Stefan successfully completed a sub-12 hour Everest attempt and here's what he learnt.
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00:00 Hi, my name's Stephan Abraham. I joined the Cycling Weekly Tech Team last year
00:03 and towards the tail end of the winter just been I decided to have a go at Everesting up one of my local climbs.
00:08 Having managed to successfully complete it, I thought that I'd share a little bit about what goes into choosing the climb
00:13 and pacing the effort and yeah, much else besides.
00:16 I was going through a sub 12 hour time. It has a nice ring to it. It's half day out on the bike and with six factors.
00:28 It's easily divisible. You can break it down into thirds, into quarters, into halves.
00:32 Lots of milestones to check off on the way.
00:34 But obviously pleasing arithmetic isn't the only consideration when it comes to setting a target
00:38 and I went out to the climb a few weeks previous.
00:41 And the data that I got showed that 12 hours was certainly possible but the margin for error was really quite small.
00:47 So one thing that has really been underlined to me is really the importance of the hill.
00:50 It's much more important than the bike or any prior training.
00:53 You can be as fit as you like with as fancy a bike but if you're on a rubbish hill
00:57 then it's going to be difficult to get a good time or even complete it at all.
01:00 And equally if your fitness isn't quite where you want it to be and your bike isn't the lightest,
01:04 a well-chosen hill can help provide a much more flattering time.
01:07 So there are three factors I think that are most important regarding the hill.
01:10 The first is the gradient and then the road condition and then the traffic.
01:14 With the gradient I think it's well accepted now that the steeper the hill the better.
01:17 I think that a while ago there were some that would argue that a more moderate gradient
01:21 would be friendly on the legs and therefore better suited to an endurance effort.
01:24 But ultimately it is a climbing challenge so if you can maximise the
01:27 metres gained and minimise the kilometres travelled you're going to end up with a faster time.
01:32 With the road condition this can be split into two different areas.
01:34 One is the actual surface of the road and the other is the bends.
01:37 And so obviously the smoother the road is the less rolling resistance you're going to have to overcome.
01:42 But also when you're descending the less drying it will feel on your hands
01:45 which can make a significant difference towards the end of the effort.
01:48 When it comes to the route that the road takes down the hill it's good to have one
01:51 which doesn't have any particularly nasty bends like 90 degree hairpins or anything particularly narrow.
01:58 Those looking for the very fastest times will be looking for a road which is arrow straight
02:02 and doesn't require touching the brakes at all on the way down.
02:05 So in regards to my hill I wouldn't say it was the perfect one but I think it hit each
02:08 of the criteria well enough and it definitely wasn't a bad choice to use.
02:11 The gradient averaged 10% which by today's standards isn't a particularly steep hill
02:16 to every stop and people are going on 15 or 20%.
02:18 Alright we're talking about the average gradient can hide the true nature of the hill.
02:22 Mine wasn't particularly consistent.
02:23 There are some sections which were quite flat and other sections which really ramped up.
02:27 But to be honest although that might not make it the most efficient climb
02:30 I find that the changes in gradient made it a lot more enjoyable to ascend time after time.
02:35 The need to change gear and go in and out the saddle made it a lot more interesting and engaging
02:39 than just slogging for 10 minutes in a single gear straight up and straight down
02:42 and yeah not having to think at all.
02:44 Regarding the road condition that's kind of a story of two halves.
02:47 On the top part of the climb the tarmac is completely smooth and couldn't really be better.
02:51 But down near the bottom there are some fairly large potholes and the surface itself is just
02:55 very washboardy and rough.
02:56 I had 20mm tyres on which did go some way to smoothing out the surface but by the end
03:02 I was really feeling it in my hands.
03:04 Regarding the traffic it isn't a through road.
03:06 There's a car park at the top and maybe a farmhouse just along the path a little bit.
03:10 And so you wouldn't expect there to be too many cars but I found when I cycled down
03:14 it was quite a bit busier than I would like.
03:16 Fortunately though I had the flexibility to do the attempt on a Friday and that went
03:20 a long way to cutting down the number of cars.
03:22 And so in all I was pretty happy with the climb.
03:25 The gradient and the road surface weren't too bad and nor was the traffic.
03:28 But although I do have local hills that are best for each one of each criteria I think
03:31 Fjällbostad was the best for all of them overall.
03:34 So a little bit about the bike.
03:35 Well the first thing to point out is it wasn't so much the challenge dictating the bike but
03:39 the bike dictating the challenge.
03:41 I had the 2021 Bianchi Sprint on test and when I noticed that the bottom gear was a
03:45 one-to-one ratio with a 33 tooth chainring and a 33 tooth sprocket on the cassette I
03:50 thought the opportunity for an Everesting was too good to pass up.
03:53 As this is just a completely stock setup there are some aspects of the bike which aren't
03:58 ideal for an Everesting.
03:59 So starting with the heart of the bike, the frame.
04:02 It's got a full carbon construction, the frame and the fork.
04:05 But as the name Sprint might suggest there's a lot more of a focus on aerodynamics and
04:08 power transfer than there is on minimizing the weight.
04:11 And altogether this bike comes in at just over 8 kilos which isn't exactly feathery
04:15 but then it's not so heavy that it was going to make or break the attempt.
04:18 Coming now to the groupset we've got the SRAM Force Axis 2x12.
04:22 I think that hydraulic disc brakes really lend themselves to an Everesting attempt.
04:26 Rim brakes might be lighter but with the disc brakes, the lighter lever action,
04:30 with the amount of braking that an Everesting requires being able to just pull yourself
04:34 to a stop with a single finger is a lot less fatiguing when you're deep into the effort.
04:38 For me I think the most important thing when it comes to bike setup for an Everesting has
04:42 got to be the gearing.
04:43 As steep climbs are so much more efficient for completing the challenge in as quick a
04:47 time as possible, you need to have gears that will allow you to turn a reasonable cadence
04:51 while at a sustainable wattage.
04:53 And for me, on my hill, that meant it was absolutely imperative that I did have at least
04:57 a one-to-one bottom gear.
04:58 And even that was treading a little bit of a tightrope.
05:01 At the top of the hill when the gradient ramps up for a final time I was finding that I'd
05:05 either have to push a little bit too high of a wattage or grind a little bit more than
05:08 I'd want to.
05:09 And so there's lots of one-tooth jumps between the smaller sprockets but as you move out
05:14 to the easier gears the jumps between the gears get a little bit larger.
05:17 Now ordinarily I think that this is great.
05:20 You've got those small jumps when you're in the bigger gears and working hard and when
05:23 it comes to the steep climbs you've got the range and it doesn't really matter so much
05:27 about having a bigger jump because at that point you kind of want an easier gear, whatever
05:31 it is.
05:32 If I was speccing the bike myself I probably would have gone for Shimano's GRX groupset
05:37 and an 11-32 cassette.
05:39 Not only would that have given me a lower bottom gear but for the finals three sprockets
05:43 it goes 25-28-32 and those smaller jumps really would have made I think a pretty big difference.
05:49 Coming now to the tyres they were Vittoria's Rubino model in a size 28mm and I have to
05:54 say I was very happy with them.
05:56 They're not as lightweight or as fast as the Corsa model.
05:59 They're by no means bad in either department and the extra robustness they have as a consequence
06:03 meant that I didn't get any punctures for the entire effort.
06:06 I'm also running inner tubes rather than tubeless and I think that if I was to do it
06:10 again I'd definitely change to tubeless.
06:11 Particularly on that hill with the rough section down at the bottom being able to drop a few
06:15 psi and have a bit of a smoother ride would have made a very large difference towards
06:19 the end.
06:20 So coming to my training it wasn't too specific.
06:22 I didn't know that I was going to be doing an Everest thing until a couple of weeks before
06:25 when I happened to have a bike that was well suited to the challenge.
06:28 Over Christmas I'd completed the Festa 500 and so that put a fair bit of volume into
06:32 my legs and through January and February I've been combining Zwift racing with some long
06:36 endurance rides and I think that combination of intensity and longer steady efforts had
06:40 a good effect on my fitness leading up to it.
06:42 Climbing hills of a similar gradient to Filbostal would have really helped but pedalling kinematics
06:46 when you're going up something so steep at an endurance all day pace are quite different
06:50 to any of the other riding I was doing.
06:52 And so although I had the base fitness I found that it was my joints that really started
06:56 to suffer by the end of the effort.
06:58 With the nutrition I was keeping things simple.
07:00 I had just three different fuels.
07:01 I had an SIS energy powder for my water bottles along with some chocolate mini rolls for that
07:06 fast release energy.
07:08 And the final food I had was that staple of long distance effort, the sausage roll.
07:12 I got most of my calories from the powder I found that I couldn't really eat while going
07:16 up the climb.
07:17 It was just a bit too steep and to be honest my appetite for solid food wasn't the greatest.
07:21 But even so I made sure that every two hours I'd have a quick stop at the top and grab
07:25 a sausage roll and a mini roll just to keep my stomach settled as I find that I can start
07:29 to suffer from cramps if I'm on the nodling liquid diet.
07:31 I think that I did get the fueling spot on.
07:34 I couldn't have consumed any more.
07:35 I was on the verge of being too full throughout the whole thing.
07:38 But even then I'd only taken on about 4,300 calories through the duration of the effort.
07:42 Whilst Strava reckons that I burned 8,000 calories.
07:45 Coming now to the weather.
07:47 Another reason for wanting to get sub 12 hours was because I wanted to minimize the amount
07:51 of time that I would be riding at night.
07:53 Doing the Everest thing at the end of the winter meant that I would have to do some
07:56 laps in the dark.
07:58 With the weather conditions it obviously really helped for it to be dry on the day.
08:01 Rain just adds all sorts of complications with cornering, traction, braking and more
08:05 difficulties with layering and keeping warm and comfortable.
08:08 Fortunately the weather was stunning on the day with bright blue skies and the sun shining.
08:12 As the winter still hadn't quite yet gone I was wearing bib shorts with leg warmers
08:15 and a thick winter jacket when I first set off.
08:18 The temperature at the beginning was around about one degree and descending down the hill
08:21 with the cold air slamming into you, you can get cold really quite quickly on the way down.
08:25 But I was expecting the day to warm up and so I did bring a lighter weight long sleeve
08:29 jersey.
08:30 However what I hadn't considered is that this would be the warmest day since the autumn
08:33 and even a long sleeve jersey proved to be far too hot by even as early as 10 30 in the
08:37 morning.
08:38 The pacing I think is one of the most important parts of being able to complete an Everest
08:41 thing.
08:42 It's very tempting to go out far too hard on a hill and just end up burning yourself
08:46 out before you complete the effort.
08:48 From my recce runs I found that I could do a full lap, so up the hill and back down in
08:51 about 9 minutes 50 seconds.
08:53 This was right at the top of my zone 2.
08:56 Although it would be hard work it suggested that the effort was certainly doable.
09:00 In the first 6 hours I went out perhaps a little bit hard, my lap times were around
09:04 about 9 minutes 30 which was a bit faster than I really needed.
09:07 And the average watts I was picking out on the climb itself was about 250 which was just
09:11 nudging into my zone 3 and so a little bit too intense for an all day effort.
09:15 And so perhaps doing more of a negative split rather than a positive split if I had gone
09:20 out slightly easier and ramped up the pace at the end I could maybe have gotten a better
09:24 time.
09:25 But to be honest I'm not convinced it was the wrong decision to go out as hard as I did
09:28 for the first half of the effort.
09:30 Mentally it really helped feeling like I was ahead of time and I wasn't plagued with anxiety
09:34 about mechanicals because I knew I had a bit of buffer to play with.
09:36 And when the effort did start to bite at the end of the Everest thing it was quite a relief
09:40 to know that it was going to be okay if I backed off the effort a little bit.
09:43 When it comes to endurance rides I tend to break things down into thirds.
09:47 Before the start I was a little bit worried about how I'd be feeling around about hour
09:50 9.
09:50 I find that transition between the middle and the final third can really play on your
09:54 mind.
09:54 With the fatigue setting in but also the knowledge that you've got to do half as much as you've
09:58 already done all over again.
09:59 I find that in the final sixth things tend to pick up quite a bit.
10:03 The end is very much in sight by that point and it's a lot easier to carry on pushing.
10:07 However this time during the Everest thing I didn't get that crunch point at the two
10:11 thirds point.
10:12 It actually came a lot sooner.
10:13 I was about seven and a half hours in and it was then that I was really starting to
10:17 feel the effort.
10:18 It was surprising how quickly the change did take place because just a few hours previously
10:22 I was feeling as fresh as if I'd just started.
10:24 At five hours in I felt like I could keep on going all day no problem.
10:28 So there you go that was my first Everesting attempt.
10:30 If you enjoyed this video please be sure to give it a like and subscribe for more and
10:34 if you have any questions just drop them in the comments section down below and I'll
10:37 do my best to answer them.