- Jul 7, 2013
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Everesting means climbing a total of 8848 vertical meters by cycling or running one hill. It's required that those multiple ascents and descents are done on the same road or path segment. This is a serious endurance challenge and it requires great fitness and will power to do it at once without big breaks. My daily hiking record (3600 vertical meters up) isn't even half of Everesting and it felt like a huge effort. Here are top times by cyclists:
1) Ronan McLaughin 6:40:54 (2021)
2) Sean Gardner 6:59:38 (2020)
3) Nathan Earle 7:10:10 (2020)
4) Alberto Contador 7:27:20 (2020)
5) Lachlan Morton 7:29:00 (2020)
en.wikipedia.org
Ronan McLaughin holds the record now. As you can see there's one world class climber past his career (Contador) on this list but later his record was easily beaten by a few less known guys.
What are typical characteristics of climbs?
1) Big average gradient (10-15%): it enables to change almost the whole power into vertical speed (VAM) as gravity is the main resistive force (aero drag and rolling friction are less important).
2) Low elevation: more oxygen mean more power, no surprise here. The current record was achieved in Ireland near the sea level.
3) Good asphalt quality: less energy lost to overcome friction can result in significant time gains at the end.
4) Non-technical descent: no energy lost to accelerate after switchbacks.
5) Short road segment (usually around 1 km): it's easier to find short, steep segments plus on shorter climbs one can theoretically achieve higher VAM (but it should be done very carefully: shorter descents and intervals accumulation can hit you hard at some point).
6) Weather conditions? McLaughin's impressive record was achieved in Ireland and I'm curious how helpful was the wind (it was quite strong 5-7 m/s from south, which would help on Mamore Gap segment).
It would be interesting to watch some top cyclist nowadays take this challenge. Given how impressive are Pogacar's Z2 and Z4 I would like to see him do that. What kind of time could he potentially achieve? Let's try to guess. I'm assuming he would do those climbs somewhere in Z3 (Z4 or Z5 intervals would kill him at some point), let's say in 5.5-6 w/kg range. On a 10+ % climb this would translate to 1750-1800 m/h of VAM so around 5 hours for climbing alone. Assuming around 70 km of ascent (and descent) would be needed (12-13%) we should add around one additional hour for descent. So according to my rough calculations about 6 hours! (or probably 15-20 minutes more due to decceleration/acceleration/turning needed)
1) Ronan McLaughin 6:40:54 (2021)
2) Sean Gardner 6:59:38 (2020)
3) Nathan Earle 7:10:10 (2020)
4) Alberto Contador 7:27:20 (2020)
5) Lachlan Morton 7:29:00 (2020)
Everesting - Wikipedia
Ronan McLaughin holds the record now. As you can see there's one world class climber past his career (Contador) on this list but later his record was easily beaten by a few less known guys.
What are typical characteristics of climbs?
1) Big average gradient (10-15%): it enables to change almost the whole power into vertical speed (VAM) as gravity is the main resistive force (aero drag and rolling friction are less important).
2) Low elevation: more oxygen mean more power, no surprise here. The current record was achieved in Ireland near the sea level.
3) Good asphalt quality: less energy lost to overcome friction can result in significant time gains at the end.
4) Non-technical descent: no energy lost to accelerate after switchbacks.
5) Short road segment (usually around 1 km): it's easier to find short, steep segments plus on shorter climbs one can theoretically achieve higher VAM (but it should be done very carefully: shorter descents and intervals accumulation can hit you hard at some point).
6) Weather conditions? McLaughin's impressive record was achieved in Ireland and I'm curious how helpful was the wind (it was quite strong 5-7 m/s from south, which would help on Mamore Gap segment).
It would be interesting to watch some top cyclist nowadays take this challenge. Given how impressive are Pogacar's Z2 and Z4 I would like to see him do that. What kind of time could he potentially achieve? Let's try to guess. I'm assuming he would do those climbs somewhere in Z3 (Z4 or Z5 intervals would kill him at some point), let's say in 5.5-6 w/kg range. On a 10+ % climb this would translate to 1750-1800 m/h of VAM so around 5 hours for climbing alone. Assuming around 70 km of ascent (and descent) would be needed (12-13%) we should add around one additional hour for descent. So according to my rough calculations about 6 hours! (or probably 15-20 minutes more due to decceleration/acceleration/turning needed)
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