The upcoming UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda may have made headlines for having some of the toughest routes in history, but they pale in comparison to a new event taking place 3,000 miles away this weekend: the inaugural Everesting World Championships.
This Saturday, on the Italian island of Sicily, around 100 intrepid cyclists will take part in the first edition of the event, climbing 8,848m on their bikes – the height of Mount Everest. For the setting, the organisers have chosen another iconic mountain, the active volcano Mount Etna, which participants will have to scale seven times; at 23km long, that’s 161km of climbing alone, plus 138km of descents – almost 300km in total.
One of those responsible for organising the championships is Andy van Bergen, the founder of cycling’s Everesting Challenge. His dream is to create an equivalent of Ironman’s flagship Kona event, where some 2,500 athletes competed this year.
“It’s something we’ve been asked about forever,” Van Bergen told Cycling Weekly. “We wanted something big and iconic.”
Asked who’s on the start list, Van Bergen said it’s the “usual suspects” of the Everesting community; there’s Illi Gardner, the current women’s world record holder (8 hours, three minutes and 29 seconds) and owner of more than 8,000 Strava QOMs, Jack Thompson, an Australian ultra-cyclist who rode one million vertical meters in a year in 2022, Sarah Ruggins, who broke the John o’ Groats to Land’s End and back record this spring, and Jack Burke, holder of the Strava KOMs on the Stelvio and Mortirolo Passes.
“I’m super interested to meet with this guy Victor [Asenov],” added Van Bergen, “who’s a blind ultra-runner and jumping on a tandem bike with his stoker to do an Everesting.”
The winners of the Everesting World Championships will receive a trophy that contains volcanic rock chiselled from Etna’s surface. As the event is not UCI sanctioned, there will be no rainbow jersey – “I think if we used a rainbow jersey, the UCI would shut us down in about two seconds,” Van Bergen laughs – although the organisers have made their own unique design.
The current men’s Everesting world record is six hours, 40 minutes and 54 seconds, set by Ronan McLaughlin on Ireland’s Mamore Gap (810m at 14.2%) in 2021. Saturday’s Etna ascent is longer and shallower (23km at around 6%), meaning the entrants will need to ride more than twice the distance to reach the 8,848m of elevation gain.
“I don’t think we’re going to see an Everesting world record broken, but I do expect to see some pretty spicy times going up there,” said Van Bergen. “For me, personally, I’m looking forward to just getting together and connecting with some of the most incredible, inspiring ultra-athletes in the world. It’s always fun talking and riding bikes.”
Though busy with organising duties, Van Bergen hopes to have time to hop on his bike and complete a quarter Everesting (2,212m) alongside the participants.
Next year the Everesting Challenge founder plans to launch a series of up to eight events, predominantly across Europe, which will welcome all abilities, and also act as qualifiers for the World Championships. These will take place in “locations you don’t need to Google”, Van Bergen highlights, that are “iconic” in cycling.
“There’s been a couple of pros and former pro riders that are like, ‘Hey, why didn’t we know about this?’,” he added. “Maybe next year[‘s World Championship event] is going to have quite a few more names.”
