Could You Climb Mt Everest on a Bike?
During our post Tuesday AM Hills coffee meetup at Café Kindred, two of my riding buddies announced that they were going to “Everest D.C.” on Veterans Day. They went on to explain that Everesting is climbing the equivalent vertical feet of Mt. Everest – and they were going to do it one day riding a hill in D.C. 100+ times to climb 29,029 feet. After I got home that morning I found it wasn’t just a one-off idea, Everesting is a thing. There's a website with specific rules to follow before you can claim you’ve completed the challenge and qualify for entry into the Everesting Hall of Fame. To date there are 4,306 successful Everestings across 94 countries.
To make this happen, Brad and Josh started their epic ride with some careful planning on where to get 29,029 feet of climbing in one day. They needed a safe open area they could climb and descend all day, with light vehicle traffic, and a place to keep a car at the bottom stocked full of the food and water they would need to ride all day. They also needed access to a bathroom. The hill at Normanstone/32nd Street near Rock Creek Park was the best answer…not perfect, but good enough. This hill is .64 miles long with about 200' of climbing, and would require 151 laps.
They arrived at the base of the climb just after 4 am. Brad, having completed an Everest event in July, knew of the importance of keeping a good attitude and keeping track of the laps. They planned to do 151 laps up the hill and back down, with planned stops for food and bathroom breaks. This was more than the 29,029 feet required to Everest, but they wanted to be sure they exceeded the goal – so they didn’t have to go back and finish it later. The duo couldn't have picked a better day for it, as the Veteran’s Day holiday offered lighter traffic and great weather. It was clear and sunny with a high of 65 degrees, perfect fall riding weather.
To keep track of the climbing, they used an old school mechanical counter mounted to Brad’s handlebars and a separate GPS device to log the vertical feet.
The ride started off as most epic rides do — a little slow at first as you get warmed up and settle in for the long haul. Their plan was to keep a steady pace and maintain their energy level to hit their fastest time on lap 151. After the sun came up around 6:20 am, they got a new burst of energy and were happy to shed their bike lights.
Around 11:00 it was time for a bathroom break and a caffeine bump. They left the hill and made their way to Starbucks and sent an update to the virtual fans following their quest to summit Everest.
The highlight of the day was the periodic visits by friends, local neighbors, and fellow cyclists either cheering them on or riding laps with them up and down the hill. Chris, who recently finished a solo, sub-24 hour, unsupported ride from Pittsburgh to DC, came out to join the fun, riding a few laps with Brad and Josh. Chris was familiar with the mental and physical toll Everesting can have as he and Brad had Everested Hogback Mountain in the Shenandoah National Park in July.
Throughout the ride they also saw lots of wildlife including deer, a fox, several rabbits, a raccoon, a snake, and near the end of the event what looked like a coyote. Looking back, they were pretty sure it was a coyote but they were approaching 18 hours on the bike and were a bit foggy. Just like on Mt Everest when climbers get into the Death Zone due to lack of oxygen above 26K feet and severe exhaustion, cyclists also have a unique experience. After Everesting twice in five months, Brad noted that “one of the crazy things about these rides is when you hit that point where you are hallucinating a little bit. The issue is that it's typically dark, long into your ride, your body is exhausted, you're seeing things, you are having trouble staying awake, and animals are out and moving around.”
As the sun set that night, they remounted their lights and went back at it. As they got over the double-digit hump with 30 laps to go and well into the darkness, they hit a low point, Josh recalls, and had to refocus on the end goal. To help work through the last part, simple mental games help, for example, once you have 10 laps to go, you start counting backwards: 7, 6, 5, 4...and 1 to go.
Josh and Brad were both able to get their personal records on lap 151. Brad now has the KOM for Eversting Normanstone/32nd St. Any challengers out there?
All told they rode 199 miles, climbed 30,420 feet over 16 hours and 48 minutes of riding time, finishing just after midnight on 12 November. Here are Brad’s and Josh’s Strava route from that epic day.
Recommendations for would be “Everesters”
- Make a plan.
- Create a good head space to rely on. The monotony can be soul-crushing (if the climbing doesn't crush you first). Break the ride down into parts and try not to worry too much about that huge denominator of repetitions.
- Find the right hill or mountain. You don't want to waste energy or stress fighting traffic. Particularly important are the grade (steeper is harder but
shorter, obviously), the length (the shorter the climb/descent, the larger percentage of the ride you will have to spend using your brakes before turning around), avoid any and all segments that have traffic lights, and the simplicity of the turnaround – you do not want to be contending with cars or having to make a hard stop on a steep descent before drifting into a busy intersection.
- Bring food. Lots of food. Way more food than you could imagine eating. Ideally, you can drag a cooler out to base camp and stop there periodically.
-Gearing options. make sure you have a reasonable gear you can sustain for almost 17 hours of hill repeats.
- Keep stops short – they quickly increase your total time, and the more the stop and the longer your stops the harder it is to find a rhythm and the more likely it is your muscles will tighten up.
- Know your options for emergency food and restrooms.
- Be flexible. It's important to have a plan, but it's also important to be able to roll with things that go awry.
- Bring lots of gear. For your bike and your body. If you are setting up a base camp and can keep things secure, there is no reason not to pack like you're going on a two-week vacation. Extra tubes, extra tires, extra wheels (if you have them), extra lights. A floor pump. Batteries to recharge your bike computer and lights. And every variation of kit you can imagine. You're likely to start in the dark and end in the dark, and temps may vary by 30-40 degrees across that time. Plus you'll be going slower and your heart will likely be beating slower at the end of your Everesting, so be ready to be colder than you expect.
Good Luck!
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