Anyone who has ever ridden an Everesting – or attempted to do so – will be quick to talk about how difficult it is. It's hard to conjure up a one-ride challenge that gets any harder.
Well, that is exactly what Austrian ultra-cyclist Max Riese did when he took the Everest challenge to the next level, setting a new record for a triple Everesting.
Repping his local climb of Gaisberg just outside of Salzburg, the 32-year-old took a total of 37hrs 37min to complete the 26,553m of vertical ascent, over a distance of 491km. It saw him beat the previous record – set only nine weeks ago and also in Austria – by nearly three hours.
Riding often alone, Riese faced heavy rain in the final hours as he eked out the final 1,000 metres of ascent. He finished at 6:37pm on the second day, having spent less than three hours off the bike.
Afterwards he wrote on his Strava activity, titled 'Triple Everesting world record': "That was harder than I thought. Also all the rain in the world came down on me in the last two hours. Even in the rain I didn't ride alone. Than[k] you everyone that came out and cheered me on, rode with me and handed me Coke and more. Salzburg people you are amazing."
A veteran of major ultra bikepacking events such as the Tour Divide, Hellenic Mountain Race and the Silk Road Mountain Race, the distance is unlikely to have worried Riese at all. The ascent though, well that is something else.
He set out at 5am to begin the ride on the Gaisberg – a climb that features often in his usual training runs – uttering the immortal words to camera, "see you around I guess" as he pedalled off.
It took him somewhat over 10 hours to pass the first Everesting on the 11.8km climb, which features an average gradient of 6.8%, but with ramps near the top of well over 20%, according to the VeloViewer stats.
Having ridden through a wet night, the ride began to bite, and going through the 20-hour mark the film crew from Riese's saddle sponsor Posedla, noted that he was starting to look "like a zombie… but somehow he managed to rally."
"It felt very special to me personally and will keep a unique reserved spot for the memories in my slightly damaged brain," he wrote on Instagram.
"In fact you must wonder: "What is wrong with your brain to go up and down the same climb 95 times?!?
"Surprisingly I was barely ever riding alone. At times up to 12 other riders with questionable wiring in their brains came to ride with me. Even more people came to cheer, run next to me, shout at me and hand me bottles of juice and coke."
Given how quickly the previous record was taken, Riese's mark may not last forever, but no doubt his memories of the effort will. As he said afterwards: “This isn’t about proving anything, it’s crazy, yes, but this was personal."
