This year's Mountain of Hell downhill mountain bike race truly lived up to its name, as hundreds of riders crashed on a nauseatingly steep drop in France's Les Deux Alpes ski resort to create an horrific pile up.

The endurance mountain bike ride, this year held over June 28-30, saw around 700 riders navigate dizzying descents down icy cliffs and through rock and dirt, with a total vertical drop of 2,500m.

The riders were competing on the final lap of the annual race, a 25km leg beginning 3,400m above sea level at the top of a glacier - and that's when all hell broke loose.

During the descent, a couple of riders at the front of the pack slid down the glacier and began to wobble, then began to lose their balance, then ultimately sprawled helplessly onto the snowy surface.

As they flailed on the mountain face, riders behind them found themselves unable to avoid those lay stricken on the ice causing them to also crash, triggering chaos.

Helpless riders smashed into each other creating an orgy of mangled metal and bodies hurtling down the cliff. One rider's helmet cam footage captured the moment he was sent somersaulting into the snow.

Another rider was flipped into the air and landed on his head and dozens could be seen smashing into each other, but incredibly no one was seriously hurt in the crash.

The eventual winner was Frenchman Kilian Bron, who after the crash endured a grueling uphill twist to the city of Venosc in Southern France to win the Mountain of Hell 2019 title.

It can be said almost without any irony that Bron truly went to hell and back to win the top prize.