This isn’t just a short film about gruelling mountain bike laps on Vancouver Island’s Mount Prevost—it’s an exploration of what drives people to test their limits.

Everesting, the Hard Way

“Everesting,” the endurance challenge of repeatedly climbing a hill until you’ve matched Mount Everest’s 8,848 metres of vertical gain, is for sufferfest specialists only. Attempting it on a mountain bike in winter on Mount Prevost adds new dimensions of gnar.

There sure are easier ways to Everest—try smooth climbs, mid-summer weather and more daylight hours, for starters. Most Everesters stack the odds in their favour, and rightfully so.

“I just really like riding my bike, so I wanted to prove to myself that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t have a shitty bike ride,” says Aedan Skinner, the rider featured in Lazy Sundays Studios‘ just-released short, Against Better Judgement, about his Everlasting challenge last winter.

The original plan looked almost reasonable: 23 laps of Prevost; roughly a full day on the bike. Finish sometime after sunrise the following day, and do it as close to the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) as possible.

“Instead, it became 27 laps, 126 km, 31 hours (17 in darkness), freezing rain, fresh snow, numb feet, hallucinations and enough small problems to end the ride early a dozen times over,” says Skinner. “It all kicked off at 7:57 a.m. on December 18th, 2025. It was grim from the get-go.” By the second lap, Skinner’s feet were already numb, and his shoes soaked through. Every few laps became a routine of peeling off wet socks, pulling on whatever dry gloves were left, scarfing down high-calorie snacks and heading straight back up the hill for another lap.

“It became 27 laps, 126 km, 31 hours (17 in darkness), freezing rain, fresh snow, numb feet, hallucinations and enough small problems to end the ride early a dozen times over. “

“The Red Bull Wasn’t Working”

“Then the 2:30 a.m. lap hit. I was shattered. I think it was my 17th lap, meaning I had 10 more laps to go—I’d done the math by this point. I fell asleep on my bike on the way up and rode into the ditch, only to wake up lying in a mud pit with my bike beside me. I did this two more times over the next two laps. I was talking to myself the whole time and was hallucinating visuals of my friends in the woods pretty much every five seconds. The Red Bull wasn’t working. The only thing that worked was seeing the sign at the top of the trail, which instantly got me so excited to ride my bike down the hill. Riding down was no problem, as your brain always finds a way to turn itself back on.”

But why mid-winter? “There isn’t a prize waiting at the top. By every logical measure, it was a stupid idea. The questions remain. Why spend 31 hours riding in freezing weather? Why deliberately make it harder? Why stack every bad variable against yourself? Maybe there isn’t an answer. Maybe as humans, we have always gone looking for uncomfortable things simply because they reveal parts of ourselves that ordinary days never will.”

Support Crew: Elliot Jamieson, Spencer Young, Elijah Barron, Oakley Savisburg, Max McCulloch, Liam Morgan, Sean Bourquin

Supporting Brands: 7Mesh, Akta, Title, Occam, Crankbrothers, Full On Lighting, Cowichan Cycles, Comox Valley Toyota.

Video Production & Editing: Nodding Onion Studios – Max McCulloch & Liam Morgan

Photography: Jake Paddon

Narrator: Chris Case

Text supplied by Lazy Sundays Studio.