The 749th Everester: Climbing 8,848m on a bike

I first heard of Everesting fairly early on in its stratospheric rise to fame, principally because the explosion of interest in Everesting coincided with my return to cycling. Simply put: it’s 8,848m of climbing (the height of Everest), in one ride, done as a series of hill repeats. When I first learned about it I knew it was physically beyond me, but I stored it away for future reference anyway, because it was my kinda thing. More recently I’ve been looking for a big physical challenge and the idea came back to me, insinuating its weasel-y way into my head.

Once I’d done a few sums on just what it would require though, I vascillated, a LOT. The numbers were just overwhelming. I started a spreadsheet to weigh up various options, looking for the perfect hill, the one that was reasonably close to home, didn’t create a 300+km route, but wasn’t too steep and of course, hadn’t been done. In Northern Sydney the hills are generally short and gently graded (Bobbin Head, Three Gorges, Akuna) or wickedly steep (Balmoral/Mosman, Seaforth). The easier grades all require 300+km rides to Everest and the latter are grinding, torture chambers with 100+ reps. I had a brief dalliance with Sydney Harbour Bridge, which seemed iconic and was part of my daily commute, but the numbers became ridiculous: 450km to make the required elevation, even if I included the steeper approaches to the bridge on the route.

Fortunate then, that I eventually chose a hill that worked beautifully for a whole range of unexpected reasons. Akuna West is 3.4km long and averages 5%, reasonably close to my house, gorgeously situated on the Hawkesbury River, and hadn’t yet been done, despite the exploits of Jono E, who has Everested more than anyone else (15 times) and done many of Sydney’s iconic climbs. It even had a toilet block at the bottom and reasonably safe turnaround points, so I chose to accept the 350km distance requirement as a necessary evil. All this I knew before I started. What I didn’t know turned out to be just as important though. Akuna is close to my cycling fraternity and is a popular loop, so it would be full of cyclists and my mates could visit, ride with me and check in. The climb itself worked well: it starts with a few hundred metres of gentle grade, then has a 1.5km steep section, then backs off again for a further 1.5km. This provided a gentle warm up on each lap, then an intermediate focus on the steep section, and finally a good opportunity to eat and drink on the bike in the last section (rather than using the descent). The descent is a bit rough and twisty, but the same combination of easy/hard/easy afforded the same mental and physical rhythm on the way down. Finally, and this was a complete fluke, a veritable party of anglers stayed at the bottom of the hill all night, where I had thought I’d be all alone in the dark, dark bush.

Choosing the hill was the relatively easy part though. Committing to it proved harder. I waxed back and forth, nervously anticipating what was inevitably going to be a hard, searching experience. Inevitable was the word though; the idea of Everesting wasn’t going away. The coincidence of my family being away skiing (bachelor-hood!), a decent weather forecast, a full moon… and just enough momentary mojo to put it up on Instagram… sealed the deal. I was going to attempt an Everest on Saturday, 27 February 2016, starting at 4am.

Before that there was a bit to get organised though. I told my riding mates, nervously at first (but as you’ll see, that turned out to be the most important thing I did). I told my wife. I cooked a massive potato salad and similarly large rice pudding. I chopped fruit and bought all manner of high energy snacks, both sweet and salty. I had already bought a few necessary accessories like a bigger cassette and a special charger for my Garmin that wouldn’t automatically reset it, so on the night prior they were added to the large pile of stuff on my kitchen bench. I charged my lights, backup batteries, Garmin and phone, set my alarm for 3am and went to bed.

Initially I couldn’t sleep, and considered heading out to the hill immediately. Some Everesters say that starting at midnight, or even earlier is the best strategy because you’ll do the “easy” bit in the dark and sunrise will lift your mood just as it is getting hard. I trust this is true, but I haven’t pulled an all-nighter for 10+ years, so I wanted to stay within some reasonable definition of ordinary waking hours. Eventually sleep came but soon after the alarm rang. Up, coffee, breakfast (toast), last things into the esky and then to the car for the half hour drive to the bottom of Akuna West.

The first little snag came as I drove down to the base of the hill: the national park is closed between sunset and sunrise. It was only a little snag because it isn’t closed with a gate, so I could get in, but I worried about being evicted at sunset, Everesting probably 70% done. I decided to plough on anyway, strapped on my lights, clipped in and went for a very quick warm up… before deciding that a warmup was ridiculous and unnecessary. Time to get started, up and into the darkness for the first time.

I’d initially been worried about being alone on the climb, in the dark. Turns out though, I wasn’t alone — some early-riser came whizzing down the other way on my very first lap! With three more on the next lap and with a steady focus on my cone of light I soon relaxed into the rhythm of climb and descent, the sun gradually rose and the first 6 or 7 laps passed reasonably quickly.

Tom Mollison was the first sherpa on the case. He was embarrassed to admit that he’d driven to the top of the climb (shock! horror!), but rode five laps with me to make up for it. My training buddy Xu Kha showed up pretty soon after Tom arrived and the three of us rode together until Xu needed to get home. Not long after another of my training crew, Mike Faretta arrived and another two laps were gone… the fastest two of the day as it happens (Mike’s rather a talented MTBer, and my pride was still a factor early on in the day). Then some of the High Street Flyers swung by and were kind enough to wait for my slow ass to catch up and ride with me for another lap. My nervousness contemplating the ride had kept me from telling almost anyone until the last minute, but my riding buddies made up for my social inadequacies by showing up anyway. If there is one thing I’d do differently next time, it’s this, tell your friends!

By lap 20, roughly seven hours and 3600m into the ride, I was ready for a break. My feet were starting to ache and I knew I needed to eat something more substantial than hot cross buns and energy bars. I setup my camping chair in the shade of my car and ate 2–3 diced apples, half a rockmelon and a small bowl of rice pudding. The weather was hot (~30C) and there wasn’t any nearby shade so my appetite was flagging. Tom’s wise words were to keep drinking however, because while I can probably survive on stored fat for a long time, my body would not survive dehydration. In total I drank 13–14 litres of water, apple juice, coke and iced coffee that day, and only pissed once… and really, really smelled bad, dripping with sweat.

Robin Vandekreeke was next on the case, arriving on about lap 21 or so. I remarked to him that I’m completely unaccustomed to riding in the middle of the day, when it’s hot and sweaty. Robin works US hours though, so the middle of the day is when he always trains. He’s an experienced sweat-cyclist. Robin stayed for a couple more laps and by the time he left the crowd on the hill had really started to thin out and the heat and overall unpleasantness of the ride was setting in.

I learned long ago, the way to achieve a big goal is to break it down into lots of bite-sized chunks. First it was getting to 10 laps, then quarter distance (12.5 laps), then 3000m, 20 laps, 4000m, half-way and so on. The carrot was never too far in front of the donkey and they all rolled past without too much fanfare. I took the occasional insurance photo (just in case my Garmin failed), recorded the occasional video, but mostly just refilled my bottle and kept going. No doubt the fatigue was building though, and I took my second long rest after only 10 more laps, then another one after 5 more laps, and finally another rest after only 3 more laps, at the 38 lap point. The fight had really started now, and my whole body was shivering as I rested. My wife texted me a couple of times, saying “You ARE going to finish this… suffering is what it’s all about”. Wise words, and I tried to focus in on the discomfort, rather than avoid it.

Minter Barnard (more later) dropped in to say hello at this point, but unfortunately I was resting just off the course, so we could only say a quick hello before I started out on the 39th lap. Then Paul Vandeleur and his daughter Scarlet popped by in response to a Facebook’d SOS from my wife. The lights went back on the bike pretty soon after that, and Andy Keayes dropped by with some encouraging words and, even better, a cold beer for the finish. Andy waited patiently at the bottom for a couple of laps… but Everesting isn’t exactly a spectator sport!

Then there were 7 laps to go, and Xu Kha the absolute champ came back to ride with me. Keep in mind this is a Saturday night, about 10:30pm by now, and I was in the middle of nowhere riding laps up a hill. It was awesome to be riding with someone again and Xu stayed steadfastly by my side, always carefully slowing if he inadvertently nudged in front, leaving me to set the pace. After a couple of laps I asked him how long he was planning on staying? “Until the end” was the answer, and I couldn’t have been more grateful. (Poor Xu probably timed his arrival for the last couple of victory laps, but I was running well behind schedule by now).

Two more laps, then another break. Xu prescribed an electrolyte drink and that went down a treat, and seemed to help with the shivering. Then another lap, and another during which I realised I’d pressed the Stop button on my Garmin rather than the Lap button, and had therefore missed about 100m of climbing. FUCK! I imagined that I could probably make a good case that 50 laps is an Everesting, but I wanted to see 8848m on my Garmin, and the only way to do that would be to do a 51st lap.

Towards the end of the 48th lap we bumped into Minter, who drove out to Akuna with his bike, at midnight, after date-night with his wife. Another champion effort. He was changed and ready by the time we had descended, but I needed another break, mostly to massage my feet. Fifteen minutes later and we were off again, this time to finish. The 49th lap felt more or less like the rest, but Strava doesn’t lie: this one slowed into the mid-15 minute range, after climbing the hill in 13–14 minutes more or less all day,. Xu noticed, but didn’t say anything until later. Back down, U-turn, time to climb the whole hill for the last time.

After 49 laps you’d think that nothing could stop me doing a 50th, and I thought so too until I had a little dizzy spell just as the hill steepened on that last lap. My stomach had been upset all afternoon and I’d hardly eaten anything since about 4pm, and even that was just Pringles. I had been drinking Coke and Iced Coffee and taken one gel, but nothing substantial and maybe now I was finally about to pay for it, on the last lap. Happily the dizzy spell passed and I was soon counting down the milestones, as I had been all day: 2.5km to go market at the hairpin, then 2.0km marked on the road to the “sommet”, which always meant only 500m to the end of the steep section, and finally the last ramp to the turnaround… 23 cog, 25 cog, 28 cog then back to the 25 cog for the U-turn. The routine saved me.

We couldn’t really celebrate at the top because of the earlier SNAFU with the Garmin… I was only showing 8813m of elevation gain. So back down we went as normal, Minter and Xu in front and me behind. First the straight, steep section, then the gentle roll and into the sharper corners (dangling tree on the left, surprisingly sharp right, brakes squealing into the next left-right combination, then left and a right hand hairpin… you get the picture, I was on automatic). The descent was never as relaxing and I wanted it to be though. I couldn’t sit comfortably while rolling over the rougher sections, and my legs and particularly my feet didn’t want to take my weight either.

We did the last U-turn at the bottom toll booth and this was really in the bag now… I started to feel a little bit of satisfaction, but mostly relief. I had 35m to climb and wasn’t going to do any more. I counted them down as we climbed, using my hand to reflect my headlight onto my Garmin to see the digits go up. At precisely 8848m I stopped, shook some hands (I think), turned around and rolled back down to the cars.

I’d been imagining this moment for much of the day, being finished. It wasn’t the way I’d imagined it though. For a start I had friends with me: Xu and Minter chaperoned me back to my car and helped me pack up my things, which was oh-so welcome. Secondly, the parking area was still crowded with whole families fishing, laughing and generally having fun… as they had been all day (probably wondering what the hell I was doing). Thirdly, when I gingerly sat down on the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition to drive home, the car wouldn’t start. I’d been recharging devices all day and had left some of the internal lights on I think, resulting in a flat battery.

It was probably also fate’s way of telling me that driving was a bad idea anyway. Xu packed my bike into his car and drove me home. I stood in the shower for probably 30 minutes, took a couple of Panadol, then fell into bed, none too comfortable but plenty tired enough for that not to matter. For breakfast the next morning I ate two poached eggs on toast at a cafe then, still hungry, dispatched another four boiled eggs, then some avocado toast… and finally drank the beer Andy had brought me, which was indescribably delicious, even at 10:30am.