Ah, but Mars also has a somewhat arbitrarily defined zero elevation point, much like sea level on earth. Olympus Mons is a bit more than 21km above that level, not above the lowest point on Mars. Actually, about 1000km west of Olympus Mons there are some plains which are lower than the zero elevation level of Mars. If you go from there, there is about 26km of elevation gain before you reach the summit of Olympus Mons (but you might not want to add 1000km of false flat to your profile of the climb).
If you count mountain islands from their base on the ocean floor, Mauna Kea is actually the highest mountain on earth, but still about twice as low as Olympus Mons. (I mean, the definitions of where exactly a mountain starts are ambiguous, but if you want to call Eurasia a mountain and Mount Everest its peak, go ahead and claim Everest is still the tallest mountain of the world, even if you are counting from the ocean floor.)
(This is getting very off-topic, but let's be honest, silly jokes about cycling on Mars and even pedantry about the definitions of measuring the height of mountains is more interesting than what we know so far about the route of the TDF in 2019
)
If you count mountain islands from their base on the ocean floor, Mauna Kea is actually the highest mountain on earth, but still about twice as low as Olympus Mons. (I mean, the definitions of where exactly a mountain starts are ambiguous, but if you want to call Eurasia a mountain and Mount Everest its peak, go ahead and claim Everest is still the tallest mountain of the world, even if you are counting from the ocean floor.)
(This is getting very off-topic, but let's be honest, silly jokes about cycling on Mars and even pedantry about the definitions of measuring the height of mountains is more interesting than what we know so far about the route of the TDF in 2019
)
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram