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.
00:01 I joined the Cycling Weekly Tech Team last year,
00:03 and towards the tail end of the winter just been,
00:05 I decided to have a go at Everesting
00:07 up one of my local climbs.
00:08 Having managed to successfully complete it,
00:10 I thought that I'd share a little bit
00:12 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.
00:24 It has a nice ring to it.
00:25 It's half day out on the bike and with six factors,
00:28 it's easily divisible.
00:29 You can break it down into thirds,
00:30 into quarters, into halves,
00:32 lots of milestones to check off on the way.
00:34 But obviously pleasing arithmetic
00:35 isn't the only consideration
00:37 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
00:43 was certainly possible,
00:44 but the margin for error was really quite small.
00:46 So one thing that has really been underlined to me
00:48 is really the importance of the hill.
00:50 It's much more important than the bike
00:52 or any prior training.
00:53 You can be as fit as you like with as fancy a bike,
00:55 but if you're on a rubbish hill,
00:57 then it's going to be difficult to get a good time
00:58 or even complete it at all.
01:00 And equally, if your fitness isn't quite where
01:02 you want it to be and your bike isn't the lightest,
01:04 a well-chosen hill can help provide
01:06 a much more flattering time.
01:07 So there are three factors I think that are most important
01:10 regarding the hill.
01:11 The first is the gradient and then the road condition
01:13 and then the traffic.
01:14 With the gradient, I think it's well accepted now
01:16 that the steeper the hill, the better.
01:17 I think that a while ago,
01:18 there were some that would argue
01:19 that a more moderate gradient would be friendly on the legs
01:22 and therefore better suited to an endurance effort.
01:24 But ultimately it is a climbing challenge.
01:26 So if you can maximise the metres gained
01:28 and minimise the kilometres travelled,
01:30 you're going to end up with a faster time.
01:32 With the road condition,
01:33 this can be split into two different areas.
01:34 One is the actual surface of the road
01:36 and the other is the bends.
01:37 And so obviously the smoother the road is,
01:40 the less rolling resistance you're going to have to overcome
01:42 but also when you're descending,
01:43 the less drying it will feel on your hands,
01:45 which can make a significant difference
01:47 towards the end of the effort.
01:48 When it comes to the route that the road takes down the hill,
01:51 it's good to have one which doesn't have
01:52 any particularly nasty bends,
01:54 like 90 degree hairpins or anything particularly narrow.
01:58 Those looking for the very fastest times
01:59 will be looking for a road which is arrow straight
02:02 and doesn't require touching the brakes
02:03 at all on the way down.
02:05 So in regards to my hill,
02:06 I wouldn't say it was the perfect one
02:07 but I think it hit each of the criteria well enough
02:09 and it definitely wasn't a bad choice to use.
02:11 The gradient averaged 10%,
02:13 which by today's standards isn't a particularly steep hill
02:15 to Everest on, people are going on 15 or 20%.
02:18 However, talking about the average gradient
02:20 can hide the true nature of a hill.
02:22 Mine wasn't particularly consistent.
02:23 There are some sections which were quite flat
02:25 and other sections which really ramped up.
02:27 But to be honest,
02:28 although that might not make it the most efficient climb,
02:30 I find that the changes in gradient
02:32 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
02:37 made it a lot more interesting and engaging
02:39 than just slogging for 10 minutes in a single gear
02:41 straight up and straight down
02:42 and not having to think at all.
02:44 Regarding the road condition,
02:45 that's kind of a story of two halves.
02:47 On the top part of the climb,
02:48 the tarmac is completely smooth
02:50 and couldn't really be better.
02:51 But down near the bottom,
02:52 there are some fairly large potholes
02:53 and the surface itself is just very washboardy and rough.
02:57 I had 20 millimeter tires on,
02:58 which did go some way to smoothing out the surface,
03:01 but by the end, 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
03:07 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,
03:13 but I found when I cycled down,
03:14 it was quite a bit busier than I would like.
03:16 Fortunately, though, I have the flexibility
03:17 to do the attempt on a Friday
03:19 and that went 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
03:26 and there was the traffic.
03:28 But although I do have local hills
03:29 that are best for each one of these criteria,
03:31 I think Fjällbostån 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
03:37 is it wasn't so much the challenge dictating the bike,
03:39 but the bike dictating the challenge.
03:41 I had the 2021 Bianchi Sprint on test.
03:43 And when I noticed that the bottom gear
03:45 was a one-to-one ratio with a 33-tooth chain ring
03:48 and a 33-tooth sprocket on the cassette,
03:50 I thought the opportunity for an Everesting
03:52 was too good to pass up.
03:53 As this is just a completely stock setup,
03:56 there are some aspects of the bike
03:57 which aren't 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,
04:03 the frame and the fork.
04:05 But as the name Sprint might suggest,
04:06 there's a lot more of a focus on aerodynamics
04:08 and power transfer than there is on minimizing the weight.
04:11 And altogether, this bike comes in at just over eight kilos,
04:13 which isn't exactly feathery,
04:15 but then it's not so heavy
04:16 that it was going to make or break the attempt.
04:18 Coming now to the groupset,
04:19 we've got the SRAM Force AXS 2x12.
04:22 I think that hydraulic disc brakes
04:23 really lend themselves to an Everesting attempt.
04:26 Rim brakes might be lighter,
04:27 but with the disc brakes, the lighter lever action,
04:30 with the amount of braking that an Everesting requires,
04:32 being able to just pull yourself to a stop
04:34 with a single finger is a lot less fatiguing
04:36 when you're deep into the effort.
04:38 For me, I think the most important thing
04:40 when it comes to bike setup for an Everesting
04:41 has got to be the gearing.
04:43 As steep climbs are so much more efficient
04:45 for completing the challenge in as quick a time as possible,
04:48 you need to have gears that will allow you
04:49 to turn a reasonable cadence
04:51 while at a sustainable wattage.
04:53 And for me, on my hill,
04:54 that meant it was absolutely imperative
04:55 that I did have at least 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,
05:01 when the gradient ramps up for a final time,
05:04 I was finding that I'd either have to push
05:05 a little bit too high of a wattage
05:07 or grind a little bit more than I'd want to.
05:09 And so there's lots of one-tooth jumps
05:11 between the smallest sprockets,
05:13 but as you move out to the easier gears,
05:15 the jumps between the gears get a little bit larger.
05:17 Now, ordinarily, I think that this is great.
05:19 You've got those small jumps
05:21 when you're in the bigger gears and working hard.
05:23 And when it comes to the steep climbs,
05:25 you've got the range and it doesn't really matter so much
05:27 about having a bigger jump,
05:28 because at that point you kind of want an easier gear,
05:31 whatever it is.
05:32 If I was speccing the bike myself,
05:34 I probably would have gone for Shimano's GRX groupset
05:36 and an 11-32 cassette.
05:39 Not only would that have given me a lower bottom gear,
05:41 but for the finals three sprockets,
05:43 it goes 25, 28, 32.
05:45 And those smaller jumps really would have made,
05:47 I think, a pretty big difference.
05:49 Coming now to the tires,
05:50 they were Vittoria's Rubino model in a size 28 millimeters.
05:54 And I have to say, I was very happy with them.
05:56 They're not as lightweight or as fast as the Corsa model,
05:59 but by no means bad in either department.
06:01 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,
06:08 and I think that if I was to do it again,
06:10 I'd definitely change to tubeless.
06:11 Particularly on that hill
06:13 with a rough section down at the bottom,
06:14 being able to drop a few PSI and have a bit of a smoother ride
06:17 would have made a very large difference towards 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
06:24 until a couple of weeks before
06:25 when I happened to have a bike
06:26 that was well suited to the challenge.
06:28 Over Christmas, I'd completed the Festa 500,
06:30 and so that put a fair bit of volume into my legs.
06:32 And through January and February,
06:34 I've been combining Zwift racing
06:35 with some long endurance rides.
06:37 And I think that combination of intensity
06:38 and longer, steady efforts
06:40 had a good effect on my fitness leading up to it.
06:42 Climbing hills of a similar gradient to Filbostal
06:44 would have really helped.
06:46 But pedaling kinematics when you're going up something
06:47 so steep at an endurance all-day pace
06:50 were quite different to any of the other riding I was doing.
06:52 And so, although I had the base fitness,
06:54 I found that it was my joints
06:55 that really started 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,
07:05 along with some chocolate mini rolls
07:06 for that fast release energy.
07:08 And the final food I had was that staple
07:09 of long distance effort, the sausage roll.
07:12 I got most of my calories from the powder.
07:14 I found that I couldn't really eat while going up the climb.
07:17 It was just a bit too steep.
07:18 And to be honest, my appetite for solid food
07:20 wasn't the greatest.
07:21 But even so, I made sure that every two hours,
07:23 I'd have a quick stop at the top
07:24 and grab a sausage roll and a mini roll
07:26 just to keep my stomach settled.
07:28 As I find that I can start to suffer from cramps
07:29 if I'm on an only liquid diet.
07:32 I think that I did get the fueling spot on.
07:34 I couldn't have consumed anymore.
07:35 I was on the verge of being too full
07:36 throughout the whole thing.
07:38 But even then, I'd only taken on about 4,300 calories
07:41 through the duration of the effort.
07:42 Whilst Strava reckons that I burned 8,000 calories.
07:46 Coming now to the weather,
07:47 another reason for wanting to get sub 12 hours
07:49 was because I wanted to minimize the amount of time
07:51 that I would be riding at night.
07:53 Doing the Everest thing at the end of the winter
07:55 meant that I would have to do some laps in the dark.
07:58 With weather conditions,
07:59 it obviously really helps for it to be dry on the day.
08:01 Rain just adds all sorts of complications
08:03 with cornering, traction, braking,
08:05 and more difficulties with layering
08:06 and keeping warm and comfortable.
08:08 Fortunately, the weather was stunning on the day
08:09 with bright blue skies and the sun shining.
08:12 As the winter still hadn't quite yet gone,
08:13 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
08:20 and descending down the hill
08:21 with the cold air slamming into you,
08:23 you can get cold really quite quickly on the way down.
08:25 But I was expecting the day to warm up
08:27 and so I did bring a lighter weight long sleeve jersey.
08:30 However, what I hadn't considered
08:31 is that this would be the warmest day since the autumn.
08:33 And even a long sleeve jersey
08:35 proved to be far too hot
08:36 by even as early as 10.30 in the morning.
08:38 The pacing I think is one of the most important parts
08:40 of being able to complete an Everest thing.
08:42 It's very tempting to go out far too hard on a hill
08:44 and just end up burning yourself out
08:46 before you complete the effort.
08:47 From my recce runs, I found that I could do a full lap,
08:50 so up a hill and back down in about nine minutes, 50 seconds.
08:53 This was right at the top of my zone two,
08:56 although it would be hard work,
08:57 it suggested that the effort was certainly doable.
09:00 In the first six hours,
09:01 I went out perhaps a little bit hard.
09:02 My lap times were around about nine minutes, 30,
09:05 which was a bit faster than I really needed.
09:07 And the average watts I was picking out
09:08 on the climb itself was about 250,
09:11 which was just nudging into my zone three.
09:13 And so a little bit too intense
09:14 for an all day effort.
09:16 And so perhaps doing more of a negative split
09:18 rather than a positive split,
09:19 if I'd gone out slightly easier
09:21 and ramped up the pace at the end,
09:23 I could maybe have gotten a better time.
09:25 But to be honest,
09:25 I'm not convinced it was the wrong decision
09:27 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
09:31 I was ahead of time
09:32 and I wasn't plagued with anxiety about mechanicals
09:35 'cause I knew I had a bit of buffer to play with.
09:36 And when the effort did start to bite
09:38 at the end of the Everest thing,
09:39 it was quite a relief to know that
09:40 it was going to be okay
09:41 if I backed off the effort a little bit.
09:43 When it comes to endurance rides,
09:45 I tend to break things down into thirds.
09:47 Before the start,
09:48 I was a little bit worried about how I'd be feeling
09:49 around about hour nine.
09:50 I find that transition between the middle
09:52 and the final third can really play on your mind
09:54 with the fatigue setting in,
09:55 but also the knowledge that you've got to do
09:57 half as much as you've already done all over again.
10:00 I find that in the final six,
10:01 things tend to pick up quite a bit.
10:03 The end is very much in sight by that point
10:05 and it's a lot easier to carry on pushing.
10:08 However, this time during the Everest thing,
10:09 I didn't get that crunch point at the two thirds point.
10:12 It actually came a lot sooner
10:13 I was about seven and a half hours in
10:15 and it was then that I was really starting
10:17 to feel the effort.
10:18 It's surprising how quickly the change did take place
10:20 'cause just a few hours previously,
10:22 I was feeling as fresh as if I'd just started.
10:24 At five hours in,
10:25 I felt like I could keep on going all day, no problem.
10:28 So there you go.
10:29 That was my first Everest thing attempt.
10:30 If you enjoy this video,
10:31 please be sure to give it a like and subscribe for more.
10:34 And if you have any questions,
10:35 just drop them in the comment section down below
10:37 and I'll do my best to answer them.
10:39 (whooshing)