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.
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.
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.”
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.”
