Stefan successfully completed a sub-12 hour Everest attempt and here's what he learnt.
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00:00Hi, my name's Stefan Abraham. I joined the Cycling Weekly Tech Team last year
00:03and towards the tail end of the winter just been, I decided to have a go at Everesting up one of my local climbs.
00:08Having managed to successfully complete it, I thought that I'd share a little bit about what goes into choosing the climb
00:13and pacing the effort, and yeah, much else besides.
00:22I was going through a sub-12 hour time. It has a nice ring to it, it's half day out on my bike
00:26and with six factors, it's easily divisible. You can break it down into thirds, into quarters, into halves,
00:31lots of milestones to check off on the way. But obviously, pleasing arithmetic isn't the only consideration
00:36when it comes to setting a target, and I went out to the climb a few weeks previous.
00:40And the data that I got showed that 12 hours was certainly possible, but the margin for error was really quite small.
00:46So one thing that has really been underlined to me is really the importance of the hill.
00:50It's much more important than the bike or any prior training. You can be as fit as you like with as fancy a bike,
00:55but if you're on a rubbish hill, then it's going to be difficult to get a good time or even complete it at all.
01:00And equally, if your fitness isn't quite where you want it to be and your bike isn't the lightest,
01:04a well-chosen hill can help provide a much more flattering time.
01:07So there are three factors I think that are most important regarding the hill.
01:10The first is the gradient, and then the road condition, and then the traffic.
01:14With the gradient, I think it's well accepted now that the steeper the hill, the better.
01:17I think that a while ago, there were some that would argue that a more moderate gradient would be friendly on the legs
01:22or better suited to an endurance effort. But ultimately, it is a climbing challenge,
01:25so if you can maximise the metres gained and minimise the kilometres travelled, you're going to end up with a faster time.
01:31With the road condition, this can be split into two different areas.
01:34One is the actual surface of the road, and the other is the bends.
01:37And so, obviously, the smoother the road is, the less rolling resistance you're going to have to overcome.
01:41But also, when you're descending, the less drying it will feel on your hands,
01:45which can make a significant difference towards the end of the effort.
01:48When it comes to the route that the road takes down the hill, it's good to have one which doesn't have any particularly nasty bends,
01:53like 90 degree hairpins or anything particularly narrow.
01:57For those looking for the very fastest times, we'll be looking for a road which is arrow straight
02:01and doesn't require touching the brakes at all on the way down.
02:04So in regards to my hill, I wouldn't say it was the perfect one, but I think it hit each of the criteria well enough
02:09that it definitely wasn't a bad choice to use.
02:11The gradient averaged 10%, which by today's standards isn't a particularly steep hill to Everest on.
02:16People are going on 15 or 20%.
02:18However, talking about the average gradient can hide the true nature of the hill.
02:21Mine wasn't particularly consistent.
02:23There were some sections which were quite flat and other sections which really ramped up.
02:27But to be honest, although that might not make it the most efficient climb,
02:30I find that the changes in gradient made it a lot more enjoyable to ascend time after time.
02:34The need to change gear and go in and out of the saddle made it a lot more interesting and engaging
02:38than just slogging for 10 minutes in a single gear straight up and straight down and not having to think at all.
02:43Regarding the road condition, that's kind of a story of two halves.
02:46On the top part of the climb, the tarmac is completely smooth and couldn't really be better.
02:51But down near the bottom, there are some fairly large potholes and the surface itself is just very washboardy and rough.
02:56I had 20mm tyres on, which did go some way to smoothing out the surface,
03:01but by the end, I was really feeling it in my hands.
03:04Regarding the traffic, it isn't a through road.
03:06There's a car park at the top and maybe a farmhouse just along the path a little bit.
03:10You wouldn't expect there to be too many cars,
03:12but I found when I cycled down that it was quite a bit busier than I would like.
03:15Fortunately, though, I had the flexibility to do the attempt on a Friday,
03:19and that went a long way to cutting down the number of cars.
03:22In all, I was pretty happy with the climb.
03:24The gradient and the road surface weren't too bad, and nor was the traffic.
03:27Although I do have local hills that are best for each one of these criteria,
03:30I think Fulboster was the best for all of them overall.
03:33So, a little bit about the bike.
03:35The first thing to point out is it wasn't so much the challenge dictating the bike,
03:39but the bike dictating the challenge.
03:41I had the 2021 Bianchi Sprint on test,
03:43and when I noticed that the bottom gear was a one-to-one ratio
03:46with a 33-tooth chainring and a 33-tooth sprocket on the cassette,
03:49I thought the opportunity for an Everesting was too good to pass up.
03:53As this is just a completely stock setup,
03:55there are some aspects of the bike which aren't ideal for an Everesting.
03:59So, starting with the heart of the bike, the frame.
04:01It's got a full carbon construction, the frame and the fork,
04:04but as the name Sprint might suggest,
04:06there's a lot more of a focus on aerodynamics and power transfer
04:09than there is on minimising the weight.
04:11And altogether, this bike comes in at just over 8 kilos,
04:13which isn't exactly feathery, but then it's not so heavy
04:16that it was going to make or break the attempt.
04:18Coming now to the groupset, we've got the SRAM Force AXS 2x12.
04:22I think that hydraulic disc brakes really lend themselves to an Everesting attempt.
04:26Rim brakes might be lighter, but with the disc brakes, the lighter lever action,
04:30with the amount of braking that an Everesting requires,
04:32being able to just pull yourself to a stop with a single finger
04:35is a lot less fatiguing when you're deep into the effort.
04:38For me, I think the most important thing when it comes to bike setup for an Everesting
04:41has got to be the gearing.
04:43As steep climbs are so much more efficient for completing the challenge
04:46in as quick a time as possible, you need to have gears that will allow you
04:49to turn a reasonable cadence while at a sustainable wattage.
04:52And for me, on my hill, that meant it was absolutely imperative
04:55that I did have at least a 1-to-1 bottom gear.
04:58And even that was treading a little bit of a tightrope.
05:00At the top of the hill, when the gradient ramps up for a final time,
05:03I was finding that I'd either have to push a little bit too high of a wattage
05:06or grind a little bit more than I'd want to.
05:09And so there's lots of one-tooth jumps between the smaller sprockets,
05:12but as you move out to the easier gears, the jumps between the gears get a little bit larger.
05:17Now, ordinarily, I think that this is great.
05:19You've got those small jumps when you're in the bigger gears and working hard,
05:22and when it comes to the steep climbs, you've got the range,
05:25and it doesn't really matter so much about having a bigger jump,
05:28because at that point, you kind of want an easier gear, whatever it is.
05:31If I was speccing the bike myself,
05:33I probably would have gone for Shimano's GRX groupset and an 11-32 cassette.
05:38Not only would that have given me a lower bottom gear,
05:40but for the final three sprockets, it goes 25-28-32,
05:44and those smaller jumps really would have made, I think, a pretty big difference.
05:48Coming now to the tyres, they were Vittoria's Rubino model in a size 28mm,
05:53and I have to say, I was very happy with them.
05:55They're not as lightweight or as fast as the Corsa model.
05:58They're by no means bad in either department,
06:00and the extra robustness they have as a consequence
06:02meant that I didn't get any punctures for the entire effort.
06:05I'm also running inner tubes rather than tubeless,
06:08and I think that if I was to do it again, I'd definitely change to tubeless.
06:11Particularly on that hill with a rough section down at the bottom,
06:14being able to drop a few psi and have a bit of a smoother ride
06:17would have made a very large difference towards the end.
06:19So, coming to my training, it wasn't too specific.
06:21I didn't know that I was going to be doing an Everest thing
06:23until a couple of weeks before when I happened to have a bike
06:25that was well-suited to the challenge.
06:28Over Christmas, I'd completed the Festa 500,
06:30and so that put a fair bit of volume into my legs.
06:32And through January and February, I'd been combining
06:34Zwift racing with some long endurance rides,
06:36and I think that combination of intensity and longer, steady efforts
06:39had a good effect on my fitness leading up to it.
06:41Climbing hills of a similar gradient to Filbostal would have really helped,
06:45but pedalling kinematics when you're going up something so steep
06:47at an endurance all-day pace
06:49are quite different to any of the other riding I was doing.
06:51And so, although I had the base fitness,
06:53I found that it was my joints that really started to suffer
06:56by the end of the effort.
06:58With the nutrition, I was keeping things simple.
07:00I had just three different fuels.
07:02I had an SIS energy powder for my water bottles,
07:04along with some chocolate mini-rolls for that fast-release energy.
07:07And the final food I had was that staple of long-distance effort,
07:10the sausage roll.
07:12I got most of my calories from the powder.
07:14I found that I couldn't really eat while going up the climb.
07:16It was just a bit too steep.
07:18And to be honest, my appetite for solid food wasn't the greatest.
07:20But even so, I made sure that every two hours,
07:22I'd have a quick stop at the top
07:24and grab a sausage roll and a mini-roll
07:26just to keep my stomach settled,
07:28as I find that I can start to suffer from cramps
07:30if I'm on an only liquid diet.
07:32I think that I did get the fueling spot on.
07:34I couldn't have consumed any more.
07:36I was on the verge of being too full throughout the whole thing.
07:38But even then, I'd only taken on about 4,300 calories
07:40through the duration of the effort,
07:42whilst Java reckons that I'd burned 8,000 calories.
07:44Coming now to the weather,
07:46another reason for wanting to get sub-12 hours
07:48was because I wanted to minimise the amount of time
07:50that I would be riding at night.
07:52Doing the Everest thing at the end of the winter
07:54meant that I would have to do some laps in the dark.
07:56With the weather conditions,
07:58it obviously really helped for it to be dry on the day.
08:00The rain just adds all sorts of complications
08:02with cornering, traction, braking,
08:04and more difficulties with layering
08:06and keeping warm and comfortable.
08:08Fortunately, the weather was stunning on the day
08:10with bright blue skies and the sun shining.
08:12As the winter still hadn't quite yet gone,
08:14I was wearing bib shorts with leg warmers
08:16and a thick winter jacket when I first set off.
08:18The temperature at the beginning was around about 1°C,
08:20and descending down the hill with the cold air slamming into you,
08:22you can get cold really quite quickly
08:24on the way down.
08:26But I was expecting the day to warm up,
08:28and so I did bring a lighter weight long-sleeved jersey.
08:30However, what I hadn't considered is that this would be
08:32the warmest day since the autumn,
08:34and even a long-sleeved jersey proved to be far too hot
08:36by even as early as 10.30 in the morning.
08:38The pacing, I think, is one of the most important parts
08:40of being able to complete an Everest thing.
08:42It's very tempting to go out far too hard on a hill
08:44and just end up burning yourself out
08:46before you complete the effort.
08:48After a few runs, I found that I could do a full lap,
08:50so up a hill and back down, in about 9 minutes 50 seconds.
08:52This was right at the top of my Zone 2.
08:54Although it would be hard work,
08:56it suggested that the effort was certainly doable.
08:58In the first six hours,
09:00I went out perhaps a little bit hard.
09:02My lap times were around about 9 minutes 30,
09:04which was a bit faster than I really needed.
09:06And the average watts I was picking out
09:08on the climb itself was about 250,
09:10which was just nudging into my Zone 3,
09:12and so a little bit too intense
09:14for an all-day effort.
09:16If I'd been perhaps doing more of a negative split
09:18rather than a positive split,
09:20if I'd gone out slightly easier
09:22and ramped up the pace at the end,
09:24I could maybe have gotten a better time.
09:26But to be honest, I'm not convinced it was the wrong decision
09:28to go out as hard as I did for the first half of the effort.
09:30Mentally, it really helped,
09:32feeling like I was ahead of time
09:34and I wasn't plagued with anxiety about mechanicals
09:36because I knew I had a bit of buffer to play with.
09:38And when the effort did start to bite
09:40at the end of the Everest thing,
09:42it was quite a relief to know that it was going to be okay
09:44With these intense rides, I tend to break things down into thirds.
09:46Before the start, I was a little bit worried
09:48about how I'd be feeling around about hour 9.
09:50I find that transition between the middle and the final third
09:52can really play on your mind,
09:54with the fatigue setting in but also the knowledge
09:56that you've got to do half as much as you've already done
09:58all over again.
10:00I find that in the final sixth,
10:02things tend to pick up quite a bit.
10:04The end is very much in sight by that point
10:06and it's a lot easier to carry on pushing.
10:08However, this time during the Everest thing,
10:10I didn't get that crunch point at the two-thirds point.
10:12It actually came a lot sooner.
10:14I was about seven and a half hours in
10:16and it was then that I was really starting to feel the effort.
10:18It's surprising how quickly the change did take place
10:20because just a few hours previously
10:22I was feeling as fresh as if I'd just started.
10:24At five hours in, I felt like I could keep on going
10:26all day, no problem.
10:28So there you go. That was my first Everest thing attempt.
10:30If you enjoyed this video, please be sure to give it
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10:34And if you have any questions, just drop them in the comments section
10:36down below and I'll do my best to answer them.