Ride report: Everesting on Bonny Doon
Date: 16 Oct, 2022
Participants: Soren Holm, Louise Thomas, Xiong Chang
Results:
Soren - Everesting 10k
Louise - Single Everesting
Xiong - Basecamp Everesting
Course: 27 laps of Bonny Doon First Steep Climb (to Smith Grade)
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/7977582048
Nutrition: bottles and bottles of maltodextrin/fructose/sodium citrate drink mix, an unhealthy amount of gummy bears and gummy worms, fruit and grain cereal bars, a banana or two, cooked oats with honey, coffee, orange juice, Chinese steamed buns, croissants with nutella, muffins
“The concept of Everesting is fiendishly simple: Pick any hill, anywhere in the world and complete repeats of it in a single activity until you climb 8,848m – the equivalent height of Mt Everest.”
Preparation
Segment selection
When looking for a segment, I was trying to meet the following criteria:
Consistent gradient between 7 - 10 % (as steep as possible while still being able to spin sitting down).
Non-technical descent
Low traffic
Climb time of around 15-40 mins. Shorter climbs would mean more repeats, which I thought would be mentally challenging to do the same stretch of road a hundred times, and would also result in more time lost in the turn-arounds. Longer climbs would result in more fatigue at the end of each climb, and have longer stretches of time without seeing anyone else.
Somewhere to go to the bathroom enroute
The Bonny Doon segment ticked all of those boxes apart from having a bathroom enroute, but I figured that it would be fine to go behind a tree or detour 3 miles to Davenport as needed.
Some other top contenders were Mt Umunhum Rd from Hicks to the parking lot, which was ruled out because of the more technical descent, and Montebello, which was ruled out both due to the flat section in the middle and the technical descent.
Bike setup
Usually I run 50/34 11-28 gearing, but the thought of going up Bonny Doon 27 times with that was filling me with dread so I decided to switch out the cassette for a bigger one. My short cage derailleur only allowed up to 30T though, so I ended up switching that out as well to allow me to go up to 34T.
In preparation for his attempt, Soren kept his 28T cassette but switched out his bottle cage for a carbon fiber one. Considering he finished more elevation in less time than me, maybe that was the way to go.
Fitness
There was very little preparation that went into this. My general bike fitness was ok having just finished the racing season, but the most elevation I’d ever done in a day was less than half of an Everesting. Knowing that a random guy on the internet attempted it with basically no cycling experience made us feel a bit better about the prospect though (even if he didn’t complete it).
On the day
My estimated completion time ranged from 15 hrs to 22 hrs. Given that this was longer than the number of daylight hours, we decided to front-load the attempt and start in the dark in the hope that we’d be done before sunset. Trying to find the balance between starting as early as possible while still getting some sleep the night before, we decided on a 2 am ride start.
Waking up at 1 am was not as difficult as I thought it would be. Maybe it was anticipation nerves or maybe it was because my body is used to still being up around that time. We then drove past the people stumbling their way between clubs in Santa Cruz (where we’d stayed overnight) to the start of the Bonny Doon segment. At the bottom we dropped off a traffic cone, bike pump and patch kit to mark the turn-around point before driving to the top of the segment to start our long day of cycling.
The first third of the attempt passed pretty smoothly. I hadn’t done much night cycling before but it was quite peaceful having the road to ourselves, only able to see a small bubble of light in front of where we were riding. By sunrise everything was going well; I’d completed 9/27 laps, Xiong had completed 7 and Soren 10. My nutrition strategy up until this point had been to drink a bottle of maltodextrin/fructose/sodium citrate mix every two laps and eat a constant stream of gummy bears and fruit and grain cereal bars during the climbs. At sunrise, Xiong and I decided it would be a good time to stop for real food and made some cooked oats and honey for breakfast. Soren pushed on without a break because he’s a beast.
Still going strong at this point
(photo credit: Niky)
10 am rolled around and we got our first visitors - Gina and Jack! Since me, Xiong, and Soren had all been riding separately to go at our own pace it was nice to have friends to chat with on the climb. At around 11:30 am I was starting to feel a bit low-energy and was in the middle of wolfing down a nutella croissant when we got our second lot of visitors! Niky, Sharon, and Sue Lin had come to cheer us on as part of a gravel ride they were doing, which was an instant mood and energy boost. Not too long after that we had more visitors in the form of Suds, Henry, and Marco, as well as a flyby from Julien and friends. Having people stop by was definitely the highlight of the ride, and made the ordeal so much more enjoyable.
Visits from friends
(photo credit Sue Lin)
At around 2 or 3 pm, Xiong successfully completed his half everesting. Pretty impressive for someone that only decided to attempt it the night before! He then switched to a supporting role and started cooking us all steamed buns, which I was very grateful for.
The next 8 hours were tough. I was starting to get GI issues so stopped eating and drinking as much, and as a result wasn’t getting the nutrition I needed to keep my pace up. I’d never had any GI issues before while cycling so it wasn’t something I put too much thought into beforehand. But then I’d also never done a ride as long and demanding as this. If I had to do it again I’d definitely be more deliberate about my nutritional strategy and have a better idea of what my body can tolerate; shitting water into plastic bags was a pretty low point of this whole experience.
On the women’s team Slack channel people had been asking how the attempt was going, but with no phone reception I wasn’t replying to anything. I had originally said I should be finished around 8 pm, so when that came and went and still no one had heard from me Niky and Kristina kindly drove over from Santa Cruz to check we were still alive. We were, but definitely less animated than earlier in the day. I think at this point Soren had already completed the everesting, but decided to push on for the 10k while I was struggling with several laps to go.
The final few laps were a slog. It was dark, I was cold, and my stomach was upset. At this point I was going at only 60% of my original speed, but was too close to finishing to quit. With one lap to go, disaster struck. My bike computer was giving me a low battery warning, so I quickly plugged it into a charger to ensure it would last for the final lap. Which promptly reset the entire ride. Unfortunately the Garmin Edge 500 is designed in a way that doesn’t allow you to use the device while it’s plugged in, and also resets the activity as soon as you plug it in. I already knew about this ‘feature’ and had planned for it with an OTG charging cable that tricks the Garmin into thinking it’s not plugged in; I’d tested the setup before the ride, and even used it earlier in the day with no issues. But for whatever reason it decided to reset this time.
Trying to stay warm at base camp
(photo credit: Niky)
I told Xiong, Soren, Niky, and Kristina what had happened to deafening silence. Afterwards Xiong told me he wanted to say it would be ok, but had no idea whether it was actually going to be or not. I was a bit more familiar with the device and about 90% sure that even though it had reset, the file was still saved. With that assumption, and assuming I could combine multiple files afterwards, I pushed on for the final lap. Luckily both assumptions turned out to be true.
At around 11 pm, 20.5 hrs after we originally started, I completed the final ascent. I’m glad Xiong was driving home because staying awake became an impossible task after that.
Ride data
| Total elevation | 29,642 ft |
| Total distance | 132.5 miles |
| Elapsed time | 20 hrs 34 mins |
| Moving time | 16 hrs 1 min |
| Max speed | 55.9 mph |
Reflecting on the graph above made it obvious how important nutrition and pacing is. I felt fine for the first nine laps, but the data clearly shows I was getting progressively slower until I stopped for breakfast at about 7:30 am. Not sure if I should have been eating more as I was riding, or if I just went out too hard to start with at a pace I couldn’t sustain. Likely both.
From about 2 pm onwards I was just trying to minimize GI issues and so switched to drinking water (without maltodextrin) and stopped eating as much. That lack of fueling (and general tiredness) resulted in my final 9 laps taking 7 hrs 57 min, compared to 4 hrs and 57 min for the first 9 laps.
Final thoughts
Am I glad I did this? Sure!
Would I do it again? Definitely not
What I think we did right:
Starting at 2 am. It sounded horrible, but was definitely worth it to get a good chunk of the work done before sunrise
Having other people to ride with and to come support (thanks Xiong, Soren, and everyone that came by!!!)
Picking a steep segment with a non-technical descent
What I’d do differently:
Test out my fuelling strategy beforehand
Pick a segment with easy access to toilets
Start out slower
Bring more warm things
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading my super long report!
- Louise