A notable milestone of perseverance and endurance was reached by local cyclist and Ramblers Cycling Club member Jason Kelly on Tuesday 30th April 2024 when he completed his 5,000th recorded full climb of Te Mata Peak. This climb is an iconic Hawkes Bay ride and is about 5.4 kilometres long from Simla Avenue to the top Te Mata Peak car park with approximately 360 metres of vertical climbing. Reaching his target in style, he completed eight climbs on the day to record another quarter Everest climb of over 2,212m and take his total record to over 5,000 Te Mata Peak climbs.
Over the twenty six years, the total completed climbs slowly increased with the COVID period providing time to up the ante and push the total ever higher at an accelerated rate. This includes the completion of 28 climbs in a single day for an Everest plus challenge with over 10,000 metres of vertical climbing ridden in 2020, multiple half and quarter Everest’s, and over 1,000 climbs ridden in the year ended 31 March 2021.
Despite, or perhaps because of, accidents, road closures, poor weather, cyclones and other challenges, a goal of 5,000 climbs became a realistic target with regular efforts seeing the total continue to steadily rise towards the target.
Other cycling achievements including riding coast to coast of the USA in both 1999 and again in 2011, in 2018 a virtual (indoor) Everest 10,000m+ ride and riding the complete Tour de France One Day Ahead as part of a New Zealand amateur team.
All records are there to be broken so for anyone keen, if you plan on doing around 100 climbs a year (about two climbs per week), it will only take you fifty years to complete 5,000. But note that by the time you read this, Jason’s tally is already beyond 5,000.
The
numbers to 30 April 2024 are:
As a keen glider pilot and
member of Gliding Hawkes Bay, Jason’s future plans are literally up in the air
with soaring goals high on the list of what’s next.
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