Field notes 4 MIN READ
Everesting, drawn honestly
8 848 metres of climbing on one hill, which produces the strangest-looking route file in cycling: a single line, ridden dozens of times.
Everesting is simple to state and appalling to do: ride the same hill repeatedly until you have climbed 8 848 metres. No distance requirement, no time limit, no sleeping.
It also produces the most unusual file in cycling.
The map is almost empty
Every repeat follows the same road. Drawn as a route, forty ascents of the same climb are forty identical lines lying exactly on top of each other.
The result is a short line. A ride that took nineteen hours and covered 250 km draws as a single segment two kilometres long.
This is not a failure of the drawing. It is the most accurate possible image of what the day was: one hill, over and over, and no geography at all.
Some people print exactly that, at large size, with the numbers underneath. A tiny line and an enormous elevation figure is a good joke and a fair summary.
The profile is the real print
The elevation profile is where an Everesting becomes visible.
Forty identical triangles in a row. Same height, same gradient, marching across the sheet until they run out. Nothing else in endurance sport produces that shape, and anybody who sees it understands immediately what happened without being told.
If a route print is one thing here, it should be the profile with the route as a footnote rather than the other way round.
Why the stated number wins
Elevation gain on a repeat ride is where computed totals go badly wrong.
Every threshold choice is applied forty times. A calculation that runs 3% high on one ascent runs 3% high on all of them, and on a target that is the entire point of the exercise, that matters.
So the figure on the print is the one in the file — the number the head unit showed when it crossed 8 848 and the ride ended.
What to put on it
Elevation first, in the largest type the layout allows. Then repeats, then elapsed time.
Distance last, or not at all. On an Everesting it is the least interesting number on the sheet.
Questions people actually ask
- What does an Everesting actually look like drawn?
- A single short line, because every repeat is on top of the last. The map view of an Everesting is almost empty, which is exactly what makes it interesting.
- Is the route print or the profile the better object?
- The profile, without much question. It is the only view that shows the repetition, and the repetition is the entire ride.
- How is the elevation calculated?
- From the file's own stated gain. On a ride with dozens of identical repeats, threshold choices compound — which is precisely why we print what the device recorded rather than recomputing it.
- What size?
- 50×70, with the profile given as much height as the layout allows.
YOURS, FROM A FILE, IN 90 SECONDS
One effort. One sheet of paper.
Bring the file and every choice is yours: treatment, colour, which numbers come along. Museum-grade 250 gsm matte, printed in Denmark, shipped in a tube with a nail taped inside.
Print it. FROM 349 kr