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news
Box Hill (amandabhslater via www.flickr.com)Two cyclists ride Box Hill 73 times to bag an 'Everest'
A pair of cyclists have succeeded in an attempt to ‘Everest’ Box Hill – by riding up and down the Surrey beauty spot 73 times within 23 hours.
‘Everesting’ is a craze fuelled by the performance-tracking website, Strava, that sees riders attempt to climb the equivalent of Mount Everest’s height, 8,800 metres, within a single day.
Yesterday, we reported how Australian James Middlemiss had become the first paracyclist to join the Everesting Hall of Fame after riding up his local hill 64 times in a day to beat 44,000 other entrants to win this year’s Rapha Rising Strava Hill Climb Challenge.
Now, Roger Barr from Hampton and Ciaran O'Hara of Enfield are set to join him after starting their effort on Box Hill at 5am on Friday morning and carrying on until they had equalled an ascent of Everest, reports Get Surrey.
Mr Barr told the website his exertions had caused him "a few blisters and a bad knee," adding, "I feel really tired."
He said: "I've done a lot of marathons and I'm as tired as after one of them.”
The pair completed their ride just before 3.30am on Saturday morning, and he said his plans for the rest of the day would revolve around "eating and eating."
He went on: "My wife wanted to go shopping but I'm just too tired.”
He also acknowledged the support he and his cycling companion had received, saying: "It was amazing how many people got behind it.
"At 11pm on Friday a lady turned up with fish and chips for my dad and pasta for us. And at midnight there were four guys cycling along with us.”
However, he added that he and his friend had endured "a few motorists yelling abuse."
Their efforts now need to be verified by Strava for their Everesting achievement to be officially acknowledged.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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46 comments
Some points:
Sometimes riding from point A to Point B isn't enough or Strava and his website wouldn't exist.
Boxhill is also A. Closer than Everest and B. Has a road going up it.
The Ordnance Survey and 10's of thousands of GPS tracks should give a reasonable accurate figure, no one is sure how tall Everest is anyway. No one walks up Everest from sea level anyway too.
Can I do a Mariana Trench challenge for the most descending in a day. Where would the longest continuous negative gradient?
On the Butterfield diet Saturday is treat day! Bon Bon Bon Bons.
The road from the top of Mt. Haleakala on Maui, Hawaii, is 35 miles and a shade over 10,000 feet of descending. might be a good place to start. you'll only need to do four.
Helicopter back to the top?
Actually, Wow http://www.strava.com/segments/614610 Haleakala seems like the idea mountain for this sort of thing. Three reps of this would be nicely over the limit, nice even climbing. Obvs nothing like that in the UK.
I see someone has already bagged Mam Tor near me. 0.001% change of me ever achieving this. Well done chaps.
I'm off to research helicopter shuttle costs in Hawaii!
Question - did they rely on the barometric sensor or a GPS estimate of height gain, or is there land survey data that provides the altitudes at both ends of Box Hill? There can be quite a lot of variation in the first two!
Anyway, chapeau to the mad bats!
Funnily enough, I feel like that all the time and I've never cycled up Everest.
Q: Why did you climb Everest?
A: Because it's there!
Q: Why did you cycle Box Hill 73 times?
A: Because it's smaller than Everest!
Local guys did that on a hill behind Glasgow called the Crow Rd a few months back. It's a bit longer (3 miles) and you add 900 feet with each ascent but even then, it took about 30 odd ascents.
But 73? That would drive me to distraction!
'Grand old duke of Strava?'
Bah! going up and down a hill all day just for Strava points !?
Men! (sighs, shakes head)
Shhhh grumpy...well done chaps.
Shhhh grumpy...well done chaps.
Just go out and ride your bloody bikes for crying out loud!
This is all getting a bit silly.
Umm... They did!
A mate "everested" a climb in the Peak District a couple of weeks ago.
Someone has already done Hardknott Pass too!
http://www.everesting.cc/
To right. Just go for a bloody ride. What is the point. I think that I am going to be the first man, oops person to rise over 15 cattle grids carrying 18 empty coke bottles.
Good lord, cheer up. As someone has already pointed out to the last person that asked why didn't they just go out for a ride - they did. So they used a sort of artificial challenge to use as a target but, so what ? It prompted them to do something slightly mad, doing something they obviously like doing - and it's something they and some others can talk about, and maybe take pride in, for time to come.
It's also quite impressive.... what's the problem with that or with a cycling site reporting on it ?
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