The everesting website says:

“FIENDISHLY SIMPLE, YET BRUTALLY HARD.
EVERESTING IS THE MOST DIFFICULT
CLIMBING CHALLENGE IN THE WORLD.”

I could never resist a challenge.

The rules – Pick any hill, anywhere in the world and complete repeats of it in a single activity until you climb 8,848m – the equivalent height of Mt Everest. No time limit. No sleep.

Everesting x 1: Box Hill 11 July 2020

• 79 x 5km reps
• Distance 395km
• Total time 22 hrs
• Gradient 5%
• 10,127 vertical metres

My colleague, Stephen Kelly, mentioned that he and a friend were attempting an Everesting. I’d been looking for a post-lockdown challenge so I decided to join them. I’d never ridden Box Hill so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Stephen, Chris and I set off from the car park at the top at first light. We took the first few reps together (10 mins up, 5 mins down). It felt good not to be alone on this challenge. After a couple of hours we drifted apart as we each needed to stop at different times. We waved as we passed and sometimes found ourselves riding together for a while, but it was important that we didn’t try to match each other’s pace as that would lead to blowing up and frustration, which tends to ruin the enjoyment.

At the bottom of every rep I pressed the lap button. If I forgot, I’d do it half way up when I remembered. As the day wore on I found it increasingly difficult to remember if I had remembered to press it at the bottom and sometimes pressed it twice. I then had to remember not to remember to press it on the next lap. At least it kept my mind off the pain in my legs.

I came to the conclusion quite early on that Box Hill was not going to be the fastest everesting. On every descent we had to brake hard at each of two switchbacks and the single track road was chocca with other cyclists and motorists, all slowing down to avoid each other. I was braking constantly on the descents, which increased the riding time with zero gain.

Although I got wearier as the day wore on, my pace stayed solid and I finished in the early hours of Sunday morning. I’d put in a few extra laps just to be sure and my Wahoo was over-reading and indicated that I’d done 10k vertical gain. However you measure it, I’d certainly completed my first Everesting. Chris finished soon after, followed by Stephen a couple of hours later.

I enjoyed the experience enormously, particularly doing it with others, and it ticked a box. “What did you do today Dad?”, “Well, I rode my bike up and down the world famous Box Hill until I had climbed the height of Everest”. It certainly had some kudos.

Everesting x 2: Watlington Hill 1 Aug 2020

• 174 x 2.6km reps
• Distance 464km
• Total time 37 hrs
• Gradient 8%
• 17,997 vertical metres

I’d got the bug, and I couldn’t help thinking there was another challenge on the horizon. Indeed there was. You can be awarded virtual everesting badges for Short (under 200k), Suburban (in a town), Soil (unpaved surface), Virtual (Zwift) and/or a double or triple everesting. Looking at the stats on the website, I could see that only 12 out the 10,000 recorded everestings were triple or higher. Now that was something to aim at.

So, with the triple in mind, I researched hills, comparing gradients and estimating downhill speed. Watlington Hill, Hill Road came out on top, and there was a handy strava segment already in existence for “just the hill” between the Ridgeway crossover at the bottom and the farm entrance at the top. The gradient was steep but not too steep, the surface was adequate and the descent was straight(ish).

I had enough food and drink for a week and a spare bike in the car, which was parked in the top car park. I set off alone at first light on Saturday. I went off a bit fast and after a few hours I felt quite ill. I had difficulty eating and it was really warm. I didn’t know if I was dehydrated, undereating, overeating, not eating the right things or just crock. My lap times had slowed from 9 minutes in the first few hours to 11 minutes by the afternoon.

I carried on and managed to finish the first everesting (87 laps) in 15.5 hours – 6.5 hours quicker than Box Hill, but I couldn’t face another 2 days of it. I sat in the car for 30 minutes and had a coke zero, which perked me up a bit. I started the second round in the early evening. On through the night I went, up and down, dodging the bunny rabbits at 40mph in the dark. On the descents, the adrenalin kept me awake, but it wore off before I reached the top again. I decided to have 20 mins sleep (that turned into 30 as the car was so comfy). I slept another 10 mins just after dawn to reset my body clock.

On Sunday morning, I still couldn’t face the triple so I decided to stop after two. Paul Mabley came to join me in the morning bringing pastries, coke and chocolate milk. It was great. I almost felt like a supported rider! I got a real boost from riding with Paul and, after he left, I continued on through another hot afternoon to finish at about 6:30pm. The second everesting had taken 21.5 hours.

What next? – It’s still gnawing at me – I’ve got to do the triple …