Everest Challenge

HEART BRAKE RIDGE EVEREST CHALLENGE

Words - Mat Clark & Will Gell / Photos - Dean Smith

The Concept

Ride an E-Bike as fast as you can up Everest and down the other side to set an officially unofficial speed record on a proper bike track on a proper bike in a proper storm. That's 29,000ft of climbing and descending without stopping. The concept was simple, but even the simplest of ideas can grow into huge snarling beasts of complexity and this Everest challenge became exactly that! So begins one heck of a project!

Watch the video epic here!

The Bike

To achieve such a goal we needed a bike that can take hours upon hours of abuse, has loads of power, a huge massive removable battery for pit stop swaps, and is still light enough to optimise the power to weight ratio we needed to set the record. We chose the Specialized Levo Gen4 S-Works. A special bike, but this is a super special challenge so it needed to be an extra swanky build! Check out the full bike build article below.

Everest Bike Check

The Trail

Heartbreak Ridge on the eastern edge of Cairngorms National Park is one of Scotland's most iconic trails with stunning scenery, huge elevation and epic granite slab descents. The massive 350m drop, 4km long descent into the town of Ballater and the very direct climb route made this hill our first choice for the challenge. And it turned out to be perfect! Until the storm came...

The Logistics

With a tonne of help from brands and friends alike, we managed to get sponsors on board, wrangle some budget, figure out photographers, videographers, accommodation and trail access. We booked rental vehicles and flights, built a custom Specialized Levo and even booked an Air BnB just to charge E-Bike batteries. Weeks and weeks of planning and logistics. The only thing left to do was ship some bikes to Scotland and jump on a flight! What could go wrong? Well, how about the courier losing three bikes with little or no guarantee of them even arriving in time?! When we boarded our flights to Aberdeen we had no idea if the bikes would even be there in the morning. Rolling up to the FedEx depot early the next day not knowing if the bikes were even there was a stress we could've done without and got us questioning the whole thing. Is this meant to be? Can we even do this? Was this a complete waste of time? A few tense moments later the FedEx clerk announces "here's your bikes mate". Phew! Ok, let's go and ride 18 laps of Heartbreak Ridge then!

The Challenge

And so we begin. A 2:30am alarm cuts through the stillness of our hotel and we nervously pack bikes, food and cameras into our rental van. We need to get going. There's a big storm coming in and we've got one chance to do this. For the support team today is going to busy. Charging batteries, prepping cameras, filming, keeping Will safe, trying to stay warm and keeping the project on track in these conditions felt like our own Everest challenge. But at this point in the story we really need to hear from the man himself. Will Gell.

An Everester's Perspective - Will Gell
Admittedly, December isn’t the obvious time of year for a challenge like this, but in our little bubble of bike shop life we didn’t quite anticipate the implications of our timing.
Aberdeenshire was set to be hit by storm Bram’s 80mph winds and heavy rain. The dinner table the night before the ride was distinctly unjovial as we weighed up safety and ego.
Well, we’re mountain bikers. So naturally ego won.

A reluctance to finish the ride in the dark meant kicking off at 3:30am but with a massive Exposure Lights package strapped to the bike I had enough light to guide me through the darkness. With weather conditions becoming more severe throughout the day, the most pleasant part of the ride was actually the first two hours. Sure it was pitch black but the sky was clear, the air was still, and most importantly, there was no rain!

Climbing 29,000 feet of elevation as fast as I could meant using the all the power the Levo had to offer the entire time and I was getting three laps out of each battery, swapping them out for a fresh one at our pit setup at the bottom of the hill.
We stashed a huge bag of food under a rock at a junction between the trail end and the main road. I could eat and cruise the road section at the same time to save vital minutes.
Nutrition was a simple formula of jam sandwiches, bananas and many many sweets! The pitstops were like timestamps in my mind, helping me get myself through what was always going to be a very long day on the bike!

After the first battery swap, the weather took a leading role. The thick fog meant visibility was getting worse lap by lap - there was one particularly disconcerting point on the descent where I’d roll onto a near vertical 10ft rock slab and not see the other end of it. It was still dark at this point too, and the wind was starting to pick up as Storm Bram started to settle in around the Cairngorms

The mercy of daylight came, but was soon extinguished by the onset of freezing, driving rain. The temperature plummeted and the first few sunlit hours became a case of survival as I
chucked on my puffer jacket to trap some heat in. Not an ideal riding garment in these conditions but I was desperate!
This was probably the hardest part of the ride for me mentally - the freezing cold and the ridiculous amount of riding still ahead had me doubting my endurance. Why am I doing this again?!
Thankfully, as I ticked off a few more laps, the rain seemed to slow down a little. I warmed up a bit and was able to lock in for the remainder of the Everest.

From here on in the challenge became a simple task of management. Manage your energy, manage your nutrition, manage your arm pump, manage your clothing, manage batteries, keep lapping, keep going, eat, pedal, descend.
As darkness descended on us the last lap was in sight and with a glance at the total elevation, a quick bit of maths, and the words “I think one more will do it” I was on my way up for "one more run!"
I was lucky enough to have the company of Smithy (part of our self appointed trail fixer team!) for the finale, so with a spectator behind me I pressured myself to pull off a smooth run and ‘make it look easy’ now I was being watched!
I can honestly say that it was the best run of the day; whether it was adrenaline, the 17 preceding runs to practise, or a combination of the two, that last descent of Heartbreak
Ridge was the most flawless I’ve ever ridden!

The final roll down the short road section back to basecamp was a huge relief as it sank in that it was done, and despite the conditions, nothing had gone wrong!
From start to finish the project was faced with multiple opportunities to completely implode, but it didn't. It worked! Sure it was very very close to not working many many times but we did it! We have set the fastest E-MTB Everest record (for now!)
To make this all possible we brought together an amazing group of people. As I rolled the final few metres I felt immense gratitude that these individuals had shown up in the dark and the cold and the wet, seen adversities, overcome issues, and pushed on in helping me to complete the most fantastic bike ride. And more than anything I was, and am still, filled with pride that our humble, albeit ambitious, bike shop pulled off such a feat!

A truly massive thanks to Brink, Specialized, Red Bull, Exposure Lights, Ben Kearney, Dean Smith, ‘the Scotland crew’ Lee, Steph, Craig, Andy, The Boat Inn, Struan Cottage.
The reality is I had the easiest job of the project, just get on a bike and ride it. This would never have been possible without all those names above laying the foundations and paving the way so thank you!
Now we just have to do it again but faster!

29,000 feet elevation - 130 miles - 10.5 hours moving time - 11:50 start to finish

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