You may have noticed in recent months that with professional racing suspended, other than taking part in races on Zwift one of the few ways professional cyclists can fulfil their competitive instincts right now is through Everesting – climbing on your bike the equivalent gain in altitude as the world’s highest mountain.
So, step forward Lachlan Morton of EF Pro Cycling, who has become the latest man to claim the world record, taking 7 hours, 32 minutes, 54 seconds to make an altitude gain of 8,848 metres.
The Australian, who is based in Boulder, Colorado, climbed Rist Canyon, near Fort Collins, Colorado, 42 times to claim the record.
It’s a short climb – 1.9 kilometres – but not the easiest one, with an average gradient of 11 per cent.
His average power output was 276 Watts, and he went through 6,891 calories during his effort.
Chapeau.
It's not even the first record that Morton, who is as comfortable riding the trails as he is on the road (past victories include last year's inauguraql GBDuro bikepacking raec) has set this week.
> World Tour pro Lachlan Morton wins “unimaginably hard” GBDURO bike-packing event
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Nobody commented on his riding position, I take it?
Has anyone told Phil yet?
Pfftt, call me when someone achieves a real challenge, like Olympus Monsing. Or watching an entire Coronavirus briefing without switching off in disgust.
Yes, but did he use oxygen and how many sherpas to carry the gear?
You raise a good point - to add realism to these 'Everesting' challenges, contestants should be wearing a mask which progressively restricts their oxygen intake
To be fair, this has been at a higher altitude than a lot of other attempts, I believe the base of the canyon is at around 2000m elevation
And getting progressively colder, with avalanches.
And yetis. Don't forget the yetis
You have to do a double to see the Yeti's. After 14,000m you see all sorts. Weather it's actually there or not is debatable.
Presumably the Yetis are providing neutral service support?
Entertaining account of trying to Everest on Everest on CyclingTips: https://cyclingtips.com/2017/12/roadtripping-everest/
Fabulous photos too.