World record

Long drive back from Buxton.. home with a cuppa
Let me explain Everesting… ride up and down a hill until you get the cumulative vertical height of Everest…8848m or tiny bit under 5.5 miles
First conceived by an Australian journalist in 2014 he created a database called the hall of fame where you send in data to be recognised… back then he called the officiating part hells500
As tech developed you could do an Everest on an indoor trainer subject to technical requirements
At the risk of stating the obvious it’s flipping hard an the fail rate is about 50%
To date globally there have been 32685 Everests .. although that includes people who have multiples
2021 after doing a virtual Everest on my indoor trainer I was sat on the sofa at Christmas and wondered if there is a group record..I contacted Australia and they confirmed the longstanding record was 54 riders
To give this context getting a large group together who all turn up in peak form is trickier than one person doing it
So I called my friend who has a cycling events Co and pitched the idea to him
We searched the uk for a ideal hill.. needs the right gradient/ possible to get a road closure / reasonably central so we get entrants from whole country
2022 we were set after all the planning… I did the training but disaster… it was that mega hot heatwave and we had to cancel
2023 another 6 months hard training… I Everest but we missed the record by a fair amount
2024 I couldn’t face it… lucky… the weather was torrential
2025… third time lucky …87 start at 5am on a very cold and windy Peak District hill…. However the wind was blowing uphill and the cool weather actually really helps
Everyone start strong … looking good
My strategy is to use all 17 hours of the event time if need be … if you use too much power / heart rate too high you will crack…at 59 I have to be realistic and ride carefully but the attritional drain is bloody tough.. vital to keep eating and drinking with special sports tabs… I think I did about 9000 cals
The day rolls on and some riders crack .. the number board at the top of the hill with riders in the game starts to drop… we can also see by half time some are going too slowly to make the cut… the tension rises
I complete at 16 hours …15 mins faster than last time..10 o’clock the official end we beat the record by one!!!! But a number of riders are on their last climbs and so are permitted to finish…final number…
59 a new world record for a group Everesting
What a journey…. For me that is it…3 Everests and leading the events with my friend is enough.. 6 months training each time is very demanding as is the hurt on the day… but boy I’m seriously proud of what we have done and all the riders who have taken part