When he closes his eyes, Lachlan Morton dreams that he is still riding his bike. He finished his 14,200 kilometre lap of Australia three weeks before he sits opposite me in London at Rouleur Live, but the memories have not left him. For one month, Morton rode more than 450km per day through barren landscapes, eventually achieving his goal of completing a loop around the entire continent counter-clockwise and setting the fastest known time.
“It’s getting better now but for a while every time I would sleep, it was like a dream. I just kept dreaming I was riding,” Morton says with a shake of his head. “After a couple of weeks, my body slowly started to reset and I felt like myself, I just had really sore legs which is pretty generic. I'd wake up every day feeling like I'd done a big ride the day before.”
Morton is no stranger to ultra-endurance challenges, but his Australian epic was by far the longest ride he’d ever completed, and one of the most rewarding. He explains that the idea behind the project was to return to his roots, paying homage to the place where his journey in the sport began as a child.
“The initial motivation was to do something with my wife Rachel [who was part of Morton’s support team during the ride], and do something with the crew to have people involved in that journey,” the 33-year-old reflects. “I wanted to do something in Australia, and it was really nice to go back to Port Macquarie, where I'm from, and start and finish there on the roads I grew up training on. I had Graham Sears, who was my first coach as part of the crew, and it just felt full-circle.”
Morton during his record-breaking lap of Australia (Image: EF Education-Easypost)
While the month-long ride came with both reflective and life-affirming moments for the Australian, Morton is open that there were also times where he struggled both physically and mentally. It was one of the first ultras he had completed which was entirely on tarmac and alongside a support crew, which made it a unique experience.
“It was different, it was a long time spent pedalling every day. Australia is very flat, so that was its own unique challenge with the duration, it was so much longer than anything I'd done,” Morton explains. “The first half was more physical as the body was kind of adapting, but then the challenge became more mental as it was about getting through the days without anything to break it up on these big, long expanses of land. Having friends and family there did make it easier.”
He remembers riding on the Nullarbor Plain (a flat, almost treeless, arid part of southern Australia): “I had very close calls with trucks and that was the only time I considered stopping just because it was pretty scary. I was trying to manage that risk. To be honest, every first hour of the day, I was always like, how am I going to make this happen? The body gets so sore and starting in the dark and hanging out by yourself, it’s pretty daunting.”
Like all of Morton’s ultra-endurance challenges so far, there was an important social cause behind his efforts. During his lap of Australia, he raised over $150,000 for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, which helps children in remote Australian communities gain access to stories and books, especially those told in their native languages.
“The initial motivation was we just wanted to do something that would help the communities we were riding in to try and have some positive impact,” Morton adds.
While Morton’s individual exploits on his home turf shaped a big part of last year, he also kept a focus on his racing roots, competing in – and winning – one of the most prestigious gravel events on the calendar earlier in the season. His victory in Unbound 200, referred to by many as the unofficial Gravel World Championships, was likely Morton’s biggest-ever result, garnering media attention and accolades from across the cycling world.
“It's so different to do a gravel race where it's an intense competitive environment with a lot of other people, and then going doing something by yourself where your motivation solely come from yourself and you decide what you are doing,” Morton explains. “The challenges physically are very different which is nice to keep things interesting.”
Image: James Startt
The 33-year-old’s approach to Unbound 200 was undoubtedly different to others who stood on the start line. It’s no secret that gravel racing has become more and more performance-focused in recent seasons, with Morton himself stating last year that the sport was moving “closer to road racing” – a discipline that he retired from in 2021 after citing a lack of enthusiasm for the mental demands that come with completing a WorldTour calendar. He has, however, found some enjoyment in gravel and has taken part in the Lifetime Grand Prix series for multiple years – the premier off-road series in the United States.
“Before Unbound, I was questioning what I was doing a little bit in racing so I sort of stepped out of it, went on holiday, then went back to basics. I will still training but just riding without worrying about the outcome too much,” Morton explains. “I was feeling good coming into the race but I knew it was a strong field of bike riders. When we got started though I had a pretty special feeling which meant my expectations got higher.”
While he admits he took a streamlined approach to his training, Morton’s bike set-up and equipment on race day was a clear sign that he wasn’t shying away from searching for marginal gains during Unbound: “Rapha had an aero skinsuit which turned up a few days before. Tom, our mechanic, worked the US Road Nationals with the road team and he had one of those aero helmets in his garage. I took it on a training ride and thought I would use it. It’s a lot of little things, that’s the game now.
“It's just bike riding. It evolves constantly. It was the same thing on the road, everyone started wearing skinsuits and I was like this is dumb and wore a jersey. But then at a certain point you realise this is what the game is, you’re gonna play it, wear the skinsuit,” Morton laughs.
Morton wins Unbound 200 (Image: Dan Hughes)
As Morton came towards the finish of Unbound Gravel he faced a two-up sprint against Chad Haga, another former road professional. The Australian rider’s ability to read a race and savvy tactical nous came to the fore as the end of the 200-mile event came into sight for the duo.
“Chad hadn't ridden that finish before so I knew it better. I thought, in theory, he'd be faster than me as he was a very established WorldTour rider who did a lot more of an extensive road career than I did. I'm not super fast, but I don't really get any slower, which helps in the sprint at the end of a 10 hour bike race,” Morton explains.
“He attacked me with five kilometres to go which caught me by surprise and I had to make an effort to get back to his wheel, but my legs felt better than I thought which gave me confidence. He’d sort of broken the bond then and made it clear he wasn’t confident in the sprint. He actually attacked at the bottom of the small rise into the finish, so I went over the top and got a gap, but he was still coming. I intentionally eased off coming towards that finish but I made it look like I was still trying so he would think that I was dying. I baited him into going to early because that that finish is really deceptive. He went super early and at that moment I could get on the wheel and had plenty of time before I hit him with my sprint.”
Despite securing that win at Unbound, Morton is adamant that it hasn’t changed his ambitions in the sport. While it is certainly proof that he still has talent and ability to be one of the very best bike riders in the world, solo challenges like the lap of Australia he did are still something he wishes to pursue.
“It means a lot to win, that’s the biggest race that I still compete in and I’m very aware that I probably won’t win again at that level. It ticks a big box and justifies the effort of being involved in that race scene,” Morton says.
The victory was also an indication that the EF Education-EasyPost rider’s more laid-back, simple approach to training can still garner results in the current sporting landscape. He can still win without needing to place a sole-focus on performance alone. Bike riding can be whatever Lachlan Morton wants it to be.
“I was very content with how I approached it. In the six weeks before, it wasn't like I was sacrificing a bunch, living in this unsustainable way that I've normally had to do to win something,” he says.
“Afterwards, you have this big release where you are very quickly back home and just living as you were before. That was kind of reassuring, in a way. It helps me justify that I’m still doing it for the right reasons. It’s not just to win, it didn’t change anything and my life is still the same. I still enjoy it the same.”
Cover image: James Startt
