A Kiwi mountain bike rider living in Canada has “knocked the bastard off” by climbing the accumulative height of Mt Everest in an epic 24-hour lockdown challenge.
Tom Bradshaw is a former New Zealand age-group representative who moved to British Columbia last year to follow the Enduro World Series international circuit.
But with all of his races cancelled due to Covid-19, the Wellingtonian decided to tackle a new challenge, “Everesting”.
Bradshaw rode 17 laps of a single trail loop on Mount Fromme in North Vancouver until he had climbed 8848m — the height of the world’s tallest mountain.
He finished at 1.30am, more than 24 hours after he started, having burned a whopping 17,000 calories during the mammoth ride.
“Everesting has been around for a little bit, but most of it is done by road cyclists and they go up and down a sealed road until they reach the distance,” the 27-year-old said.
“But basically my motivation was, I live over here in Vancouver and race on the Enduro World Series semi-professionally, and during lockdown all the races for summer were cancelled and there wasn’t anything to aim for.
“I just thought it would be cool to do, to have something to aim for and another goal. I thought it would be a proper challenge.”
Sticking to one of his local tracks in order to adhere to Canada’s lockdown rules, Bradshaw set off at 1am. His theory for starting in the middle of the night was to get the toughest part out of the way when he was still feeling fresh.
“But basically my motivation was, I live over here in Vancouver and race on the Enduro World Series semi-professionally, and during lockdown all the races for summer were cancelled and there wasn’t anything to aim for.
“I just thought it would be cool to do, to have something to aim for and another goal. I thought it would be a proper challenge.”
Sticking to one of his local tracks in order to adhere to Canada’s lockdown rules, Bradshaw set off at 1am. His theory for starting in the middle of the night was to get the toughest part out of the way when he was still feeling fresh.
