Everesting

An Adventure Syndicate peer pressure production

By James Robertson

“The most absurd, unnecessary, pointless challenge: eight thousand, nine hundred and forty meters; 88 laps of a quite nice hill, actually, that I now know intimately. Perhaps a little longer than it needed to be, two hundred and how many miles? Lots of miles. One hundred and eighty four miles. God, I mean I haven't ridden that far for a very long time.”

Philippa Battye

At 4am I find Phil in a layby at the bottom of a hill just outside of Bath. It’s pitch black as she puts on a high vis vest, turns on bike lights and boots up her GPS - though not the one which is somewhere in the verge having bounced off when she scouted the hill earlier in the week. We manage a brief hello and she promptly sets off on her first lap.

To say lap is slightly inaccurate as the rules of Everesting are strict and an actual loop runs the risk of each descent providing momentum for the return journey. Instead it is an out-and-back; up the hill, turn around at the top, ride down, turn around and repeat. Only 5.3% of Everesters are women and while on an Adventure Syndicate camp with her friend Alice, who holds the record for the fastest woman, a plan was hatched. Lee Craigie, Jenny Graham and Philippa all agreed to do an Everest - before Spring to keep it out of their race seasons - and do their small part to redress the balance.

“Peer pressure is why I did it”

The sky slowly brightens and the birds in the surrounding trees wake up. An easy hill at an easy pace. The laps keep steadily coming as Phil works her way through the food sprawled in the back of her car and tally marks cover progressively more of her arms and gloves, occasionally being replaced by a folded jersey sleeve or the hem of her shorts when she forgets to take the pen with her.

It’s early in the morning before Phillipa reaches 8800m of climbing and it’s clear the final few climbs are incredibly hard work. This is a very lonely hill to spin up and down at 1am.

“It's funny actually, midway through it I was thinking yeah I can see how this could get addictive and now I'm like no way. But in saying that I'd probably rather do that for training than sit on an indoor bike or turbo trainer which I don't do. It is repetitive and you are just seeing the same thing but it's better than just seeing nothing isn't it? It’s fresh views and you see the same thing but you notice something different every time you go up that hill; you hear different sounds.”