signposting system in Land Salzburg. At every junction it was necessary to look at the direction of the trail, photos had to be taken and other information was collected which was important for the erection of the signposting. He was able to divide up his time completely freely.

To Vienna and back by bike

In total, in this, “his” sommer, Reini surveyed 685 waypoints, collected data for 320 new signs which will be erected in Spring 2021 and spent around 170 hours in the saddle. That is equivalent to the distance from Lofer to Vienna or Stuttgart. And back again. On rainy days he was in the office and entered the data into the system, checked the tours in the Tour Portal, added photos which he had taken en route and planned his next excursions. Unfortunately even the best times have to end and now Reini is back in the classroom in the HAK Zell am See. However, the results of the coolest summer job will be with us for a long time to come and we thank him for his outstanding work. Thanks to him we now have complete bike signposting in the region and the maintenance and upkeep of the signs will be much easier from now on due to the digitalisation of the tours.

One problem remains though: how could Reini’s next summer job ever match up to this one?

Have you planned your tours already? Here you will find all the information you need about biking, beginning with leisurely cycle tours, via “biking with kids” up to sporty and tricky tours.