Even the hardiest of sherpas would balk at the idea of scaling Mount Everest on a bicycle, but a group of ultra-competitive cyclists have set their sights on conquering 29,029ft on two wheels.
Luckily for them, they will not have to book tickets for Nepal, but can complete the challenge in their own neighbourhood — all they need is a local hill, a tracking app and a lot of stamina.
For those without the time to cycle the entire Tour de France route or spend a year biking around the world, “Everesting” is the ultimate endurance test, where cyclists perform multiple ascents of a single hill until they have accumulated a total elevation equivalent to the height of Mount Everest.
The rules are simple — it must be undertaken on a single stretch of road, it must be completed in one ride with only short breaks and no sleeping allowed, and it must be uploaded and verified online through Strava, the tracking app and site.
The challenge was first undertaken in 1994 by George Mallory, whose grandfather, the British explorer also called George, vanished on the slopes of Mount Everest in 1924 on an expedition to become the first person to scale the world’s highest peak.
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Exactly 70 years later, Mallory Jr was training for his own successful ascent of Everest and completed ten ascents of Mount Donna Buang in Australia to make up the equivalent height. Inspired by the feat, Andy van Bergen from Melbourne, and his Hells 500 group set out to emulate Mallory and wrote the rules for Everesting, completing the first ride in February last year.
This month, a cyclist from California set a world record by ascending 95,623ft — equivalent to more than three times the height of Everest — in 48 hours, burning 30,000 calories in the process.
Closer to home, Jase Weston, 44, who works in the chemical industry in Chester, completed his own Everesting challenge by scaling the Horseshoe Pass in Wales 26 times this month, taking 35 minutes on each ascent and four or five minutes to coast down and start again. The challenge took just over 17 hours.
“It could be done on someone’s cul-de-sac, as long as they are willing to go up and down it enough times,” he said. “You can do it on your doorstep and don’t have to go to an Alpine pass.”
He said it was the challenge for the “normal, everyday cyclist”, adding: “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, purely because of the monotony of it.”
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John Shaw, 37, completed 72 ascents of Box Hill in Surrey last month. “In the office, there was a general reaction of ‘You must be a lunatic’, but I’m really pleased I did it. Fewer than 700 people worldwide have done it [a total of 683 verified completions], so I’m pleased to be part of that group,” he said.
“As a solo effort it is really tough, mentally as well as physical. It was 22 hours of riding. I took a 5-10-minute break every hour or so. The hardest part was at night — I had friends in the car park at the top, but cycling through the dark becomes tiring and difficult with no one to talk to and with cars coming up past you.”
Alex Staniforth, 20, completed the challenge with 14 ascents of Great Dun Fell in Cumbria this month and said: “I was on my second expedition to climb to the summit of Mount Everest this year, which was cancelled following the Nepal earthquake which caused avalanches and sadly killed three of our staff at base camp. I was rescued from Camp 1 on the mountain.
“I was searching for something to raise money to help rebuild their lives, and when I came across Everesting, I thought if I cant climb it, I’ll cycle it.”