On Saturday 3rd May , Pete Smith , a keen cyclist from Haxby, was accompanied by his cycling friends from Tadcaster , York , Ripon in cycling FIFTY FOUR ascents / descents to raise money for the YAA in memory of his cycling friend who passed away in 2024.
The following narrative from Pete Smith outlines the background and the days event watched by many of his supporters - A fantastic day.
Dear Wass Committee ,
We wish to extend our sincere thanks and gratitude to you for letting us use the village hall on 3rd May 2025. Very special thanks go to Paul Johnson who every 2 hours throughout the morning and into the evening cooked, made coffee, washed up, set chairs and tables up and chatted to us. Thanks also go to Peter Williams who popped in several times and chatted to us, it broke the day up seeing different people. The facility of the hall made our challenge, cycling up Wass bank 54 times much more enjoyable. To date (5th May) we’ve raised £2504 (+ £566 in gift aid) for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and this amount is still rising.
Please see below for my write up about the event.
Pete Smith
EVERESTING
I’d had this idea floating around in the back of my mind for many years now. I’d thought about where to do it and settled on Wass Bank, this was for many reasons. You get a decent amount of elevation gain per rep, the descent is good and fairly fast with only 2 bends near the top, the bottom section is tree covered so kept cool during the day. However I had no real reason to do this ride and it was just on the back burner and I thought about it every now and then. Bring on the events of 2024, Stuart our club president, endurance cyclist, and big fundraiser the Yorkshire Air Ambulance as well as being a great husband to Karen and dad to Erin and Dan passed away suddenly at 49 from a heart attack.
I had talked to Stu about Everesting and guessed that one day we might do it together and try to raise a few quid for his favourite charity. Late last year after everything had settled, as much as it ever will, I approached Karen ran the idea past her to do the Everesting challenge in his memory. The idea was back in business. The date was set 3rd May 2025, early in the season to take advantage of the Zwift winter training, low to medium temperatures, decent day light hours, time to get a few outdoors training rides in and time to practice hill repeats. I approached Wass village hall to see if we could use the hall as a base camp, as it’s at the bottom of climb, they said “yes not a problem” this turned out to be a superb offer, location, and amazing help.
The run up to the event was good, 3 decent training rides included 4 reps of Wass Bank to gauge it, 27 to get to half distance and 30 of Nunburnholme to get to 5000m however many nights sleep were interrupted thinking if this was actually achievable, the need for decent weather on the day, fuelling strategy, fatigue strategy, equipment needed, clothing requirements and the psychological mindset required . The clock ticked down and before I, and everyone else knew it the day was upon us.
Ben had volunteered to take on the challenge with me and had done a decent amount of training but the diagnosis of the start of a hernia the day before put his ride in jeopardy but he was going to give it his all, riders from Portakabin Cycling Club were scheduled to join me throughout the day and Chris who me and Stuart met on an Audax years ago said he’d come and do the evening shift with us. Friday night was the food drop off at Wass village hall, Paul the treasurer had volunteered to cook, clean and look after our needs for the event an amazing offer and really great guy I can’t thank him and the committee enough.
Saturday morning was an early start 04:00 meet up and we started at 04:15. We’d decided to do blocks of 6 ascents then stop for refreshments. At 07:00 we were joined by Mike who rode a few reps with us, then Middo came and did a stint of 9, friends and family arrived to cheer us by the road side, Matty put in a good stint of 3 reps with us keeping us chatting, Tom did a brilliant 12 reps with us, Adam came out from Tadcaster for a couple of reps, Howard did 3 reps, Steve did 2 reps, Sam did a rep after racing (and winning) the Dalby Forest duathalon, Brad did a block of 6 with us, Chris’s evening shift of 6 saw us into the night. Ben was now struggling with pain big time and sitting out some and joining me when he could but an amazing effort of 38 was his limit and that left me to do the final push solo. My sister came and chalked the road with words of encouragement. Jo came in the morning and again in the evening cheering me on by the side of the road. Head torch was on and with 12 reps to go I was back in the winter kit, the darkness was a blessing, you couldn’t see the hairpin and steepest bit of the climb approaching.
I dropped the blocks of 4 just so I could have a short rest and snack before heading out to crack the last of the reps off. From mid-afternoon I was struggling to eat with just no appetite and forcing down whatever I could, SIS energy drink and beta fuel bars kept me going onward and upward. The last few reps seemed to fly by and before I knew it I was down to 2 reps to do. The last rep I didn’t need a full ascent so I watched the Wahoo tick over 8848m of elevation gain and I was done.
A heck of a ride and fitting tribute.
Pete Smith
Published: 06/05/2025 Published by: Wass Village Hall
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