Author: Mark Shuter

No, you can’t ride outdoors

I love riding outdoors. I also love doing long and challenging rides. I have done a few 1000km audaxes – see The Beast, the 1200km Paris-Brest-Paris and Everested twice, on Northcliff and Bantam Drive. In February my friend Stanley Freiman started talking about the Coronavirus that had emerged in Wuhan, China. I watched the Chinese response of building huge, temporary hospitals and the severe lockdown there.

Once the virus hit Italy and started having a devastating effect on their health system, it became clear that it was coming to South Africa and we certainly weren’t ready for this. My initial thoughts were that it was going to be devastating regardless and our best strategy would be to get it over with quickly. I did some more research and then did an about turn. Slowing the spread of this disease in our country was an imperative.

As the first cases arrived on our shores, it was very soon evident that we could not contain them. I am involved in the management of ICG – a large group of cyclists, with daily rides around Johannesburg. Within a few days, we went from “lets try to stagger our starts and ride in smaller groups” to “all group rides are cancelled”.

In our business, we were well positioned for working from home and we shut our physical office 2 weeks before the formal lockdown in South Africa.

I knew lockdown was coming. I started posting Strava rides with titles like “Playing in the park while we still can”. I also did whatever cradle rides I could do. I was hoping that I would be allowed to continue to ride during lockdown, but suspected there was a good chance that I would not.

I had this dread of riding indoors. I had bought a cheap, dumb trainer a few years ago, but it sat in the garage and had only ever been used to do bike setups.

The day after our president announced the 21 day lockdown, I was very sure this would go on for longer than 21 days. As the realisation of this hit me, I avoided the queues of people buying food and toilet paper – why buy things you know they will sell during lockdown! – and went out to buy a smart trainer and a lot of alcohol.

Zwift and the amazing world of virtual cycling

Why buy a smart trainer, when you have a perfectly good dumb trainer already? Set up on our Veranda, looking out over Delta Park, I can ride it for as many hours as I like. However, that is not why I cycle. I like to be outdoors, exploring.

Although I am unsurprisingly not the most vocal in the bunch, I really enjoy the camaraderie of group rides. I had made the transition from canoeist to cyclist largely because frequently I used to paddle alone in the early mornings and now was riding with lots of other people. At ICG we kept having to split into more groups, to keep the group sizes manageable. We race each other up climbs, regroup at the top (sometimes!), ride slowly together some days and usually stop for coffee and a chat afterwards. (I did not drink coffee before I started cycling and now am an addict!)

And then on Sundays, I would ride with Louise and another group of people from Cycle Lab.

Zwift goes a long way towards recreating this social environment. In addition to creating interesting, visually appealing and challenging virtual routes, Zwift has a strong focus on the social aspects. You ride with real people. You can create meet-ups with your friends. You can take place in races against other real people. You compete for times up various climbs and there is a text based chat facility where you can chat to people around you.

When I mentioned that I had bought my Kickr Core smart trainer, I immediately got added to the the ICG Zwift WhatsApp group and got added to a Discord server, where we can have group chats while we ride together on Zwift. This is not the same as riding together, but it is much closer than I had thought possible.

Challenging time demand new challenges

Lockdown, Day 1, I posted on the ICG WhatsApp group:

I have become know for doing long rides. There were a few comments about indoor trainers not being suitable for long rides and Audaxes due to overheating, to which I replied:

So there it was. I was Everesting. Tiaan de Lange also mentioned that that “the ultimate thing to unlock in Zwift is the Tron bike. Join the Everest challenge in Zwift and climb 50km of elevation to unlock”. He went on to say “no one will unlock it during this lockdown, but work towards it anyways”. Awesome – another challenge! Don’t tell me something is impossible! (Spoiler alert: This one was too much for me!)

And so I had 2 challenges. Complete a vEveresting and get my Tron bike.

Tiaan then created a spreadsheet for me, with my Everesting in it and it calculated the number of addition metres I had to climb each day. (I think mainly to show how impossible this was going to be!).

Getting ready

I knew how to Everest, having done two on the road. You pick a hill, calculate how many repeats are required and ride up and down the hill until you have done the required number of repeats and your GPS reads over 8 848m of climbing. Simple, but not easy!

There is documentation on vEveresting, which sets out the rules, but is very short on practical guidance. I quickly went about the following:

• Choosing the route. The go to route on Zwift for vEveresting is a Alpe du Zwift. A massive climb of over 1000m, at a relatively steady gradient. Modelled turn by turn on Alpe d’Huez, it has no downhill sections on the climb. This is a huge advantage in Zwift, as you can climb off the trainer and watch your avatar descend by itself. Twelve minutes of free rest each lap. 8.5 laps required. That was my chosen route.
• Getting access to the route. Alpe du Zwift is level locked. When I joined Zwift, it required level 12. Due to lockdowns they changed that to level 6. That was much easier – I got to level 6 in two days.
• Finding the best points to turn at the top and bottom and even simple things like learning how to do a U-Turn.
• Getting the best equipment in Zwift. You start off with an entry level carbon bike. You want a light climbing bike and wheels, which give the same advantage you would get in the real world. You get equipment by doing challenges or by unlocking higher levels and buying them with “drops”, Zwift’s virtual currency you get based on energy expended. By my first Everest I had managed to get the fastest climbing bike (Specialised Tarmac Pro, purchased at level 11) and the lightweight Meilenstein wheels, won on the prize wheel at the top of Alpe du Zwift on around by 5th visit to the top.

And that was that. I was ready to go. Hells 500 (the organisation responsible for Everesting had announced a “World Lycra Party” for the weekend of 10 April and wanted to get as many people as possible to do a vEveresting on Zwift.

Saturday 4th April lockdown day 9 Alpe du Zwift

In preparation for the following weekend, I decided to do 4 laps of Alpe du Zwift as a full “dress rehearsal”. After climbing on the scale (to prove my weight) and doing a quick trainer calibration, I started riding at around 6h45. I started on the “Road to Sky” route as a warm up to the start of the climb. Very soon I was on the the first ascent.

My gearing wasn’t ideal. I had my 36 on the front and my 11/32 cassette. Riding slowly and steadily, the gearing was too hard for me and I was standing a lot. At the top of every lap, I could get off and use the 12 minutes it took for my bike to go down the hill to refill bottles and take toilet breaks. I ate no breakfast, but had just a few energy bars for later if necessary. I was planning on burning mostly fat.

The 4 laps took about 7 hours. Despite the gearing I was feeling ok. Sometime in those 7 hours, I committed myself to doing the full Everest.

Ride up the hill to the spinning wheel at the top, collect whatever prize it landed on, quick U turn, climb off and get everything ready for the next lap, get back on just before the bottom (as you don’t want to freewheel past the base of the climb, quick U turn and repeat. Slow and steady, with no wasted time. But I was starting to get very sore – my knees in particular were not used to so much standing.

Like all long distance endurance events, if you just keep going, eventually you get over the line. In just over 15 hours I was done. As I hadn’t planned on doing the full vEveresting from the start, I was not sure how many metres I had climbed to get to the base of the climb (those do not count), so I did some extra to be sure. There was no ways I was going to be caught a few metres short! 8912m of climbing.

Friday 10th April lockdown day 15 Reverse Epic KOM

6 Days later, I was back for the World Lycra Party. This time it was planned from the start. I also had a group of ICG riders also wanting to do it, and a whole bunch more who were keen to join for a few laps.

Roger, Reinhard and myself were going to do the Reverse Epic KOM. Tiaan and James were going to do Alpe du Zwift. James planned an early start, the rest of us planned 5am.

The Reverse Epic KOM is a gentler gradient on average (with a few steeper sections). It also has some climbing on the descent, meaning that you can’t just leave your bike to do its own descending. It requires good timing to apply power at exactly the correct moment as you get to the bottom of the hills. Your trainer has spun down to a stop and you have to get it moving again before Zwift changes it to high resistance for the uphill part. I had practiced this in the preceding few days.

Just over 20 laps are required. You need to cover more distance than on the Alpe, and don’t get nearly as much rest on the downhills. However, I wanted to do a different route. I did swap the 32/11 cassette with the 34/11 from my road bike. I was hoping that the lesser gradient and the better gearing would be far kinder on my knees.

It was nice to chat to the others on our ICG Discord server and there were lots of messages on our WhatsApp chat group.

James started early and was the first to finish at around 5pm. Craig, after saying he would do a few laps, was starting to look like he would do the full vEveresting. Roger and Reinhard were initially going faster than me, before Roger had his Zwift crash on him and eventually needed to start a new activity (and submit both the Hells 500 for verification – they are very understanding).

Tiaan had started off fast – too fast – and was paying the price for that later. He was posting that he was in a world of pain. However he pushed on and by 6:30pm he had finished.

I was next to finish at 7:10pm, followed by Reinhard only a few minutes later. Roger, after losing a lot of time with his technical problems, took a break to join his family for dinner, but got back on to finish by 8:40pm. Craig, eventually called it a day after 5 laps of Alpe du Zwift and became one of the first to get the newly announced Everesting Basecamp (half Everest – 4424m)

Saturday 18th April Lockdown Day 23 Alpe du Zwift again

Sometimes you have to ask yourself why you do something and in this case, I really don’t know. I didn’t bother to ask any of my ICG friends to do this one. They were all still shell shocked from the last one! Back on Alpe du Zwift, I started at around 5:40am. I was riding a bit faster and this, together with using the 11/34 cassette, made the gearing much better than on my first attempt up the Alpe. The first 4 laps went well. Nice and steady. Then Roger noticed my ride elevation on Zwift and posted on the WhatsApp group. I had lots of support on the group for the rest of the ride.

I finished at just before 7pm. I was feeling pretty good – certainly much better than after the first one and over 1.5 hours faster.

Before I decided to do this Everesting, I had set up a 200km virtual Audax for the Sunday morning. By the morning, I was in no shape for that, but I was the organiser, so I had a go. I did manage to do 100km, but that was it.

Conclusion

The three vEverestings in Lockdown were followed by another ridiculous event – the v360km MTB race on Zwift the following Friday. You had to ride on the Zwift MTB and the route did the Epic KOM and the reverse Epic KOM each lap. I found it much harder than the Everestings. It started at 3pm on Friday and I rode through the night and finished 18 hours later. No stops – I just kept going. My knees got really sore and the last laps were very tough.

That took me to the end of April and the full lockdown. From 1 May, we were allowed to ride outdoors again, between 6am and 9am only. Once I could ride on the road, my Zwift rides dropped down to an occasional one and not a single Zwift ride since July.

Despite that, my Wahoo trainer is one of the best investments I have made. I don’t know how I would have got through Lockdown without being able to take on these challenges.

Background

I never figured I would do a Virtual Everesting. I never thought I would buy a smart trainer. I love riding outdoors. The thought of riding on a stationary trainer was immediately dismissed anytime I thought of it. When it was announced that South Africa would go into lockdown over the Coronavirus, people started panic buying of toilet paper and tinned food. I headed out and bought a smart trainer. Always looking for new challenges, I decided that I would do a vEveresting on it before I had even set it up.

I will write a separate account of my first vEveresting attempt (successful attempt), but I am planning the second one, less than a week after the first. Some people have asked for some input into how to prepare. I had found it difficult to find clear information, so I am setting out the basics here in the hope that it will help others.

Advance Preparation – Trainer Selection

Minimum requirement for a trainer is that it must be controllable (a smart trainer). Zwift must be able to set the gradient. Ideally it should be a direct drive trainer (one where you remove the back wheel of your bike), otherwise you are restricted to climbs that don’t include steep sections. I had purchased the Kickr Core and was happy with it.

Advance Preparation – Zwift

Set the trainer difficulty to Max. By default it is set to 50%. This does not change the amount of power required to climb, but it does change the resistance and requires you to use easier gears. Don’t change this for the first time before the start of your attempt – you need to ride the hill you are Everesting a few times to ensure that you are happy with your gearing.

Check that you know how to do a trainer calibration during a ride.

Get the fastest climbing bike and wheels you can, given your level and the “drops” you have available.

Ride the climb and find the best turn points at the top and the bottom. Research the best place to start your ride to get to the bottom of the climb as easily as possible. Do a few repeats – preferably around 25% of the full distance. This is also a good opportunity to test your nutrition strategy – consume the food and drinks you will use when you do the full distance. Remember not to consume too much carbohydrate, as you will be mainly burning fat at low intensities.

Practice using the U-Turn function, as you don’t want to do extra distance if you turn late.

Advance Preparation – Bike

Make sure that you have cleaned and lubricated your drive chain. Have lube nearby, so that you can add more during the ride where necessary.

Also make sure that you have good ventilation and a fan to keep you cool during the ride.

Before the ride

Weigh yourself and take a photo of the scale, in case you need to prove your weight. Enter the weight into Zwift. Take a screen shot of the Zwift screen showing your weight.

Take a photo of your bike setup, including the trainer.

Ride to the bottom of the hill. This will warm up your trainer. Do a trainer calibration, and take a screen shot of that. (If you don’t move the trainer overnight, you can do this the day before.) At the same time, take a screenshot of the trainer difficulty setting set to Max.

Make a note of the climbing that you have done to get to the bottom of the hill. You need to do 8848m of climbing on the hill. Accordingly if you have done 40m when you get to the bottom, you will need to climb until Zwift indicates that you have done 8888m.

The photos and screen dumps are important as you may need to show these as part of the verification process.

On the ride

Ride slowly – well within yourself. I ride at the bottom of my zone 2. Watch your power and heart rate. Don’t ride too fast when you are fresh – you will pay for it later.

Keep going and minimise stops. You need to ride at a pace where you don’t need to stop. When you do stop, make the most of the time.

If you are feeling really bad, remember that you can stop as long as you like, providing that you don’t sleep. There is nothing preventing you from taking a rest for an hour or two and carrying on afterwards (providing you don’t sleep). Avoid stopping often. If you are struggling take a small number of longer stops.

Be prepared for things to slowly get more difficult. At the start things feel very easy, but slowly it gets more and more difficult.

Have food and drink close by, so that you can eat and drink on the bike.

Specific Advice for Alpe du Zwift

This is a very long climb. Over 1000m per repeat. You only need 8.5 repeats to get onto the Hall of Fame.

Use Road to Sky route to get to the start. Normally you need to be level 12 to get onto Alpe du Zwift, however this has been relaxed to level 6 during the Coronavirus outbreak. If you are not at the required level, get a friend to wait at the base of the climb and join them.

It is a continuous climb and is relentless. Make sure that you have good gearing for it. I did mine with a 36 on the front and a 32 on the back and I felt many gears short. I would have wanted 34 front, 34 back.

The turn is at the top of the climb. As you complete the climb, you get a spinning wheel and you can win some great prizes. Most useful is the wheels you can win. (They are the fastest climbing wheels in the game. If you win them, stop at the bottom of the hill and change over to them.)

As soon as you have got your prize, make a U-Turn and ride until you start going down.

There are no uphill sections on the descent, so you can climb off your bike and let it descend by itself. It takes about 12 minute, which you use as your rest. Don’t let it go all the way until it stops, as you then have to ride back to the base of the climb. Get back on your bike near the bottom and do a U-Turn as soon as you get past the final corner.

Specific Advice – Reverse Epic KOM

I use the Mountain 8 route to get to the start. There are other options, but that gives some warmup time for me and the trainer.

Ride up to the top. The crest is at the sign for the turn to the radio tower. Don’t ride all the way to the KOM banner, as it is slightly downhill and adds extra distance for no climbing. As soon as it flattens make your U-Turn.

The route down is not as convenient as Alpe du Zwift. There are a few places where you need to peddle uphills. Make sure that you are peddling before you get to the bottom and change gears early.

Watch as you get to the bottom. As you turn the last corner and pass the marker for the bottom of the climb on your left make a U-Turn.

You will need around 20.5 laps to get yourself onto the Hall of Fame.

Looking for the next hill

From time to time I had been looking at other hills to do an Everest on. I knew I would do another one sometime, but had no fixed plans. It is not that easy to find good options. Safety is the biggest concern. You are going to be riding during the day and the night. You don’t want to be hijacked and the route must be safe – particularly the turns at the top and the bottom. That eliminates many climbs.

I had been looking at Bantam road. It is very close – just across Delta Park from my home. It is a cul-de-sac at the bottom and is fairly straight with two slight turns. It topped my list of climbs close to home.

The decision to ride

Louise was on her road trip through the family farms and down to Grahamstown with her sister Jane, who was visiting from Australia. I had planned a two day bike trip to Witbank with Colleen and Graham for Sunday and Monday. On Thursday I got the news that, due to the rain and the load shedding, Graham needed to catch up on work and they would not be able to make the trip. We cancelled the accommodation booking.

On Friday, I was wondering what I could do alone. It is not really safe to go off and do long rides solo, so I thought what about an Everesting.

I got out the Eversting calculator, put in the Strava segment and found out that I would need 138 laps to get to 8848m – the height of Mt Everest.

On Friday evening, I made the decision – I was going to start at midnight on Sunday morning.

Preparation

I started with the normal ICG Cradle ride on Saturday – probably not the best preparation, but I really love that ride. After the ride we stopped for coffee and I rode home with Marek, coincidently up Bantam road. On the way up Marek asked me what I thought of Bantam as an option for an Everest. I told him I thought it was excellent and that I was riding it in the morning and he was welcome to join me. He replied that he wanted to do his first Everesting with his son Ollie who was away on camp. I also sent a message to Reinhard, who had helped so much with my Northcliff Everesting. He had said afterwards that he regretted not doing the full Everest with us. I invited him to join me, but he had a family lunch function on.

Reinhard was very keen to post a message on the ICG group and get a crew of people to come and support me. For some reason, I wanted to do this without all the support. The Northcliff Everest with Jarrod had been packed with supporters. I wanted to experience an Everest like most people do – with little support.

I also told Colleen, Graham, Louise and Kerry. In total I told 6 people and told them all that I didn’t want lots of support.

I went and bought supplies – coke, sweets, nougat, chicken pieces, nuts, nut butter, chips, still water and sparkling water. I oiled my chain, packed some spares, changed some settings on my GPS, made a spreadsheet of laps and climbing at the end of each lap. I was ready.

I set the alarm for 11:30 and climbed into bed at 7pm.

The first half

I woke at 11:30 and made sure that I emptied my bowels, as I had no toilet arrangements on the route! I drove and parked Louise’s car in the middle of the segment, where I could keep an eye out on it twice a lap. I free wheeled down to the bottom and started my GPS, the workout app on my Apple Watch and Polar Beats on my phone and I set off.

The plan was simple. Ride at a steady pace, stop every 1000m of climbing and keep the stops short. Each lap is 66 metres of climbing and around 2km in length (1km up and 1km down). I was keeping my mind busy by calculating how many metres I should have climbed at the end of each lap and comparing it to my GPS. The 66 metres per lap was proving quite accurate and most of the time I was just a few meters off either way.

My first stops were very short – unlock the car while still riding, down a coke, fill up my water bottle and get going again – less than 3 minutes. 1000m was taking under 2 hours.

On my third stop the sun was up so I had a longer stop to eat some nougat and apply suntan lotion. I use the very thick, greasy Island Tribe. This proved a bad move as the miggies came out in clouds and I would get to the bottom of each descent with miggies covering my face, arms and legs. I had to pull them off on the way back up.

During the morning Reinhard cycled over, after his 21km run, and joined me for a while before heading out to his family lunch.

Stops 4 and 5 were also sub 3 minute affairs. I was more than half way, doing well and feeling great.

Other than the miggies, the only real problem I had in the first half was getting stung by a wasp on my arm.

The second half

That is where the wheels started coming off. I suddenly felt weak and was slowing down. At 6000m, I had a longer stop. I ate half a packet of sweets and headed on again, initially feeling better.

I soon started to feel nauseous and the Everest became much more difficult. Kerry walked over from our house. She brought iced water, nut butter and chocolate. We had a chat, I had some water and gave her my Apple Watch to charge, as I had run it out of battery, but my Discovery points were sorted.

I had given up on the mental arithmetic of calculating the distance at the end of each lap. Near the top, I would take out my phone move once cell down on the spreadsheet and check the corresponding climb distance. I was no longer up to adding 66 to larger numbers!

My friend Marek and his wife Sue drove past. We had a quick chat and Marek said he would come back on his bike. He rode many laps with me, matching my pace which had slowed considerably.

My bike started making a strange clicking sound near the top of a lap. It sped up considerably on the freewheel down the hill, so I knew it was something related to the wheel. Near the bottom the noise stopped. At the bottom, we stopped and checked the bike, but could find nothing wrong. Near the top of the following lap, I noticed my back tyre was getting flat. We had to stop and change the tube.

Although I was freewheeling downhill, they are very fast. With only the two slight turns I was getting to 60km/h. After his first, Marek referred to it as a thrilling (by which I think he meant terrifying) descent. By then I knew every bump and the best line down. I had a marker near the bottom where I applied the brakes hard for the turn. On the lap after changing the tube, I pulled the brakes at the marker and the back brake made the most awful sound. I managed to stop using mainly the front brake and we checked everything, but could find nothing wrong. For a few laps, I was far more cautious on the downhill, applying very little rear brake, which gradually improved. In retrospect, I think I must have got suntan lotion on the braking surface while changing the tube, which took a few laps to wear off.

It had got very hot. I need to stop more frequently to fill up my water bottle. Each time, I would look at all the provisions in my boot and feel that I couldn’t eat any of them. I had a few toffees and some crisps, but they made me feel worse, not better. I could not face the cokes either. I was on water. The choice was between still and sparkling – until the still water ran out!

Marek was doing a long ride out to Suikerbosrand the next morning. I kept telling him that he needed to stop riding hills with me. Eventually he relented and went home.

Kerry came back a little later on one of our e-bikes. She rode a lap with me, saw that I looked ok and headed back home, leaving me with a charged watch.

A little later Marek returned with Sue, this time in the car. They parked in the middle of the lap and encouraged me each time I passed, taking photos and videos.

I took a last stop with about 400m to go. I thanked Marek and Sue very much and told them that I was good to get to the end. Once they could see that I was going to be ok, they left.

Only 6 laps to go. I watched the metres climbed on my GPS move up towards the magical 8848m. It got there just as I passed the car. You always want to get a few extra metres – just in case – so I carried on to the top, freewheeled down and collapsed in the front seat of the car for a few minutes, before packing up and heading home.

What is Everesting?

I first heard about Everesting a few years ago. I saw some messages about people who were going to Everest up to the Sentech (Brixton) tower. Everesting is a simple concept: you find any hill, anywhere and ride up and down the hill until your total ascent is the height of Everest 8 848m. Sounds simple enough. I occasionally do hill repeats on Northcliff and had wondered what it would be like to keep going.

When I rode The Beast earlier in the year with Wimpie van der Merwe, he was chatting about the Everests he had done. The Beast was the toughest thing I had done on a bicycle and Wimpie was telling me that an Everest is far tougher. At the time it made no sense.

Jarrod McGorian’s Cancer and Everest Dream

I barely knew Jarrod from riding at ICG. Occasionally we rode together, but more often we rode in different groups. When Laurent shared a message from Jarrod saying that he wanted to do an Everest, I had to go and look at his photo make sure I had the correct person.

It was a long message, but I have extracted some key parts:

“Over the last 10 years I have learnt to overcome many “cancer mountains”. The surgery I am about to undergo will be my biggest mountain yet and that is the reason I have decided to attempt an Everesting. In all reality, I have only cycled for just under a year so I know my capability is somewhat limited, but that will not deter me from attempting it.“

“I want to shift my Everesting challenge from me alone to a fundraising exercise for cancer research or even fundraising for a children’s home. People could pledge an amount for every metre climbed? All proceeds passed on – I don’t want anything.“

“I wanted to see if you (ICG) would like to get involved somehow, maybe some guys would want to ride along, others may want to pledge some money.“

It also contained a link to a blog post https://medium.com/@JardoMc/a-new-challenge-a-new-mountain-to-climb-cefe5e139feb

I was very moved and without a moments thought I replied to the ICG Core Group: “I have to do an Everest sometime. I am happy to ride with them.“

And so it began…

Preparation

Things moved fast. ICG agreed to become involved, but requested that Qhubeka be added as a 3rd charity. Jarrod posted on the main group that he was going to attempt an Everest of 60 laps on Northcliff and I immediately committed to riding 60 laps with him and his friend Dan, also an ICG rider.

This was on 27 September and we were going to Everest on 12 October. That did not leave much time. I was confident that I could do it, but how on earth was Jarrod going to manage? This was a challenge far beyond his experience.

In retrospect, had I know how strong his mind was, I wouldn’t have worried, but I immediately set out to help him with whatever I could.

Step 1 Equipment

Step 1 was to ensure that Jarrod’s bike would be ok. A few quick questions and it was immediately evident that his gearing was never going to make it. A few messages and chats with my friend Mills – the most helpful person I know – and he had offered to swap out Jarrod’s crank with a compact crank. I collected the bike from Jarrod one evening, took it to Mills who replaced the crank with one from his magical “kitty”. Jarrod was amazed when I returned a little later with the bike. It was still not enough so a bit later in the week, Mills then also swapped his cassette from an 11-28 to 11-32. Jarrod now had gears suitable for climbing the route.

(A few days before the Everest, Jarrod decided to rather use his MTB, so ultimately the bike went back to Mills to swap back without even being ridden with its new gearing!)

Step 2 Optimising the route

Step 2 was to make sure that we had the course correct. Jarrod, Dan and I met on Northcliff and we marked out the start and end of the climb, choosing turning points for ease of identification in the dark, safety and maximum climbing per lap. it was on this recce that Dan and Jarrod decided to use their mountain bikes for the additional gearing they offered. I decided to use my road bike and have my MTB ready in case I decided to swap later in the ride.

Once you know the distance per lap, you can calculate the number of laps required. Our lap was 164m, Everest is 8 848m, so we needed 53.95 laps. You need some buffer, so we worked on 55 laps.

You need to have a GPS with a barometer. That is the primary measure of your height ascended, but there can be errors, so you also need to count laps. When you GPS reads over 8 848m and you have done at least 54 laps, you are done.

Step 3 Food, drink and stop strategy

Jarrod put together a ride schedule and set it to Dan and me. It had three significant issues:

• There was a 10 minute stop every 3 laps. One of the main Everesting rules is that you may not sleep. Many people stop due to lack of sleep. Long and/or frequent stops can ruin an Everest attempt
• It contained a fluid consumption of 200ml per lap. On the schedule we had, that had Jarrod drinking 7 litres during the night. At best we would be having a lot of pee stops. At worst, excessive water intake can have serious health risks.
• It had a lot of carbs in the form of sports drinks and foods. In ultra endurance, much of your energy comes from fats, and you can’t afford to allow spikes in blood sugar levels.

After some discussion, we agreed to stop every 5 laps, agreed to drink based on thirst, rather than to a schedule and calculated that Jarrod should consume about 50g of carbs per hour.

Step 4 Support

Jarrod had inspired so many people with his incredible story. People really wanted to be involved. ICG organised a large group to ride with Jarrod on Sunday morning and to have a breakfast with us at Olivia’s Coffee shop (conveniently at the bottom of our climb) at 8am.

I could see how important this support was going to be for Jarrod, but was concerned. It seemed that we would have crowds of people at some of the best times and no-one at all in the difficult night time hours and the hours at the end when we were tired.

I thought it would be a good idea to set up a WhatsApp supporters group and let the people who wanted to help organise themselves so that we could spread the support out over the whole period.

I sent Jarrod a message: “Can I start a supporters WhatsApp group?”. I got back a somewhat hesitant: “Ye, if you like?”. I went ahead anyway.

I created the group at around 10:30am, by 1:30pm we had 60 people, by 4pm, 75 people. By the time we started there were over 100 and the numbers grew while we were riding. It was unbelievable. Groups of people organised to ride with us right through the night.

That was the full extent of preparations for this massive undertaking, which as you can see included almost no cycling at all. Having read this section again, it may come across that without my involvement Jarrod would have had little chance. However, while I think my input made a difference, Jarrod would likely have managed without my help, as he was so determined.

Everesting

After getting good sleep on Thursday and Friday nights and a rest on Saturday afternoon, I drove to the booms. Jarrod and Dan arrived a short while later. Quite a number of supporters also arrived. We did some final bike checks, posed for some photos and freewheeled down the hill.

At the bottom, I was about to turn around to start the first climb. Jarrod reminded me that we needed to turn into the parking. There were a lot more supporters there. Some in cars and some on bikes. Jarrod thanked everyone, Dan read a very inspiring quote and then we started.

It was soon dark, but there was a magnificent full moon. It was a clear, warm evening. Jarrod set the pace. It was significantly slower than on our recce and it was soon apparent that we would run well behind our original schedule. But it was steady and we slowly ticked the laps off. We got into a rhythm – I would lead Jarrod down to call the intersections. I would then ride the first steep part at my own pace and wait for Jarrod at the first circle. We would ride together to the steepest parts – the Hearns corner climb and the final climb to the booms. I would ride those at my own speed, tick off the lap on the tick sheet on Jarrod’s car. Then Jarrod and I would do the rest of the lap together.

We had so many people riding with us. Some rode separately at their own pace, some quietly with us, some were asking Jarrod questions – ranging from shrewd to wholly inappropriate, some brought loud music with them. Occasionally Jarrod would excuse himself, put in his earphones and ride in peace for a few laps.

As we went into the night, the numbers thinned, but we had people joining us on their way home from parties to ride a few laps. Then the people who understood that midnight to sunrise was a tough time joined us. At no time on the whole ride did we have less that 3 other riders with us.

Morning came and we had a fantastic breakfast with loads of supporters at Olivia’s. But there was no time to linger – soon we were back on our relentless up and down. Tick off 5 laps, have a break and carry on.

The laps were getting slower, the breaks longer. It was getting hotter. Jarrod and Dan began stopping most laps on the way up and again on the way down – not for long, but it was starting to add a lot of extra time. 55 laps x 2 x a short amount of time = finishing many hours later. I was calculating that we would finish after midnight. Could we keep riding that long? I called Jarrod and Dan together and said that we could not keep stopping twice a lap. I wasn’t sure it was going to be successful, but it was and our pace picked up again.

At one stage, when we had done about 180km of cycling and were closing in on 6000m of climbing, I asked Jarrod what his longest ride was. He replied “155km”. Everyone was stunned. I replied “not anymore”. We all laughed and just carried on.

It was getting hot. Louise went and bought ice for Jarrod to stuff into under his bib shorts above the thighs and into his sleeves. It helped him a lot. I was feeling fine, so I didn’t take any ice. The pace was relatively easy for me, and heat seems to bother me less than it does most people.

Each time we went through the booms at our “base camp” there were literally crowds of people cheering. There was a big banner supporting Jarrod that we rode under each lap. It was all very moving.

During one of the breaks, I left my bike in the sun. My Wahoo GPS got very hot. This affected the barometer and suddenly I had done about 150m less climbing than I should have, based on the laps done. I started going further down each lap to get some extra climbing, but eventually it was apparent that I was going to have to do an extra lap. Dan had also forgotten to turn off the auto pause on his GPS initially. When riding slowly up some of the steep sections, his GPS thought he had stopped! Dan’s GPS was also behind on climbing.

It got cooler and dark again. I was working on finishing between 10pm and midnight now. Our cycling friends kept coming and going. Once again, those who had done ultra endurance events, knew this was a very difficult time. We had been riding for over 24 hours with no sleep. One of the big challenges of these short laps, is that it is so easy to quit. You just pull over at the end of a lap – your car is there, your family is there, you can be home and in bed in 30 minutes.

We got to 50 laps – our last rest. I told Jarrod, that I was going to skip the rest and get my extra lap in. I was feeling good and had been riding slowly all day. I went fairly hard. We had been doing the climb in 19 to 22 minutes. I did this one under 13 minutes. I finished my extra lap and still had to wait a few minutes for Jarrod.

Jarrod had put his earphones back in. I am not sure if he had found music with a faster beat, but he was speeding up. We were at the point where we were all sure that we would make it. Dan was now also doing a catchup lap. Around 10:30 we got to the end of our final lap. We went right to the top to make sure of it. It was very quiet at the top. We congratulated each other. Dan was still a few metres short, so he was going to have to go down short way and come up to finish. Jarrod and I freewheeled down.

Jarrod’s family were there. After amazing everyone (again) by doing 21 laps herself, Louise had gone home. Dan completed his short lap and we had photos and interviews before packing up and heading home.

Afterword

Reflecting back on the day, I doubt anyone else has experienced an Everest anything like that. They are generally lonely, riding for hours by yourself. This was like the celebrity version with cheering crowds and a continual stream of supporters.

An Everest is a serious undertaking. There are less than 4000 successful cycling Everestings worldwide. Generally they are attempted by people in top physical condition, and with many months of training and preparation. How did Jarrod, with less than 1 year of cycling, no specific training, only a few weeks of preparation and a body that had endured all those operations manage to do it?

There is only one answer. With pure determination and willpower. Nothing was going to stop Jarrod from finishing this. There are people who watched us finish and now know that it is possible. I hope we have inspired some to do an Everest. Others I suspect will find it far more difficult than they expect.

As I said to Jarrod and Dan a few days afterwards: “an Everest is achieved in the mind, not in the legs”

The decision to ride

PBP has a complex pre-qualification system. You needed to have completed a 200km, 300km, 400km and 600km in the year ended November 2018 to pre-register. Thereafter, only those who have pre-registered are able to enter, but you need to have done all the qualifying events again by early July.

By November 2018, the longest Audax Louise had done was 200km, but we did the full set in the first half of 2019. I didn’t want to do the PBP without Louise, so I had not pre-registered. Then on 23 June, I received an email with the following “Due to a considerable number of abandoned pre-registrations (1500), opening of registrations to everybody (with qualifying BRM) until July, 3rd”. It took a few days to convince Louise, but on 2 July we entered.

I chatted to my Cycle Lab friends that had also qualified and was delighted when Graham van Niekerk – Mr G – said he was in and also entered. Less than a year ago, Mr G could not get through a 200km without severe cramping – more than a bit of a worry, but he had got through the 300, 400 and 600km qualifiers, so I was hoping for the best!

We had 6 weeks to go. Not a lot of time for training, but we were in pretty reasonable shape.

Last minute training

We then started trying to get some long cycles in. Some unloaded and some with the full load we would need to carry – we had decided to do PBP self supported with no drop bags. Every item was weighed and we agonised over whether we could leave each item behind. Our friends were amazed as we chalked up rides between 200km and 300km. However, we were thinking to ourselves that 300km is short compared to 1220km. Very, very short…

Bike admin again

After riding my Cannondale on The Beast with the temporary repairs, I needed a new frame. Mills very kindly lent me a Sintesi and we moved all my components over to the Sintesi. I have lost count now of the number of times Mills has built my bike up for me. The Sintesi was an aluminium frame and did me very well for training. It was a little heavier than I would have liked, but the ride was very hard – not ideal for a 1200km ride. So we were scouring the Hub for a more modern aluminium or titanium frame. Eventually we found an early Lance Armstrong era Trek frame – aluminium with carbon fork – and I drove over to pick it up. How do you buy a frame in amazing condition, that was once top of the range for R1200? Mills very kindly spent most of his Friday building the bike so that I could get a weekend of training in.

On the ride to Harties, I tried to bunny hop a pothole with my fully loaded bike. It didn’t work too well and I came down on the lip of the pothole. My back wheel was toast and I was flying in a few days.

I tried to order a new rim, but it would take too long. Mills again came to my rescue and lent me a wheel. We changed the cassette and tyre over and I had one short spin prior to packing up my bike for the flight.

Arriving in France

We took a direct flight to Paris and arrived at the airport early on the Thursday morning. (PBP starts on Sunday). We had booked accommodation at a town called Trappes – a few stations up the line from the start in Rambouillet. We bought our train tickets at the airport. The lady helping us had no idea where Trappes was and had to look it up first! We had to change train twice, dragging our large bike bags and hand luggage with us.

The middle section was through the metro. We had to drag the bikes up and down stairs and get them through turnstiles – a lot more than we had bargained for. Eventually we got to Trappes.

Our accommodation was 1km from the station. We had arrived on a public holiday and the busses were not running, so we then had to drag our bikes 1km to the Airbnb I had booked. It had no reviews – we were the first guests!

The place was tiny, but comfortable enough with a tiny bathroom, a very small stove, microwave oven and a coffee maker. The couch folded out into a surprisingly comfortable bed at night.

Getting ready for the start

We immediately set our bikes up. Louise has a much larger bag, so the bike goes in with everything on (except the wheels). Mine needs the handlebars and pedals removed. We went for a short ride on Thursday, and on Friday took our bikes on the train to Rambouillet and road the first section of the route. In a beautiful, forested area. The excitement was really starting to build.

Checking in

On Saturday we needed to take our bikes for the bike check. Their main concern seemed to be that we had lights, firmly attached to the frame, that worked in steady mode. (Flashing lights are not allowed in France.) Louise and I always attach our back lights to our bags, so had an extra light attached to the frame which made the trip to Brest and back without being even turned on once – other than at the Saturday check in.

The day was miserable and we seem to have chosen the busiest time, as we queued with our bikes for hours before being checked. We did have lots of time to chat to a number of the riders from England that we met in the queue. We had 12 riders from South Africa and were finding out the Brits and Americans were arriving with 30 or 40 people from their local club.

Eventually we got through the check in – without being sent to the mechanics for rectification. We then went and queued for our packs containing “frame numbers”, a visibility vest that conformed to some EU specification and that we had to wear, as well as the cycling shirts we had ordered.

Then back to the Airbnb for the final bike preparations and trying to build up a food and sleep surplus.

Rolling out – day 1

Mr G had arrived in France on Saturday and we only got to meet up with him at the start. After queuing through a few holding areas, we got the first stamp on our Brevet cards and rolled from the start, exactly on time at 8:45pm in fantastic conditions. It is a difficult time to start, as it is still too hot to wear warm clothes. You don’t want to overheat, can’t afford to get cold, and don’t want to lose a good bunch if you happen to be in one.

We found a great bunch driven by a club from Wales. They were riding like Cycle Lab – easy on the hills and looking after all the team mates. We were making good time without expending much energy. The terrain was pretty flat and when we stopped to dress warmly, we were averaging over 27km/h.

After that stop, we were in smaller groups, or just the three of us. Our average speed was dropping off, but we were conserving energy and riding sensibly through the night.

The distance to the first control was 217km, which allows the field to spread out. There is a feeding station at 118km, but we had planned to miss this. It was cool riding at night and we did not need to fill up. We arrived at the control – VILLAINES-LA-JUHEL – just before 6am. There was not much to eat there so we had a soup bowl of coffee, a couple of cokes, filled up our bottles and headed on.

Just after 9:30 we arrived at the 2nd control – FOUGERES – at 306km. We checked in first and then had to ride a short distance to the restaurant. It was well organised, the queues were not too bad and we ate well. I had an omelette, a few cheeses, cold meats, another bowl of coffee, a few cokes, and some sparking water and we were off again.

Then on to TINTENIAC at 360km and to LOUDEAC at 445km. We were now having a meal at each control and doing serious damage to our eating allowance. The terrain was hillier, there was a headwind and we were running slightly behind schedule, but I really wanted to get to the control before Brest before sleeping, so we pushed on and arrived at CARHAIX-PLOUGUER at 521km, a little before 11pm. We did not eat then, but queued for a camp bed in a large hall at a cost of 8 euros. The queue took a while and we were given a very thin, disposable cotton sleeping bag. I woke up later, very cold and had to put warmer clothes on.

Day 2 – to Brest and heading back

We were woken up at the pre-set time of 6am and then needed to eat. This was the least organised of the controls and we had a long queue for breakfast. By now fatigue was showing on many of the participants, who were sleeping in corridors, at the tables, just about anywhere.

After breakfast we had a fantastic section down to Brest, with a number of long gentle downhills. I was in front pedalling the downhills and we past a lot of people.

It was on the uphills on this section that Louise’s right knee began troubling her and we needed to take the hills much slower.

We arrived at Brest at 11am and checked in. We had been travelling with Anders from Sweden for quite a way. He indicated that the restaurant in Brest was not great and took us to a supermarket on the way out where we bought food and ate on the pavement. Louise’s knee was now getting bad and we were paying for all those downhills that we now needed to get back up. We told Anders to go on and managed the pace carefully from then on. Mr G had a supply of anti inflammatories and pain killer and Louise was taking every 6 hours. They helped a lot, but wore off long before the 6 hour were up.

My original plan was to do 500km, 400km, 300km and finish in 3 days. It was clear that this was no longer possible, but it had given us a large buffer. We were pushing to get to TINTENIAC at 869km. This would leave us with 351km to the end.

We went back through CARHAIX-PLOUGUER at 693km and LOUDEAC at 783km, stopping for massages to Louise’s knees – both of which were now in pain – and meals at each. We arrived at LOUDEAC at 10pm and I was walking back to my bike, putting my warm clothes back on after eating when I must have dropped my glasses. I went back to look for them, checked the lost property in the information tent, but then had to go on without them to the end.

We finally made TINTENIAC just before 4am and went straight to book beds. They could not fit us all in a room, so Louise and I had one room and Mr G another. We asked to be woken at 8am and were given real beds with nice mattresses and a blanket. I slept well.

Day 3 – On with fatigue and buggered knees

We woke, had breakfast and left after 9am. 351km to the end. We had the whole day and the next day up to 2:45pm to do it in. We just had to ride sensibly and not stop too long. 351km was going to be too far to do without another sleep, given Louis’s knees. I figured that if we rode to the second last control MORTAGNE-AU-PERCHE at 1097km that would leave us 123km for the last day to finish before cut off at 2:45pm.

That meant we needed to do 228km on Day 3. Sections that seemed flat on the way to Brest, now seemed littered with rolling hills. The 228km took us through the controls at FOUGERES – for a lunch – and VILLAINES-LA-JUHEL where again there was no real food available, so we stopped at a shop further in the town and bought junk food to eat.

The day was hot and at one stage Louise said she needed to lay down for a few minutes. Her logic was that if Churchill could make it through the war on power naps, it would get her through PBP

We finally arrived at MORTAGNE-AU-PERCHE – the first food stop on the way out was a full control on the way back – at around 11:30pm. We immediately booked beds – a closed cell mattress on the floor with a blanket. It felt like such luxury! We asked to be woken at 3:30 and were asleep almost instantly.

Day 4 – To Rambouillet

We woke and had another good meal before heading out again. I was living on omelettes (where they had), lots of cheese, cold meats, hot chicken and hot ham dishes, large amounts of coffee, coke (during the day). Eating gets expensive there, particularly if you don’t eat bread.

Only 228km to go! My trusty Wahoo was counting down 200km, 199.9km and we had a little celebration. Unfortunately, that’s where the Wahoo fell apart. It reset, tried to recover the ride twice, before starting a new ride. Don’t they test these things on long rides??!!!

Normally this would have made me angry, but I was just delighted to be making good progress here. The roads were flat and it was clear that it would take a major problem to prevent us finishing.

We arrived at the final control DREUX at around 8am. Time for another breakfast and then the final 46km to Rambouillet. I felt like it was the final stage of the Tour de France and we were riding in to Paris. We even did toasts with imaginary champagne.

I had spent much of the time at the front, but on this section I was at the back most of the way. I had battery power to spare now, so was taking videos and posting during the ride. We rode through a beautiful forested area and finished strongly, so pleased with our achievement.

Support and social media

I was prepared for some support from family and very close friends, but I was absolutely amazed at the extent of that support and the number of people who followed our trip so closely, with stories of people not getting much work done as they waited for us to cross timing mats and posted updates and messages of support on WhatsApp. Some posted on groups and some privately. We had barely crossed the mat at the control of some town that we could not pronounce, when my phone started beeping madly with updates to everyone else and messages of support.

We rode this for ourselves, but it seems to have had a much wider impact on our family and friends. We were all absolutely amazed by the support and interest. You have little time on an event like this. We also had to watch our batteries, as we had no means of charging other than with the powerbanks we were carrying. Lights were essential, then GPS. Communications only for short periods at controls.

At each control, you queue to get your brevet card stamped, queue again to get food, sit down to eat, apply suntan lotion, apply lube to areas that are chafing, plan the strategy for the remainder of the day, check that your companions are doing ok, etc. Just a quick glance at some of the messages, maybe post a picture and get back on your bike.

It was only afterwards, that I went through all the groups in details and saw the full extent of the support we received. It was incredible and very humbling to read it all.

Some thoughts from afterwards

Louise and I are doing a little touring in France afterwards. We gave up on the trains and hired a car. We have been staying at small B&Bs, without doing too much distance. It takes the body quite a while to recover from something like the PBP.

One of my ICG friends, a doctor, contacted me immediately once he heard how Louise had ridden on anti inflammatories and pain killers. He has had a few patients who have had kidney failure after doing the same. Louise had swollen up a lot and this was quite a worry for a few days.

Our preparation and strategy was, I think, really good. We had everything we needed, had tested all our equipment well and had a ride strategy that gave us a lot of flexibility for trouble on the ride. We do, however need to understand what happened to Louise’s knees, as she has never had a problem before.

Louise had bought new shoes and tried them for a while, but they gave her some pain and she changed back to the old shoes just before PBP. We had marked the cleat positions, and she does use cleats with 4 degrees of float, but maybe this was the problem?