Emma Bateup has a reputation for doing things some might think are crazy, so it wasn’t too surprising when she decided to take up the Everest MTB challenge. Everesting as it is known, is when you pick a hill and complete repeats of it in a single activity until you climb 8,848m, the equivalent height of Mt Everest.
We caught up with Emma after the challenge and got her to take us through the big day and find out what it takes to climb to to the highest point on earth.
Beep, beep, beep
0000 – Alarm goes off after four broken hours of sleep. Get dressed, grab a muffin and banana for the drive and chuck the Hightower on the back of the car.
0015 – Drive to the Codgers MTB park while eating and drinking as much as my body is capable of at midnight.
0030 – Find myself an easy access spot in the carpark, bike off car, lights on, fill pockets with a few hours of snacks.
0045 – Go time, press play on my Garmin and start pedaling.
0125 – First lap done, warmer than I thought, ditch a layer. First tally mark, 29 more to go!
0245 – Three laps down, back to the car for more food and water. Eating on those first laps was crucial, it made me feel sick at the time, but I would need the energy for the rest of the day.
0320 – Halfway down the descent of lap 4, wondering how I’d be able to tell when my light was about to run out of battery, a few corners later, complete darkness! Luckily I had my small commuter light to fumble my way down the hill with.
0330 – Grab my other battery from the car, stuff my face with food, back up I went.
0625 – Top of the 8th lap, checked my phone to find a message from my mate Nige saying that he was waiting at the bottom 20 minutes prior, quickly rode down as he was excited to get moving after the wait.
0715 – Ticked off another one with the much-appreciated company.
0750 – 10 laps done, a third of the way there. Back to the car for food and water to keep me rolling for another three laps. Found some company for half a lap too.
1000 – Back to the carpark to find Alice and her dog Maze who came for a couple of laps, and took my light batteries away to charge, note to self- find more batteries for the next one!
1145 – Hit halfway, 4460m climbed, which would be a massive day anyway, but knowing I was about to do it all again was a pretty crazy mental experience.
1225 – My pedal had been feeling a bit funny during the last lap and starting up the next climb I looked down to find it had nearly undone itself, I quickly stopped and tightened it back up hoping it wasn’t going to become an issue.
1248 – Having had to stop and tighten it up another couple of times I had realised it had partly seized and would continue to cause problems, I decided on an Instagram SOS call to see if someone could bring some to me.
1255 – The power of social media, a mate had seen my story and said he could drop some off, absolute legend!
1330 – Struggled my way through another lap having to keep stopping to tighten it up.
1408 – Finished the lap to find a set of pedals at the bottom, quickly swapped them over and set off for another one.
1500 – Back to the car to resupply, I found Mel on her E-bike who had come along with food and encouragement. I was spending too much time faffing at the car so she said she’d see me at the top, probably a good thing that I wasn’t trying to keep up with her up the hill!
1555 – Made my way back up to the top to find most of the Schroder family along with my dad and his mate all keen to see how I was going and give their support. Also marked two thirds of the way there.
1800 – Another couple of laps down and back to the car to meet Alice who had brought my charged batteries along with Maccas fries and ice cream, man that hit the spot! Wanting to smash out the final laps I carried a heap of food up to the bottom of the track so I wouldn’t have to go back to the car again. Nige reappeared for some more laps too.
1830 – Joined at the top by Alex for the first of a few party trains down.
1840 – Rocky managed to bump into us partway down to join for some laps.
1915 – Flicked the lights on as darkness set back in, with everyone out the company helped pass the time and kept things positive.
1925 – Joined by Martin and Brady as a couple of the others left, Brady chose hype over hydration and brought a speaker in his bottle cage.
2150 – Fuelled by tunes and fun descents we smashed out the next few laps and Martin took a lap out to shoot home and grab some more food and lights just in case.
2240 – It had started getting colder and riding down the hill became hard work, however the end was in sight, so we kept rolling.
2340 – One more lap to go, started needing a few stops during the laps due to stomach pains but looked to still be on target to go sub 24hrs.
0025 – Top of the final lap, a QOM attempt on the downhill was suggested but I’m sure that would have ended terribly so we went with the safe option.
0035 – Back up to do the bottom half of crazy horse again to add on a couple of buffer meters.
0042 – Down to the car and stopped, 23hrs and 57minutes after I’d started, with 20hrs and 6minutes moving time having climbed 8,878m over 210km.
0055 – Thanked the guys for getting me through the last few and they headed home, I loaded up the bike and chucked everything in the car.
0100 – Crawled my way home trying not to doze off, thankfully the roads are empty at that time of night.
0110 – Home and into the shower which I made it through without falling asleep.
0120 – Into bed and it was the quickest I’ve ever fallen asleep in my life.
Good Night zzzzzzz
Well done Emma on this epic achievement. Keep up with all of Emma’s crazy adventures on instagram