Brentaro Yamane

Justin Frambes enjoys the craziest experience of his life

Justin Frambes smiles while biking up and down Nike Site Road in Collier Township, Pennsylvania on Aug. 9, 2020.

When people want to be good at something, the way they become better at what they want to do is simply practice. Also, having a good work ethic is a way to become better at something.

University of South Florida sophomore Justin Frambes experienced one of the craziest moments in his life when he decided to 'everest' earlier this month. Everesting is an activity in which cyclists ascend and descend a given hill multiple times, in order to have cumulatively climbed 8,848 meters which is equivalent to 29,029 feet.

To some people, everesting seems so hard that they don't even think of trying it. However, Justin Frambes decided to try it and he was able to everest on Nike Site Road, in Collier Township, Pennsylvania, as he went up and down the road 106 times in 14 hours and 51 minutes on his road bike, a Giant Defy 1, back on Aug. 9, 2020. Frambes had to practice to accomplish this feat and he enjoyed all the training that he had to do.

Frambes, is a native from Collier Township, Pennsylvania, which is 20 minutes south of the city of Pittsburgh. He has been biking for as long as he can remembers. Any opportunity that he gets tries to bike or cycle, he takes advantage of the opportunity as people can say that biking is a good addiction that he has.

"For as long as I can remember I’ve enjoyed riding bicycles, and I got my first dirt bike when I was around 13 years old. Up until last year, I’ve just ridden bicycles for fun and to train for dirt bike racing," said Frambes, who studies Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Florida. "However, last year [in 2019] when I started college in Florida I couldn’t bring my dirt bike, so I had to find something else to focus on. It made sense to join the cycling club and start to focus on that because I was already familiar with it."

Frambes, a 2019 Chartiers Valley graduate, spent a lot of time in his high school career participating in motocross events and tournaments. As he still motocross to this day, he doesn't do it as much since he cannot bring his dirt bike to Florida. So, as a result, he has spent more time in cycling as he is currently a part of University of South Florida' cycling team and will soon be a part of the Freddie Fu Cycling team in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

So, what would make Frambes want to challenge himself and bike up and down and a hill over 100 times?

"When I originally heard of everesting, I thought it was just a dumb thing to do because even for the professionals it takes a freakish amount of time to complete. My friend from USF [University of South Florida], Jake Bamforth, did it early in the summer and I still thought it was a crazy idea and I didn’t think I would ever do it. Earlier this month, he stopped at my house on the way to Colorado and we started talking about it. I love hard challenges, so it was pretty easy for him to convince me," said Frambes.

Anyone who knows Frambes, knows that he loves hard challenges, is a good student, has a good work ethic, and loves the outdoors. He has seen a lot of cool things from spending a lot of times in the outdoors and in nature as his other hobbies include fishing and rock climbing. The fact that he knew that he was going to 'everest' was going to be a new experience and adventure in his life and he could not pass up on an opportunity to make a new memory.

"Besides cycling and dirt bike riding, I like to fish and rock climb. I’ve never really enjoyed or have been good at “normal” stick and ball sports, so I stopped doing them a while ago and have just focused on two wheeled sports. Something that all of my hobbies have in common is that you get to see a lot of new and cool things outside, and that is one of the best parts of them," said Frambes.

Seriously though, biking anywhere for 14 hours straight without eating or taking a break is hard. Some people get tired of walking after a certain period of time and the fact that Frambes biked up and down and a hill for over 14 hours is simply amazing. When someone is going to do something for a long period of time, it would be thought of that the person knows how to train themselves physically or mentally before doing something for a long time.

So, how did Frambes train himself mentally and physically train himself to bike for a long time without taking a break?

"The only thing you can do to prepare yourself mentally to do hard things is to do a lot of hard things all the time. Between bicycling and dirt bike racing, I put myself through a lot pain mentally, so I kind of built up a tolerance to it," said Frambes. "It’s pretty impossible to really be physically prepared to everest because it’s such a hard effort on the bike and it takes so much longer than any rides that the vast majority of cyclists do. However, in the last year, and especially over the summer, I’ve spent a ton of time cycling. The best thing you can do to try to prepare yourself for everesting is to do a lot of long rides (3-4 hours) at a fairly easy pace, and those are my favorite kind of rides anyway."

Frambes started his everesting adventure at 4:39 a.m. back on Aug. 9, 2020 and his trip ended around 7:30 p.m. Throughout the whole day, a good amount of people showed up on Nike Site Road to watch Frambes bike.

"There were way more people that came to watch and support than I thought there would be. To me, I wouldn’t think anyone would want to watch me ride up and down a hill all day, but there was probably 50-75 people there during the day and to see me finish. While I was riding it was cool to see a lot of people cheering me on but honestly it was such a battle with myself to keep going that being cheered on didn’t do much for me. Looking back though, it was awesome that so many people came to watch and cared about some kid riding a bike," said Frambes.

The support that he got throughout the entire day made him feel good as he was even able to raise over $3,000 for the local food bank.

"I actually didn’t think about getting a charity involved because I was really just doing it to test myself. A few days before I did it, my mom [Lisa Frambes] suggested that we should do it to support the local food bank, and I thought that would be a cool thing to add on to the event so that it benefitted other people besides me. From there, the word spread about it pretty quickly through the community. I did a radio interview the day before my everest trip and my mom and neighbors told a lot of people about it," said Frambes.

For Frambes, Aug. 9, 2020 was a day that he will never forget in his life. As of now, he is currently back at the University of South Florida taking classes in his sophomore year. When it comes to bike races, Frambes will do anything to see himself racing again. However, the coronavirus pandemic has delayed and postponed many bike races that he wanted to be a part of. Until he can officially race again, he is going to continue living his life outdoors and continue to bike for fun.

"I just want to keep racing bikes, and the coronavirus situation isn’t really helping that with all the races that are being cancelled. I don’t really have any huge goals of places that I want to ride at, but I just want to get as far in cycling and dirt bike racing as I can, and hopefully to race at collegiate nationals next year."

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