Everesting: to infinity and beyond

There are three faculties in man: reason that clarifies and dominates; the courage or spirit that acts, and the senses that obey

Plato

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–We made the big jump in the media when Alberto Contador came in –Andy van Bergen (45) tells me.

He invites me to visit the Instagram of the cyclist, former champion of the Tour, the Giro and the Vuelta in the first two decades of this century.

I’m going to July 2020. Three months have passed since the end of confinement. By then, Contador had already been retired from the professional peloton for three years. On the networks I see him touring the Navacerrada pass: 78 laps of a circuit with an average slope of 12% and peaks of 20%.

At the end of the challenge, Contador says: ‘Everesting surpassed.’

I had invested 148 km and 7h33m. So, it was the challenge record. It had added 8,848 m of positive gradient, equivalent to the ascent of Everest.

–How could I imagine that Contador was going to try it? –Andy van Bergen tells me–. Until then, I told myself: ‘One day we will reach 500 attempts.’ And look, today we have more than 31,000: because after Contador came Cavendish. Jens Voigt pedaled through the snow. It seemed crazy, but it’s Jens Voigt! Thomas de Gendt challenged Richie Porte…

-And you?

–I have done it thirteen times. Once I almost burst: pedaling a mountain bike near Melbourne, on a muddy and rainy day, I had to put timbers on the road because the surface was so slippery that, when ascending, I had no traction. But let me tell you the story from the beginning – he insists.

The big jump

The challenge became popular in 2020, when Alberto Contador signed an Everesting in the port of Navacerrada

I watch him while he takes a sip of the black tea that has been served to him on a terrace in Francesc Macià Square (a couple of hours later he will board a plane and goodbye, to his Australia, which he will return to).

(…)

In 1994, George Mallory set out to evoke his grandfather, George Mallory, the British explorer whose body, seventy years earlier, had disappeared on the northeast face of Everest.

To honor his grandfather, George Mallory, his grandson, had planned to circle Mount Donna Buang ten times, a 1,245 meter high mountain whose views, from the east, extend over Melbourne: by completing this challenge, the man was going to accumulate a total positive slope of 8,848 meters.

–8,848 m? Because?

–Because 8,848 m is the height of Everest, the top of the world.

“Mallory spent twenty hours finishing the tribute,” Andy van Bergen tells me.

The founder

Andy van Bergen would have settled for 400 attempts; Today, the community adds 31,000 challenges

The man is as fine as a professional cyclist and speaks quickly and with a thick accent, like any other. aussieand he quickly tells me that Mallory Grandson’s challenge was going to inspire him twenty years later, when he said to himself:

–To be happy in life, isn’t it better to set challenges?

So this is about mythomanias, about legends like George Mallory and Everest, about impossible heights and distances that spread on all four sides.

Andy van Bergen gave the challenge a name: Everesting.

(The reader will agree: it is a very modern name, right?)

The challengers

The concept was born as an idea for cyclists, but runners, even divers, try it

–And what does it consist of?

–No more nor less than regulating that tribute that George Mallory grandson had paid to his grandfather – Andy van Bergen tells me.

(I write down very quickly in the notebook, because the man continues speaking very quickly).

–The first Everesting challenge was launched in February 2014 –he tells me now.

On that weekend, 150 community members attempted their local Everesting. Riding his bicycle, some attempted Everesting in Australia itself, for example on Mount Donna Buang. Another, in South Africa. Or in the United States.

–45 applicants completed it –Van Bergen tells me–. And the event had a great international impact. Radios followed, lots of newspapers… And since then, things happen every weekend. And there are 16 countries organizing activities frequently.

The inspiration

In 1994, George Mallory grandson circled Mount Donna Buang ten times to honor his grandfather.

–And how is the challenge done? Should it be by bicycle?

–The challenge was born for the bicycle. However, very soon others appeared and suggested I do it quickly. I replied: ‘Well, go ahead too.’ My idea is simply to inspire people. Over time, unicycle specialists have already tried it. Manuel Scheidegger has completed it by doing the wheelie. Ross Edgley, climbing: going up and down hard, over and over again, has totaled 8,848 m.

(This weekend, the Catalan Joan Losantos has traveled 116.19 km along the trails of Collserola, Tibidabo up and down, in 21h29m01s, totaling 8,867 meters, slightly more than necessary).

–On one occasion, in California – Andy van Bergen tells me – a scuba diver spent 16 hours diving the 8,848 m. The man would dive to 70 or 80 meters, go up and go back down… When I created this idea, he told me: ‘It would be good if I can form a community of a few thousand members, I don’t know, three or four thousand.’ There are now 150,000 members following the challenges online or contacting me to set up events somewhere in the world.

(Whoever attempts the challenge uploads the route on Strava; this is how the Everesting community approves an attempt; in May, van Bergen’s team set up a sort of World Championship of Everesting in Ordino Arcalís).

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