On August 23rd a team of eight mountain bikers stood on the peak of their last targeted summit and in doing so completed a marathon cycling expedition for charity. An expedition which had elevated them through the same height as Mount Everest - an impressive 29,000 feet over six days of climbing. Six days in which they had climbed over eight Alpine peaks and over a total of 200 miles of Alpine tracks. The end result has been lots of sore legs, sunburnt necks and One and half thousand pounds for Help the Aged.

The idea was born last year when two of the team members were riding in the area and realised just how much climbing they had been doing. « We realised that if we really pushed it that we could do something a bit special. Everest is almost 9000 meters (29,000 ft) high and it meant 1500M (5000 ft) of climbing a day. That in itself was tough (like climbing from Castleton up a hill five times higher than Mam Tor) but it was not the main problem for us. It was more the fact that it had to be done every day for six days and in temperatures that were sometimes in the 90’s. Motivation and Perspiration were what it was all about».

The event was done in the French Alps near Alpe-d’Huez where the famous Tour de France road climb takes place. Almost All the climbing was done off road, along the network of tracks and paths which cover the Alpine mountains.

« The French Alps where the logical place for us to go, they have excellent facilities, they have famous cycle races, their attitude towards cyclists is second to none and the mountains are not only stunning but also covered with excellent mountain bike tracks. »

Between them the team have been mountain biking for around 20 years, they have cycled in France, America, Canada, Greece and even Turkey but they are more at home in the Peak district around Sheffield. They are:

• Roger Weller27SheffieldCivil Servant. Dept. of employment
• ScottBurgess27 Paris/SheffieldQuality Control Engineer.
• Ashley Middleton 27 Sheffield Industrial Process Control Engineer.
• Dominic Perry 19SheffieldStudent - Sheffield Uni.
• Will Jackson-Moore 27 Sheffield/LondonAccountant.
• Andy Carson 27 Clitheroe Teacher.
• El Presidenté1999 Secret base El Presidente!

Andy - « I didn’t do as much training as I should have done and because of that I suffered. I can’t honestly say I enjoyed it all. Most mornings my sleeping bag sempt like the best place to spend the rest of the day but the lads would drag me out and throw my cycling shorts at me. The first 1,500 feet of the day were the hardest, the second weren’t any better and after that it just got worse.

By the fourth day I was ready to pack it in but I didn’t because the team had lots of people wanting us to hit the target and I couldn’t let them down. The great parts were getting to the cooling breezes on the ridges and summits and the encouragement we received from the public who we saw on our way up. On the seventh day I got to stay in my sleeping bag, good eh?  »

Scott - « Half a mile from the top of our last peak I watched the altimeter click over the last ten feet to take its display to just over 29,000 feet my first thought was « I’ve just climbed Everest, my legs have been in constant pain for last three days and tomorrow out of principle I will refuse to climb another single meter under my own power. I didn’t’ either - The next day when we went out riding for fun I paid to have my bike took up the mountain in the cable car!»

Roger - « For me it was impossible not to finish the climb, I found out why on the second day. That day we had got a bit lost and we ended up with our bikes shouldered, scrambling and picking our way over a crag to get back on our path. I had crashed earlier and had cuts and grazes on the palms of my hands which made it difficult or me to scramble over the rocks and keep the bike on my shoulder. There was no breeze, it was in the 90’s, my palms were sweating and I was suffering. I was really beginning to consider going back down and taking the day off just to give my hands chance to scab over properly when Scott shouted out from the back « That’s another happy family.» We thought he was just being daft when a little while later he shouted again « Happy Family ».

As he’d been climbing he’d worked out that for every 70 meters that we climbed Help the Aged could afford another cataract operation to give back the site of an elderly person in Africa. He was watching his altimeter tick up and every time it hit another seventy meters he’d decided to shout out « Happy family ».

« Now I had that link in my head I could see that meters and my temporary discomfort really did equal something that I thought was brilliant - a grandmother being able to see her grand kids for perhaps the first time. It sounds soppy when I say it now but when you really think about what that actually means for someone and their family you can understand why I didn’t think about ducking out again for the rest of the event. »

Ash - « For me the climbing was made bearable by the beautiful views you got from the high vantage points. It was pleasure to do and I felt really proud when we got all the banners out for the photographs on the last peak on the last day. That’s when I first realised that we had done something a bit different and a bit special it and it had all been really worth while. Its not everyone can say that they’ve ridden up Mount Everest on a mountain bike »!

Will - « The rest of lads think I’m a bit sick in the head, because I actually enjoyed all the climbing. I like the hypnotic rhythm which helps you concentrate your mind on what your body is doing and you forget the burning in your legs. Its great to be able to feel your heart pumping and just think about simple things like the pace of your breathing and forget that gas bill is overdue, the cats sick and that your girlfriend looks like Peter Beardsley. »

The event was carried out with the full support of Help the Aged and The Sheffield Star newspaper. The team also had the backing of Michelin (tyres and tubes), Cateye cycling accessories (altimeter) and the local chain of bike stores JE James. They provided lightweight body armour for the descents as well as some last minute bike fettling assistance before the team left Sheffield.

The support we got from our sponsors turned out to be essential rather than just helpful.

The terrain was radical and completely unforgiving. As demanding upon our bikes as it was upon our riding skills....

We counted 21 ‘departures from our bikes’ ranging from the ‘embarrassing stuck pedal slowly falling over sideways’ scenario and the obligatory ‘over the bar non-scheduled flight’ departures to a full blown ’over zealous racing’ type pile up involving four of us, five bikes and a cow. Luckily we only had one visit to the outpatients for a worse than usually case of skin loss and bruising. We went through 21 inner-tubes, tore out the side walls of three tyres, crippled three wheels, a pair of suspension forks, two bar ends a pair of bars, a rear mech, and a seat post. If we hadn’t had the support of Michelin we would all have spent three of the six days fixing punctures and basically we would never have made it. Of course the whole thing would have been a none starter without the altimeter from Cateye which was rugged enough to stand up to an afternoon of post event lake jumping. »

Andy - « I was a bit dubious about how worthwhile carrying the body armour around strapped to bike was going to be. We said we would put it on when we got to the summits before the downhills. I lost all doubts of its usefulness when I saw Ash take a fall in front of me on a black run of impossible rocks and scree, he must have been doing a suicidal 30mph when his front wheel decided it wanted no more to do with the ideas of traction and direction - It flipped the bike tumbled, Ash went « UNngphh ».

He literally skidded for the next 30M on his side before he came to a stop. His bike carried on to the bottom. His shorts had torn through at his now grazed hip and his left knee and elbow pads were scratched and shredded. Ash is a caveman, unreasonable and indestructible, I swear he smiled at me and just said ‘Wow, like, these pads rule.» Very Beevis. If your going to somewhere like the Alps then the down hills are ten times longer than at home, quite often ten times more severe and so you are going to crash and burn, frequently. Buy pads.

« We chose Help the Aged for several reasons. One to reciprocate the support given by Help the Aged to mountain bike racing through their SportAge Organisation and the Diamond Back race series which they have been successfully running for the last two years. Secondly we also thought that it would be cool to do something like mountain biking which is unfortunately considered to be a ‘young mans sport’ for a section of society who are often overlooked when it comes to fund raising by younger people ».

« It would have been easy to choose Cancer Research or The Society for prevention of Cruelty

to Children, but in the end doing this specifically for the older generation helps promote mountain biking as

broad church and also helps bridge a seemingly widening generation gap. We don’t expect our grandma’s to be out training with us next week on Jacob’s ladder, but we do hope that it will help dispel some of the ‘loutish’ imagery which mountain biking has been accused of in recent years. After all we are an Olympic sport this year, a sure sign of maturity »

« Despite the sore legs we enjoyed the event so much that by the last day we had already decided that next year we were going to do something bigger and better. The only trouble is once you’ve climbed Mount Everest, there is nothing higher. Maybe we’ll do it twice, or on tandems or one legged or in gorilla suits, whatever it is, it will hopefully be helping someone else along the way. »

Scott Burgess. Chief Whip and Officer of Buffoonery.