Euroa Everest - Once in a Lifetime
In a Talking Heads moment, an existential question is posed; And you may ask yourself "Well, how did I get here?" Bending that slighty, the most frequently asked question on Friday 22nd December 2023 was what made you want to do an Everest? What led me to the bottom of the Strava segment, Kelvin View Short KOM, a category 3 climb of 3km, with 218 metres of vertical gain at an average of 7.2% and riding it 41 times?
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| Strava segment - Kelvin View Short KOM |
What lead me to this place on this day, was the culmination of events, people, thoughts, feelings and actions.
Firstly, for those of you who are wondering what an Everest is all about, let me explain. The concept of Everesting is fiendishly simple: Pick any hill, anywhere in the world and ride repeats of it in a single activity until you climb 8848m. You could also walk, run or do this virtually on one of the many indoor training platforms which capture elevation. There are a few rules, such as no sleep and the unwritten one of no sticky bottles.
Sometime this year, someone gave me a copy of Matt De Neef's book on Everesting, which I read with interest about George Mallory's grandson of the same name, doing repeat climbs of Mount Donna Buang just out of Melbourne in 1994 as part of his preparation for an Everest trek. This story eventually appeared in Cycling Tips in 2012.
Like some quirky sub-culture of the cycling world, Melbourne local Andy van Bergen read the story and thought it would be a cool thing to do and in early 2014, Everesting was born.
Somewhere around 2018-2019, Chris Callender, a Gruppetto colleague, Everested on the short climb up from the Studley Park Boathouse to Kew Boulevard. At the time, I thought it was insane. Later during Covid, Darren Mills from Gruppetto completed a virtual Everest on Zwift. What a great effort.
During Covid, I followed the everesting attempts of current and former pro-cyclists Lachlan Morton, Phil Gaimon, Alberto Contador and finally Ronan McLaughlin from Ireland, who is the current record holder with a riding time just under 6 hours and 41 minutes. The lockdowns gave riders the opportunities to explore alternative challenges for no prize other than being the fastest known time, which really put Everesting into the mainstream.
Fast forward to September this year, a race that I was planning to do was cancelled and since I was staying in Shepparton, I decided to explore the nearby Strathbogie Ranges instead. The descent from Strathbogie down towards Euroa was sublime. Fast flowing corners on a smooth surface, with no need for braking. In early October I saw Andrew Garrett, one of my racing colleagues who lives in Euroa, I mentioned to him how impressed I was with the quality of the descent and how it would make a good hill to Everest on. Andrew agreed and identified the exact segment which would maximise the vertical gain and minimise the distance required. An added bonus was that his cycling mate Carl owned a farm across the road from the turnaround point.
Like a rapidly spreading virus, there was no known containment for my enthusiasm. My Northside mate, Kris and I had always talked about doing something epic on the longest day of the year (summer solstice), so I picked the 22nd of December and let a few mates know, but kept it low key. On the 10th of December, I checked the long range forecast and conditions looked favourable for the attempt. I message Andy and he says Ï'm mad, but he hopes that I get it and that he will come along to help and ride some of it. I reply with "I will put you down for a half". A day later, after 3x15min efforts on the indoor trainer at roughly the power I will need for the climb, I'm not so sure. I have some pain in my left knee. Perhaps all of the hiking and walking I've been doing over the past month whilst on holidays has been to the detriment of my cycling. I call Andy who is on his way home from a midweek race and in a muffled conversation say that I think I will have to halve my ambition and do the full thing in March next year. Meanwhile Andy is telling me that he's got a group of locals onboard who are going to come along for support. This was the turning point, now I'm all in. December 13th, I message my cycling mates and put it out there on a few group chats hoping a few of them might join me as support or possibly a half. There are a few nibbles of interest and cries of insanity, but I understand the timing is not great and that midlife madness may be setting in.
Next step was to get prepared. Everesting.cc has a complete set of ebooks which outline everything you need to know. Armed with good advice, I take notes and put a list together of everything I'm going to need and organise some accommodation. Anyone who has ever ridden a bike for more than an hour, knows how easily things can go wrong. I booked my bike in for a service and checked with my eldest son if I could borrow the bike I'd only given him a month earlier. This gave me two bike options, one with semi-compact gearing and the other with full compact (easy to pedal uphill). The tyres and brakes were in optimum condition. The preparation is best summed up by the N+1 rule. Take the number you need, plus one. I'm not going into all of the details, but I calculated about 14 hours of riding time (average of 3 ascents per hour or 654 vertical metres) and needed to be prepared for 16-18 hours once stops were taken into account, which meant decent lights and warm clothing. Everything I needed was placed in two clear plastic tubs, one for food and the other with bike spares, lights, charge packs, cables and spare kit.
In addition to the physical and equipment preparation, nutrition is a key plank in the success of any endurance event. Having done an Ironman earlier in the year, I knew that my energy needs would be around 100g of carbs per hour, so I made up a homemade batch of sportsdrink concentrate which would give me 90g of carbs per 800ml bottle per hour. This recipe is in my IM blog post. All I had to do was add on another carb rich snack of about 25g to meet my energy requirements. The other food consisted of a combination of sweet and savoury foods. Starting with my old favourite, Coles fruit cake: bananas: oat bars: Anzac biscuits: corn thins with peanut butter: lollies: mini-Mars bars for a special treat.
Meanwhile, Andrew Garrett had roped in Jake Lay, Shane Kirby and Carl Simmons as support crew and cycling sherpas.
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| Andrew Garrett - Technical Director |
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| Shane Kirby - the coach |
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| Jake Lay - the protege |
Andrew has marked the base camp with some of his finest landscaping.
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| Base Camp |
The day before the attempt, I drove up to Euroa and met Andrew and Jake out at the course. Andrew assures me that everything is ready. Carl's farm is just across the road from the turnaround, where he has cleared the area for base camp. Having recently retired from running the Euroa postoffice, Carl has a collection of postie bikes, one of which will be used in the pre-dawn hours to ensure we are safe on the Euroa-Strathbogie Rd. We agreed to start at 4:30am. I've never ridden the climb before, so I take the opportunity to ride a recon lap. The temperature's around 30 degrees at the hottest time of the day and I ride knowing that this is what I am going to have to put up with for 3-4 hours on the day. The descent is awesome because once the turn around point is reached, there really is no need to pedal or brake until base camp, which is a perfect 3-3:20min recovery.
Two days before, I was feeling nervous, but remained committed to the process. All I could do was control the controllables by having my gear prepared, bikes in good working order, nutrition organised, eating and hydrating well and hopefully getting a good night's sleep. Sleep was average and the night before I get 6 hours before my alarm sounds at 3:30am. Enough time to get in a cold shower, a quick stretch, some water, a bowl of oats, some cornthins with peanut butter and a banana in the car.
Upon arriving at base camp at 4:20am, the site is abuzz with activity. The boys have got the "caution cyclists" sign out on the roadside, the gazebo is up, lights ablaze, the chairs and table are ready and the music is pumping. I meet Carl for the first time and I'm overwhelmed by his level of organisation and more importantly his positivity. Shane Kirby from the Seymour-Broadford CC and Northern CC is also amped up and planning to do a half Everest. Jake Lay, the 21 year old from Seymour-Boradford CC and Euroa CC is ready to do the same. Meanwhile Andrew Garrett ensures that everything is ready.
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| Base camp with Carl and Shane |
The Start At 4:48am, Jake, Shane and myself set off in the pitch black. Carl is idling along behind us on the postie bike, complete with a flashing caution light you would normally find on agricultural equipment. The temperature is hovering around 10 degrees. I'm wearing a gillet and arm warmers, while the others favour jackets. First light appears after 20 minutes, well before sunrise at 5:56am. We have 14 hours and 41 minutes of daylight ahead of us to get the job done.
Laps 1-10 Riding in the cool of the morning was easy and after the first three laps, Shane, Jake and I have settled into our own rhythms, which is really important in an endurance event. I put my Garmin bike computer into battery save mode after the first lap, which means the screen is blank except for the reminders I get every 15 min to drink, where I get a glimpse of gradient, metres gained, time of day and temperature. I'm also using my Garmin Fenix 6 watch as a backup, just in case something goes wrong with the tech. For better or worse, the watch had the live segment on it so I could see how I was tracking against my time yesterday. I also disabled the connection to my phone on both devices to save the battery. Meanwhile Jake and Shane are making good progress as we occasionally catch each other or give a big grin or thumbs up as we pass each other. My gillet with the double zip proves its worth for being excellent at allowing maximum ventilation on the climb, and easy to zip up for warmth on the descent.
For the first four laps, I get by on water alone, while I use up the energy from breakfast. After that I switch to a bottle of drink mix and something solid every hour. I keep the stops to a minimum at tick off the first 10 laps in 3:15, before taking a 15min break.
Laps 11-20 By now I am becoming intimately acquainted with the natural and built features of the climb. Seeing the house on the hill on the right which featured on Grand Designs Australia means I'm about half way up. The guard rail on the road signals a change from third smallest gear to second smallest. The house with the swimming pool, I just want to jump in. The side road on the left, means just 330m to the turnaround. An occasional shift down in gear to stand on the pedals, stretch my legs and give my bum a break from the saddle. All the while the local drivers are giving me plenty of space on the road. Somewhere in there the Friday group ride from the Euroa CC swings by and checks out the action and Andrew gets started on his half everest. By now I'm starting to feel my pace drop off a little and I know I'm going to need a bike change. I stop and meet Ted, the president of the Seymour-Broadford CC who has dropped by to catch up with his crew. Ted helps me while I change pedals from my Trek Emonda with semi-compact cracks to the Avanti Corsa SL with full compact cranks and better suited to all day climbing. Reaching the halfway point in bang on 6:30 is a massive boost to my motivation. The crew are full of positivity and attentive to my every need. All the while I use the slow steady climbs to pull out my phone and keep family and friends updated on my progress every thousand metres or major milestone. I'm amazed at how the distraction takes my mind off the task at hand.
Laps 21-30 I immediately appreciate the change of bike, having a couple of extra gears to use and to be able to use my cadence over a more muscular effort. The heat of the day is nearing its maximum and hovers around 29-30 degrees, plus or minus a few degrees depending on the wind direction and cloud cover. Sunscreen and sun sleeves are the order of the day. Shane wraps a block of ice in a cloth and I place it behind my neck under my jersey. The next model evolves to an ice sock in black hosiery, which I hang around my neck under my jersey. Keeping my core body temperature down by using ice is an essential strategy to staying on the road. My wife messages a question about how much snow there is on Everest today. None I reply, but plenty of ice. Somewhere in between I make a scheduled stop mid afternoon. I was planning to make it a short one, but Carl steps in and reminds me it's the warmest part of the day and that I should take a longer break. I immediately surrender to the wisdom of Carl and know that sometimes you just have to listen to someone else. The longer break is a welcome one. I make myself an iced coffee and pop a couple of panadol, reapply my sunscreen, then use the foam roller to give the legs a welcome massage. I start talking about coming back next year to support the half Everesters to do the full. Back on the bike I take a bottle of drink mix and water. The water is great for pouring on the sun sleeves and creating an evaporative cooling effect.
Laps 31-41 By late afternoon the numbers at base camp are growing as girlfriends and partners arrive. My wife messages me with a reference to the infamous "Death Zone" of Everest and reply is that I feel like I'm in the Party Zone as I turn around at base camp, where the beers are flowing, the music is pumping and I get massive cheer each time I round the turn. Knowing that I have made it three quarters the way buoys my spirits. The crew are full of support and the positive vibes coming from the WhatsApp messages are very welcome. Three hours after my last iced coffee-panadol combo, I stop again and do the same. Any fatigue that I was feeling is quickly relieved as I count my way down to the final laps. The noise level raises a few decibels each lap. With two laps to go, I hear the postie bike riding up beside me. It's Shane introducing local Euroa CC member Dan Johnson, who has ridden out to join in the fun. I am so appreciative of the company and the instant rapport that we develop. It's great to have someone to share the moment with out on the course.
All I can think of is that WE did it. The core team of 5 of us and a cameo from Dan at the end made it a reality. Dan and I arrive back at base camp 15 hours and 41 minutes after I set off with Shane and Jake. In the process, Shane, Jake and Andy have all ridden half Everests. The bells are ringing and I raise my bike in the air in celebration, followed by hugs and high fives all round. The Everesting is complete and I am forever grateful to this group for being a big part of the success of day.
Post Ride The best was yet to come. An impromptu presentation of sorts is hastily arranged. An esky is setup as a dais and my support crew surround me. Next comes the presentation of a lump of local bluestone which was initially used to mark the base camp. The guys apologise that they didn't have time to get it engraved. Aussies, Stuart O'Grady and Matt Hayman may have a cobble from Roubaix to mark their wins in the Paris-Roubaix, the world's greatest one day cycling event, but I have a piece of stone to comemorate being the first to Everest this segment and the memories of a lifetime from this monumentous day. They add a Winners gel in my favourite flavour to the prize. It may have felt occasionally that I was on the Road to Nowhere, but it was absolutley a Once in a lifetime event which I hope is repeated for many more years to come.
Post Ride Recovery I took four full days off and enjoyed an easy ride first day back.
The Numbers
In the process of this event the accumulated TSS (training stress score) was 692 and total for the week was 878 or 17% more than the previous week.
First known Everesting of the segment.
First lap excluded, but this shows the breakdown of effort for every 10 laps after.
#everesting
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