If you have a bike, you need to “Everest”...

I t’s so hot right now… and if you’re a cyclist, you probably know (pretty much) what it entails; if you aren’t you probably wouldn’t understand.
Just in case… “Everesting” involves riding up a hill until you have risen majestically, heroically, relentlessly through the same height gain that you would if you started at sea level (say Bondi Beach, Goa, or Blackpool) and rode to the top of Mt. Everest; i.e. 8848m of height gain. To be clear; it’s the same hill, same side, same route repeated, time after time until the required number of metres have been ticked off.
There’s an official set of rules:

“One activity. No time limit. No sleep.”

so say the official club. To be even more clear; this is a pointless undertaking, you will not win a prize, no one will really care (apart from a few other skinny lycra clad soulmates), no one who matters will find out about it – and your time could almost certainly be better spent doing something else. Oh yes – and it’s really, really tough. You will suffer.

That last point is where lies the appeal. Those of us who enjoy sitting on a saddle for longer than a normal working day, or spending hours grinding up a famous hill just to take a photo of a road sign, are strangely drawn to pointless suffering. That’s the point… And make no mistake “Everesting” is ultimate-suffer-worthy. I feel qualified to say that despite not having done it yet; I’ve got a few 5000m + ascent days in the saddle behind me and they were all leg crunchingly tough, nine hour affairs. An “Everesting” nearly doubles that ascent figure.