Safely back home from R2R, I followed the Rasa riders' progress with mixed emotions.
A part of me SO wanted to become part of this legend.
A part of me was grateful to be back in the office, watching them cycle through the snow and mud from the comfort of my office chair.
And, while waiting for blog-updates and sms-updates and twitter-feeds to come through, catching up with life in general, and emails in particular.
One of the emails was from a friend ... about possible dates for her Everest-trip. Since January, when she conquered mt Vinson, I kind of suspected that she might go for all 7 the summits, and suggested that I'll get a few supporters to go cycle around the mountain when she's on it. Figured that it'd be a while before she would be able to get everything together.
And then, between updating the blogs and waiting for updates on the Freedom Challenge website, I stumbled across her proposed dates - next year April/May.
So I naturally had to go search for mountain biking in the Everest area.
AND FOUND THIS: http://www.everestmarathon.com/bikerace/
A mountain bike race from Everest Base Camp to Katmandu.
Including a piece of road that is possibly the world's longest downhill, a drop of about 4000 meters over about 100 miles.
Although not that technical from a pure mountain biking point of view, I can't imagine a race that would have better scenery.
It includes one week of acclimatizing (and doing touristy things while doing so), a flight from Katmandu to Lhasa (with Everest probably not that far below you), one week of bicycle-touring to base camp (getting used to the altitude), 2 days in base camp to explore and get ready for the race, and then 5 stages of racing.
Now all I have to do is to persuade Elsie to go climb her mountain in July, instead of April/May :)
