Everesting Opanuku rd in New Zealand

Everesting. It didn’t start with much though, just that we liked the sound of the challenge. A goal that we could achieve, if possible, close to home.

Something to aspire to.

The ‘whys’ are always present.

Why am I doing this?

What am doing this for?

Is this really necessary?

Why?

Some people do drugs. Our drugs are different. Mine are endorphins. We’re addicts in many capacities. Addicts of endorphins. exhaustion, the highs, the lows, the dark places, camaraderie, sharing, but most of all, an addict of the finish!

Everesting is all of that. It’s not the toughest challenge some of us have done, but bloody close.

Arriving

We gathered at some time just after 4am. I mean, what sane person gets up at that time for a bike ride! We parked outside of someone’s house. The dogs barked, then some more from the neighbourhood barked. A chorus of bark broke out. Holy fuck, we’d just woken the whole area up, for what was supposed to be a quiet start.

Finally we got our shit together and finally hit the road at 4:30am. The first lap was easy, then aren’t they all. The second hinted at dawn breaking, but then it rain. Metservice had got it completely wrong. It must be the easiest job in the world, doing weather predictions for Auckland. It may rain, with patches of sun, could be windy, and the temp could be between 10-25ºC. And if it doesn’t rain, well, you’re happy. If it does, you expected it. And of course its going to be windy, we live by the fucking sea.

So the rain eased, and we settled into our pace. Nothing above 200 watts. 20 minutes up, and 10 minutes for the descent. That gave us an average of 30 minutes/lap.

We’d planned to do 5 laps and then break for 10 minutes. Do another 5 and break for 30 minutes. That worked right up until lap 15. We then had visitors. They came bearing gifts of coffee and encouragement. Now anyone who knows cyclist knows that they love coffee more than anything, and Kiwi cyclists more than ever. We were managing to follow most of our plan, as detailed in the previous post.

The start

During the morning we were joined by some friends. David, Kieran, Jamie, Peter, and Craig. Folk hung around for a couple of laps, and then they left, leaving us with the prospect of continuing this epic adventure. An adventure into the unknown. Not unknown distance, for we’ve all done over 200km before, but unknown mental fortitude. Realising what it takes to carry on riding beyond what your muscles think is possible. Starting a ride in the dark, and then finishing a ride in the dark.

The morning ticked by, and so did the laps. We stopped for lunch. Yum, cold rice, kumara mash, and chicken. That was followed by dessert, banana nut bars. It tasted great, considering we had no alternatives. Lunch came and went. Everything was going swimmingly. It’s only when we realised we’d had lunch at 10 am, and had been riding since before 5, that it finally dawned on us that we still had a shit of a long way to go. We were aiming to be finished before 9pm.

Peter had decided that he would do 15 laps with us and then go home. He had to fly to Saudi the very next day, and although he’d have slept well, seeing family is far more important than knocking this bastard off. He paused his Lezyne gps after 10 laps. To his horror it had stopped the ride. He simply couldn’t restart it. Although he didn’t show any anger and remained calm, we could tell he was gutted. I’d have been fucking furious. I wouldn’t of had a Lezyne GPS unit anymore, the bushes would’ve.

After lunch

Just after 1pm we heard a cacophony of kids. The noise of a car behind us with kids screaming. It was Mark’s wife, Fi, that had brought the boys out to cheer us all on. It was an uplifting moment on the ride. Mark’s family was followed by my wife, daughter, and friends, bringing coffee for us all. My daughter had asked what we drink the day before. They didn’t know where we were riding, but I had forgotten to bring all of the docs I had printed and they’d found them. We waited half way up the climb, just before the gravel. We were so appreciative of the effort hey’d made, and definitely the coffee they’d presented us.

After coffee, the next few laps flew by. Driven by caffeine, and full of fuel, we marched onwards. We only had to wait another hour before Mike joined us at 4pm. He also brought coffee and goodies for us. Mike cycled until it got dark.. Now we were on our own.

The finish

The last few laps were boring as bat shit. In the dark. We’d got to know every single nook and cranny of the road. The gravel section made for interesting riding, but the rest of it had become dull. We were comfortably numb. The ride finished the way we had started, in the rain. We’d had all weather types. Once done it felt like an anticlimax. We were done, happy, but exhausted. A totally different feeling to the one I’d been expecting. I thought I’d be jumping for joy, hugging my fellow riders, but there was just a cordial handshake. We packed up and went home. It was all quiet. We were now members of the Hells 500 club.

Strava everesting ride for veloviewer

Finally, it was great to be able to submit the ride file to Hells 500 via Veloviewer

Submission of Everesting ride

Everesting Info

More info on the Everesting Challenge can be found here 

There are many tools available to help with your Everesting Challenge.

The official Everesting rules website: click here

Resourses for Everesting: Click here

I’d just like to thank everyone for all of their support. None of us could have done it without you. From wives to friends cycling up the hill, to the Strava friends. many thanks.

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