How Everesting took off during lockdown
It’s unlikely the lofty challenge that is Everesting will have escaped your notice. James Shrubsall speaks to some of the proponents of this most simple yet difficult of cycling undertakings
The ability to suffer. What sort of pastime would embrace, grow and applaud the tolerance of pain? When you think about it rationally, it sounds like a tenet from some sadistic nightmare. But, of course, it’s all part of cycling, and somehow we love it. As if it wasn’t already available in spades on almost any bike ride of your choosing, in recent years cyclists have been cultivating a new and interesting way of ramping up the masochism. Riding hundreds of kilometres and climbing thousands of metres without actually going anywhere, you can often do it all within striking distance of your front door. It sounds like a riddle, but it is Everesting, the act of climbing the height of Everest, on one hill in one ride (see box overleaf for details).
This particular form of selfflagellation has spent a lot of time in the news recently, on account of riders breaking records left, right and centre. On 14 June Tom Stephenson set a new British men’s record of 9:02, and less than a week later on 20 June, fellow Brit Mason Hollyman took more than half an hour off Stephenson’s time while EF pro Lachlan Morton set a new world best mark. That was later bettered by ex-pro Alberto Contador with a time of 7:27.20 just as we were sending this magazine to press.
Female riders have been equally active, with US rider Katie Hall setting a record in late May that was bested a week later by compatriot Lauren De Crescenzo – who in turn had her mark veritably decimated by Brit Hannah Rhodes Patterson, who lowered it by 50 minutes to 9:08 (a British record for any man or woman
at the time) only three days later. Then British ex-pro Emma Pooley lowered it even further just last week. The take-home is that if you break the record you better wring all the glory and enjoyment out of it straight away, because you’ll likely have it taken away from you very soon.
This was the experience of Alice Lethbridge, the current British 100-mile record holder and multiple past national champion. She set a new women’s ‘virtual’ Everesting world record of 9:27 on Zwift in April, which was bested by Swiss Melanie Maurer in early June.
“I think every record is there to be broken,” said Lethbridge. “The times aren’t out of reach at the moment for people to keep improving them. And because there are so many factors, you can sort of vary it to get a little bit extra here and there.”
In a perfect illustration of how fast things move, in the week or so since Lethbridge spoke to CW, the women’s virtual record was broken again.
Vi Hue Nguyen took it below nine hours for the first time, setting a time of 8:46. Drag2zero rider Lethbridge added that she wouldn’t rule out trying again, but with up to four weeks needed for recovery, a lot was dependent on what other racing was happening.
“I was back Zwift racing the following week, but your top end is what really goes. If you do a really hard effort, it will take four weeks to get your top end back.”
Somewhat implausibly, the whole ‘Everesting’ craze was ignited by George Mallory – the grandson of ‘the’ George Mallory who was lost on Mount Everest itself in the 1920s. Mallory Jnr was getting in shape to climb the mountain in the 1990s and, using the climb of Mt Donna Buang in his native Australia, decided to do a cycling ‘Everest’ as part of his preparation. Setting off at 3.30am to a sound track of Jimi Hendrix, Midnight Oil and, when things got particularly tough, Dire Straits, Mallory rode the mountain eight times, covering the full ascent in 17 hours.
Eighteen years later, inspired by young Mallory’s ride, the first official Everesting rides (complete with accompanying rules) were completed by the Hells 500 collective – a bunch of riders who just cannot get enough of riding up hills.
“Everesting was set up as a challenge that could be completed at any time, anywhere in the world but with the shared common goal of climbing the equivalent height of Mt Everest,” explains Andy Van Bergen of Hells 500. “With no prize on the line and – intentionally! – no trophy, riders were undertaking this challenge to test their own limits, to push boundaries, to take the challenge in creative new directions, or to raise funds and awareness for charities.”
The idea slowly started to take off, and within a year the Hells 500 ‘Hall of Fame’ featured a few hundred rides from around the world (outside its spiritual Australian home Britain was one of the places it began to take off first).
“A good friend of mine – and original Hells 500 crew member, from before Everesting – Colin Bell said, ‘You wait, one day you’re going to have 500 riders in the hall of fame,’” recalls Van Bergen. “It was such a ridiculous idea and totally laughable. Fast forward to 2020, and in May we welcomed 1,200plus Everestings, and 1,300-plus in June.”
Among those was EF Education First pro Lachlan Morton who, having ridden his first Everest in mid-june had the heartbreaking – and what would have been for many, morale-destroying – experience of being told what he’d thought was a new world record of 7:32, actually came up 300 vertical metres short due to faulty data. Undeterred, the 28-year-old Aussie returned to the scene of the crime, Rist Canyon in Colorado, a week later to set the record straight – literally.
“I wanted to do it as soon as possible because it would just weigh on my head otherwise. Like anything, you actually remember how hard it is for a month or so, and then you sort of like have this romantic idea of how it was – but I wasn’t in that stage,” Morton says of his second attempt.
“I could still feel it in the legs. But to be honest, like, it’s such a mental thing that I think knowing what it’s like and knowing what to expect definitely helps.”
Morton actually did a better ride second time round, finishing in 7:29 and taking more than 10 minutes off previous record holder Keegan Swenson’s time.
All the same, he knew he would experience some difficult moments, and he did. “I knew I could maybe go a bit faster. But the reality of doing it is still that you get out there and you do one or two laps and you feel good – and then you remember, OK, I’m gonna do like 45 more
of these,” Morton says. “There were two laps where I was like, ‘Why am I doing this again?’ ‘What am I trying to prove?!’ But the reality is, it’s just because it’s hard… it’s a hard effort.”
What isn’t necessarily obvious is that being able to go fast downhill is important if you’re going to set an Everesting record. Rist Canyon’s almost straight 11 per cent slopes enabled him to reach high speeds on every descent.
“I think most laps were about 115kph (70mph)… I think the fastest was about 120 (73mph),” he says. “It’s because at altitude the air is very thin. So it balances out. Even though it was super-high and that makes the climbing a lot more difficult, you can get pretty fast downs.”
Morton’s, and now Contador’s, superquick time means new men’s world records are now unlikely to be set by any rider who’s not a Worldtour pro, but that’s not to say there are not impressive times still being set elsewhere.
Stoke rider Hannah Rhodes Patterson isn’t a Worldtour pro but does have a list of Strava Qoms longer than a supermarket receipt in lockdown, and in early June she decimated the women’s world record on Kirkstone Pass in Cumbria – and what’s more, she did it for charity, raising money for her local Citizen’s Advice Bureaus.
It was Tom Stephenson who followed in her footsteps, even using the same climb. Then Hollyman did it. Choosing Holme Moss for his attempt, the Holdsworthzappi’s rider clocked up 208km, repeating the climb 34 times. With his grandparents supporting him (“the first time I’d seen them since quarantine”), and home-made rice cakes and energy drink for fuel, he took the British record under nine hours for the first time and became the fifth fastest man in the world – an amazing achievement that started out as a very inauspicious idea.
“A friend, as a joke really, asked in our group chat if anyone was up for it,” says Hollyman. “For me to be able to use my training and have a time to aim for was something that appealed to me.
“In my head, I thought as long as I didn’t blow up after six hours or something, I’d have a good chance,” he says of breaking the British record, even if Holme Moss wasn’t necessarily perfect recordhunting territory. “I knew the climb wasn’t perfect for a seriously fast time, you know, like the Americans.”
If you’re reading this and beginning to think Everesting is all about super-fit racers setting super-fast times, think again. It’s open to everyone, and as Welsh gravel connoisseur Gethin Howells proved, Everesting can also be about having fun and doing it for the sheer hell of it. On 27 June he took on an all-gravel Everesting on the local Pantyffynnon ‘Leg Burner’ climb, completing the ride in 14:25. It’s a decent time by any standards and may well be one of the quickest offroad Everestings, but Hells 500 doesn’t currently filter rides by surface type.
Howells describes Everesting as the cyclists’ Ironman. “Some people will do one and can talk about it forever and others will get the bug and do multiple ones,” he says. “I always wanted to do an Ironman but I get injured if I run for the bus and have the flotation properties of a brick – this was my Ironman!”
They’re the toughest part of riding a bike, but somehow all us cyclists love hills; Everesting is that, cranked up to 11. What’s not to love? It had its own appeal for each of the riders we spoke to and lockdown has certainly played a part in the recent flurry of Everestings. But its popularity began before quarantine and Lachlan Morton for one predicts it will outlive it: “I think guys will keep going for it. And it’s cool in that it takes like a little bit of creativity. Which is nice to see.”