An ‘Everesting’ Attempt at Mount Everest 

In this episode we interview Andy Van Bergen on www.cyclingtips.com, Australia’s largest cycling media outlet and up there with the biggest in the world of this type. 

Andy did some breathing work recently with Tim Altman from Take A Breath in preparation for a unique, and mountainous cycling adventure at Everest Base Camp.  

In this episode we discuss: 

Andy’s background into cycling and eventually Cycling Tips, which was his favourite website. 

How the Everest adventure evolved as a part of the series of cycling adventures run by Cycling Tips, called ‘Road Tripping’, which features cycling adventures in little known destinations around the world. 

The concept of ‘Everesting’ invented by Andy 3-4 years ago which has now had over 2,500 participants from over 70n countries world-wide complete the challenge. 

Everesting involves riding up and down any hill, of any gradient, anywhere in the physical or virtual world, until you climb the equivalent height of Mt Everest at 8848m, in 1 ride. 

As the road to Everest Base Camp has recently been paved (on the Tibetan side), Andy and his team took the opportunity to make an Everesting attempt at Mt Everest – at base camp which is at an altitude of 5,500m. An audacious and thrilling challenge. 

Their overall preparation for this challenge. 

Part of the preparation for Andy and his team was to train at Melbourne Altitude Training Centre in a room set to similar altitude as Everest Base Camp, which is where he met Tim who had made contact with the centre in order to complement the work athletes were doing there – the theory being that whilst altitude training makes a person more efficient at taking up oxygen into their bloodstream (as there’s less oxygen at altitude), learning to breath more efficiently will increase the body’s ability to get this increased saturation of oxygen from the bloodstream to the cells for energy production. A great synergy. 

Unfortunately, whilst their cycling preparation was a 6 month build up, Tim and Andy only started working together 2 weeks prior to them leaving for Everest. This would not allow enough time to make significant changes to the team’s respiratory system to significantly  increase overall respiratory efficiency and performance – this takes months. 

However we still had enough time to focus on breathing techniques and rhythms to achieve the following outcomes: 

1. Increasing relaxation on and off the bike – but especially under duress (from altitude, difficulty breathing, fatigue, cold etc.) via the influence of the diaphragm on the autonomic nervous system. 

2. Deceasing recovery time after each ascent – or the time it takes for the heart rate to get back to base levels – again via the influence of the diaphragm on the autonomic nervous system (reducing the time it takes for the heart rate to return to base or resting levels), and by temporarily improving respiratory efficiency (oxygen uptake by the cells). 

Andy found that the biggest card they had up their sleeve on the challenge was using the breathing exercises. They relied on these techniques several times per day, and used them to relax and slow the breathing in the following specific ways (based on the principles above): 

1. When measuring oxygen saturations (which fell to dangerously low levels, especially for Andy who discovered he is predisposed to altitude sickness), they would see a spike on oxygen saturation levels within 5 minutes. 

2. To relax as anxiety levels increased due to difficulties in breathing at altitude – both when cycling and travelling on the bus. 

3. Nose and diaphragm breathing on each cycling descent to reduce heart rate and increase oxygen saturation levels.