DON’T TRY EVERESTING IN JULY!

With only social distanced rides becoming the norm in the last few months more and more cyclists around the world have been taking the huge challenge, EVERESTING (a challenge where one continuously does repeats on a single climb till you reach a cumulative vertical ascent of 8848M).

Our team got interested and decided on take on the challenge on 10th July.

The most crucial part of Everesting is choice of climb, the traffic, the road quality and weather conditions of the day. Kijabe Hill would prove one of the most challenging route with constant vehicle traffic on the road, not to mention the crazy boda-boda cruising up and down the hill. The riders would face a Herculean task dealing with all these variables and in the chilly and wet July weather.

We had an early start, driving to Kijabe Hill on a cold and wet morning to start. A day after local travel restrictions were lifted there was major traffic at this time and took over an hour to get to the start point.

Getting to Kijabe town, we surveyed the route safety for the morning and decided to make with caution as the hairpins would prove a challenge on the descents. As per our calculations, we would need to do 22 ascents on the 5KM hill with an average gradient of almost 8%. The plan was to do two ascents per hour giving us approximately 12 hours to hit the target, it was going to be a long day.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The team set basecamp at the bottom of hill, ready with snacks to keep the efforts going with a local cafe providing us with much needed tea and coffee, temperatures averaged between 11°C-12°C and with drizzles most part of the morning. We also had to inform the area local security team that we would be in their locale for most of the day so they expected our basecamp within their premises.

The team kept at it and the day got a bit warmer and drier in the afternoon. With the fatigue setting in, the team kept gnawing at the task at hand with some stopping at the basecamp to refuel while some chose to refuel on the go; biting into sandwiches and fruits provided by Kuria and Kamau, and Moha.

• 

After 8Hours 58Minutes, Kenneth wrapped it up with BASECAMP Everest at 6324M elevation and Jordan 12Hours 25Minutes with a more than full EVEREST at 8946M becoming the official Everesting Record in Kenya, and East Africa.

Check out their rides on the links below;

https://www.strava.com/activities/3741462699

https://www.strava.com/activities/3742157132

A big kudos to the team who made it on the day.