hence the “official” bit, not sure if that makes it “officially” allowed for Everesting. Read the rules for Everesting and they seemed to suck what little joy there was out of a pointless-but-entertaining challenge.
Any hill can be Everested, you just need to do the full segment each time. Not allowed part climbs. The 100 Greatest Climbs book isn’t related to Everesting, it’s just a list of “iconic” climbs. He’s done one for Belgium too – that’s quite interesting, all the cobbled climbs in Flanders.
What made you pick that hill? Just curious. Are you doing a write up?
I was having a chat last year with Richpips about his Everesting on Mam Nick and we were discussing ideal hills for it. I said in a throwaway comment “oh I wouldn’t try something daft like The Struggle” and then thought – actually, it’s the perfect climb for it.
Lots of altitude gain (over 400m per climb) so it only requires 22 reps, it’s got an undulation in it which means you can actually add in 15m of climbing on the descent – not much but over 22 climb/descent cycles that’s an extra 300 m of height gain.
Quiet-ish road, good sightlines, the descent isn’t terrifyingly dangerous so you can relax a bit on it and recover. Several laybys and verges where I could park my car (you don’t have to carry all your food and drink, you can leave it in a car at the side and stop whenever needed).
The prevailing wind goes almost directly up it, the valley funnels it into a perfect tailwind. And it’s not too far from help if I crash (especially as I did it entirely on my own). Ambleside at the bottom, Kirkstone Pass Inn at the top.
What would have broken me before I started would be trying a hill where I needed 200 reps! The hill needs to be short enough so that you don’t end up riding 400+km, enough height gain so you don’t require 200 reps but not so steep that your legs fall off!
I’d been quietly planning it for weeks and yesterday it all just fell into place. Good weather but cool enough to be bearable and not dehydrate. Tailwind. And I didn’t need to try and book short notice time off work. 🙂