TOUR: Are you celebrating 10 years of Everesting or 30?
Bergen: Good question, but it's even more complicated. We started the Everesting Challenge ten years ago. Thirty years ago, George Mallory, grandson of the famous Everest climber Sir Joe Mallory, had already climbed 8,848 metres of altitude in one go on his bike. We always thought that was the first Everesting. But a few years ago I received a message from a Frenchman who had done it before. He had even applied to the French Guinness Book of Records at the time. I've seen the transcripts. He was able to produce all these amazing old photos and diary entries and show how it worked with the segment.
TOUR: How many Everestings have you completed yourself?
Bergen: Oh, I've tried a few more than I've managed, and I think that's part of the concept. If there was a 100 per cent success rate, then it wouldn't really be a challenge, would it? I've done 13 that are somehow above the height of Everest. The Everesting Hall of Fame is a community that I've built, and I don't think it's fair to expect the community to do things that I don't at least try myself. By participating in an Everesting every year, I realise again what's so special about this concept and what it's like for first-time athletes. I would count one or two of my failed Everestings as some of the best trips I've ever done. You also learn a lot from failure. I think we as a society need to get better at accepting failure and working on it. Today there are 30,000 people from 116 countries in the Hall of Fame. You can watch hours of video tips and tricks on the subject. We have a comprehensive guide, a kind of training manual. It's almost like an online learning centre where you can read everything.
Invention of the Everesting Challenge 2014
TOUR: How did the premiere go ten years ago?
Bergen: In 2014, I had only hinted at what I was planning. 120 people were interested in taking part in something without knowing what it was about. I hadn't told them the details. And then those 120 people found out that the concept was: let's find a weekend where we all try to ride the vertical metres of Everest in our own corner of the world. At the premiere, we knew about George Mallory, who had done the metres of Everest on his bike 20 years earlier. So it was possible. But before the first time, I was told at least 60 or 70 times that it was stupid, that it would never be possible. Of the 120 I invited, about 65 started trying on that secret weekend, and I think there were about 33 who were successful. The mountain I chose is a mountain in a ski resort that has a sentimental meaning for me. It's a ski resort called Mount Buller, and the climb is about 1000 metres high. As it turned out, I made it. I was perhaps a little too optimistic in my planning when I reached the top of the first lap. I did some quick calculations and realised that the eight laps I thought would be nine. The penny dropped at around 3.00am and I thought this might throw me off course because I'd planned everything so meticulously and then I'd have to do a whole extra lap. So I decided at that point that I would just pretend that the first lap was just a warm-up.
TOUR: You also had failures. What went wrong?
Bergen: One of them was in the tea fields at high altitude in Sri Lanka. A beautiful place, a great route. I was invited there and there was a huge Everesting event. People literally lined the track, I think it was a kilometre and a half, maybe two kilometres. Very beautiful. Very steep. I had just come from California and then I had to get on a plane the next day and fly to Sri Lanka. With all the transfers and an all-day bus ride and everything else, I was pretty tired. I think it was over 30 degrees and it was just too much. I was physically exhausted. It was one of the best trips I've ever done, even if it was a failure on paper.
TOUR: Alluding to Mount Everest, you always say that you reach the death zone after 7,000 metres of altitude ...
BergenYes, definitely. I think you're pretty fresh for the first half, and most people have done at least half an Everesting's altitude metres before. Once you've done the half, you're generally pushing into territory that you haven't done before. And when you reach the 7000 metre mark, it's still almost 2000 metres in altitude and 2000 metres in altitude is a big day in the mountains. Maybe it's already starting to get dark again and it can be scary when you're already tired from 7000 metres of altitude and still have what feels like an insurmountable distance ahead of you. Then you get to 7000 metres of altitude and it feels like everything is going a bit slower. It's often the case that as soon as people exceed 8,000 metres in altitude, they already have their goal in sight.
Everesting around the world
TOUR: Were there any special places for the altitude metre hunt?
Bergen: Well, the cool thing is that it's basically possible anywhere there's a hill. When I developed this concept, I had a Dutch background and thought that if you can do it in the Netherlands, you can do it anywhere in the world. The 116 countries where it has been done inspire me. I particularly enjoy seeing African nations pop up. There was even an Everesting in Antarctica, albeit a virtual one. It was a guy who was doing scientific research down there. It gets interesting when it's very limited repetitions, for example on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. I think it only took 2 1/2 ascents to cover the metres in altitude.
TOUR: Do you have any examples of Everesting that stand out?
Bergen: Jack Thompson calls himself Jack Ultra Cyclist, and as the name suggests, he does some pretty amazing ultra cycling. He's done three Everestings in three countries in three days, which is a bit of a logistical nightmare. He's also done an Everesting in Taiwan, where they have the Taiwan KOM Challenge, which goes from sea level up to 3,275 metres. And then last year he actually climbed a million metres a year, but as part of that he decided to do an Everest climb every week for 52 weeks. There were a few fixie Everestings, including a fixie without brakes, a couple of Brompton bikes and on a unicycle.
TOUR: Were you surprised that there were more and more pros who tried Everesting?
BergenYes! The problem is that the coaches told the pros that they couldn't do it under any circumstances because it didn't fit into the training programme and the risk of overexertion was too great. Even after the season was over, they advised against such heavy exertion. The first professional cyclist to do it was Jens Voigt. It was really surprising to me who followed: Mark Cavendish, Luke Rowe, Richie Porte, Alberto Contador and so on.
Too few vertical metres in the record attempt
TOUR: Were there any bitter disappointments because you ended up missing metres in altitude on Everestings?
Bergen: It was definitely very close a few times, and I think we take a sensible approach to things like that. If you're 10 metres short, we're also generous. If you're aiming for a record, it's a different story of course. Most people do it for themselves, so nobody in their right mind would ever deliberately try to save 10 metres. I think what has really changed in the last 10 years since we started is the sophistication of height measurements on any device. Be it on mobile phones, Strava or bike computers. The accuracy of the data is just so much better, regardless of where you are, so it's definitely happening less and less. But yes, there have been a few painful disappointments where people have submitted their data and then found that a few hundred metres were missing. One of the most famous cases was Lachlan Morton from EF.
Andy's four Everesting tips:
1. start early in the morning and get a good night's sleep the day before. This will limit the number of trips you make during the night when you are overtired.
2. set small goals. Never think of 8848 metres as a goal because that's just too much. I think of the next 1000 metres or after a set of five repetitions or whatever. It's a good idea to create some kind of plan where you can tick off rounds and feel like you're achieving something. That way you feel like you've achieved a series of goals or reached a certain height. If you can organise this effectively, you can trick your mind because you always achieve something and it's no longer such a big, insurmountable thing.
3. eat right. The pros at the Tour de France eat gels and energy bars, but they are not on the road for 15 hours. An average Everesting lasts around the 15 hour mark, but it could be longer. It wouldn't be good for your stomach if you only ate gels the whole time. So it should be something to feel good, something to reward yourself with: lots of savoury snacks and things like that.
4. training sounds like a given, but you have to train specifically. People think they can just go out and do it, but that's not possible. Training is also important to know why you're doing it. If you're sore and in pain, remember: you're in a privileged position to be able to take on a challenge like this.
Link tip: Everesting on Majorca.
Kristian Bauer
Editor
