Lachlan Morton completes 5,510km Alt Tour, beating peloton to Paris by five days | Hacker News Reader

Lachlan Morton completes 5,510km Alt Tour, beating peloton to Paris by five days

bikeradar.com

This reminds me of the Stålfarfar:

>In 1951, at 66 years of age, Håkansson participated out-of-competition in the 1764 kilometer bicycle tour Sverigeloppet from Haparanda to Ystad. Because of his advanced age, the organizers had refused to allow him to participate. The maximum age for race participants was 40 years, but nevertheless he started from Haparanda, formally not among the contestants but starting one minute after the last of them had set off and wearing a shirt on which he had written a big zero as his number tag. The Tour was run in stages, and while the contestants slept, Håkansson would pedal up to three days without sleeping. During the contest, he was presented as "Stålfarfar", a name that had followed him since the late 1940s. He kept a long flowing white beard that made him look even older, and the organizers were afraid people would laugh at the race participants. Many newspapers were covering his story, and he became famous as the nation followed his journey through the country. [3]

During a few hours off in Söderhamn the police asked him to take a medical exam, which showed that Hakansson was in good health. After 6 days, 14 hours and 20 minutes, he arrived in Ystad - 24 hours before the contestants. There was a parade with a marching band, fire brigades and Håkansson seated on the shoulders of younger men. The next day he had an audience with King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_H%C3%A5kansson

He lived to be 101 too. There's probably a lesson in that.

That's an impressive lifespan and accomplishment. Did the cycling bump his lifespan or did he have a good genetics to begin with?

You can't live to 101 without proper genetics. Sport when not overdone improves the quality of life but is not likely to prolong it in any significant way.

As I heard it, I’d you want to live to 80, you should eat right, exercise regularly, and not smoke. If you want to live to 100, you need to have the right grandparents and can live however you like.

Looks like I'm betting on the hundred year path!

I recently heard the Economist interview Henry Kissinger. He is soon 100.

This is about the most Swedish story I've ever read.

That's a great achievement. It also illustrates why these long bike races are run in stages. A multi-day race where riders can disregard stages will turn into a nightmarish competition of inhuman endurance.

In video game speedrunning, the communities surrounding >24 hour speedruns (e.g. Breath of the Wild 100%) have often set up rules allowing for breaks for runners to sleep. This prevents the speedrun from becoming a competition of who can sleep the least.

> A multi-day race where riders can disregard stages will turn into a nightmarish competition of inhuman endurance.

Iditarod and Yukon Quest are both like this - I met someone (who had won the Yukon Quest) that started wearing a helmet mushing because he had passed out from exhaustion and hit his head.

edit/P.S. When just googling I saw something talking about if these races were cruel to the dogs. While obviously some people have (or continue to) treated their dogs poorly, I must say his dogs clearly lived to run. They were so cute and energetic. He talked about how a woman a couple decades ago schooled all the men in the sport by truly taking care of her dogs, and it seemed like that had a big effect on how he raised his dogs.

>nightmarish competition of inhuman endurance.

On multi-day ultra-endurance rides there is an issue where your neck will no longer support your head against gravity, called Shermers neck syndrome. https://sportcoaching.co.nz/shermers-neck-a-guide-to-neck-sy...

Sounds like a sound thing to do, if nothing else then to make sure people don’t go to the extreme. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-12541769

This used to be the case for the Tour de France. That is, it used to have no stages with night cycling allowed. I think one reason was that contestants would put their bikes into vans and drive at night while the judges couldn’t see them.

> A multi-day race where riders can disregard stages will turn into a nightmarish competition of inhuman endurance.

Well, people already do that too:

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a35885288/barkley-marathon...

This is running instead of biking, but the same idea. I'm not quite sure why people subject themselves to this, but they do.

If you're curious why, the most recent finisher at Barkley, John Kelly (a PhD Data Scientist, to maybe tie it to HN a bit more), blogs a good deal about the 'why' questions on his 'Random Forest Runner' blog (yes, a ML pun). https://randomforestrunner.com/upper-kelly-camp/the-decision...

I still have no interest in doing it, but it was a very interesting look into the thoughts of someone who does.

> A multi-day race where riders can disregard stages will turn into a nightmarish competition of inhuman endurance.

i think the most famous example of this is the RAAM - the race across america (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_America): "In length the RAAM is comparable to the Tour de France, but the races differ to a great extent. The courses of both races have varied over the years. However, in the Race Across America, the direction has always been from the west coast to the east coast of the United States, approximately 3,000 miles (4,800 km), making it a transcontinental event. More importantly, the race has no stages, i.e., it is in principle a nonstop event from start to finish, with the fastest competitors needing slightly over a week to complete the course."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSiDrnYNboY - same fella

https://www.transcontinental.cc/ The Transcontinental Race is the definitive self-supported bicycle race across Europe. At the sharp end it is a beautifully hard bicycle race, simple in design but complex in execution. Factors of self reliance, logistics, navigation and judgement burden racers’ minds as well as their physiques. The strongest excel and redefine what we think possible, while many experienced riders target only a finish.

The Transcontinental is a single stage race in which the clock never stops. Riders plan, research and navigate their own course and choose when and where to rest. They will take only what they can carry and consume only what they can find. Four mandatory control points guide their route and ensure a healthy amount of climbing to reach some of cycling’s most beautiful and historic monuments. Each year our riders cover around 4000km to reach the finish line.

There's also the Indian Pacific Wheel Race - https://www.indianpacificwheelrace.com

There are many, many smaller ones in many, many countries.

Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)

Stålfarfar translates as "Steel grandfather" where "steel" also has the connotation of sounding like man of steel (Swedish translation of the Superman superhero).

I checked, Stålmannen (Superman) arrived as a comic in swedish 1949, so before the race. :)

> In 1983, the 61-year-old potato farmer won the inaugural Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, a distance of 875 kilometres (544 mi). The race was run between what were then Australia's two largest Westfield shopping centres, Westfield Parramatta in Sydney and Westfield Doncaster in Melbourne.[8] Young arrived to compete in overalls and work boots, without his dentures (later saying that they rattled when he ran).[9] He ran at a slow and loping pace and trailed the pack by a large margin at the end of the first day. While the other competitors stopped to sleep for six hours, Young kept running. He ran continuously for five days, taking the lead during the first night and eventually winning by 10 hours. Before running the race, he had told the press that he had previously run for two to three days straight rounding up sheep in gumboots.[10] He said afterwards that during the race he imagined he was running after sheep trying to outrun a storm. The Westfield run took him five days, fifteen hours and four minutes,[1] almost two days faster than the previous record for any run between Sydney and Melbourne, at an average speed of 6.5 kilometres per hour (4.0 mph). All six competitors who finished the race broke the old record. Upon being awarded the prize of A$10,000 (equivalent to $32,067 in 2018), Young said that he did not know there was a prize and that he felt bad accepting it as each of the other five runners who finished had worked as hard as he did—so he split the money equally between them, keeping none.

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)

Legend!

Note: farfar means father's father aka grandfather

Mortons Alt Tour was a charity event to raise money to donate to World Bicycle Relief. More info and a donation link can be found on https://alttour.ef.com/

I couldn't find any links to this page in the article.

Some YouTubers tried to join him on his ride. One example can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bmFa3xsnr8

Also noteworthy is that he had some issues with his shoes/pedals in the first days. After which he completed the tour on flat pedals and sandals!

Another interview and video: https://sporza.be/nl/2021/07/12/de-avonturen-van-lachlan-mor... (site is in dutch but the interview is english)

And then he had problems with the sandals (blisters), so he cut half the straps off and continued on his way.

Wow.

"...he had climbed the Alps and the double pass of Mont Ventoux, explaining how he had subsisted on cider, melon and prosciutto..."

https://www.bikeradar.com/news/lachlan-morton-completes-alt-....

Huge kudos to Lachlan, really inspirational.

If you haven't tried an ultra endurance sport before - could be running, cycling or even walking - I would highly recommend it. The frame of mind it puts you into is like nothing else. It's as different to everyday life as deep programming work, but another experience entirely. It's also very addictive, in a good way.

> even walking

I’m not a Dean Karnazes fan but this is something I did take away from his book. Just leave your house in the morning with a bottle of water, some snacks, your phone, and a credit card and just keep going.

You’ll be surprised how much ground you can cover and what a new perspective you’ll gain about the place you live. Buy more snacks and drinks when you get hungry. When you get tired either turn around or Uber home.

There’s something very empowering to me about being able to cover a long distance under my own power.

I learnt central London by doing this.

It's remarkable how different perspective you get from walking than popping up in a new place after taking the tube. But even buses and cars screws with your perspective of how places are linked together relative to actually walking between them.

Where you say "just leave your house in the morning..." really drives home the significance of what Lachlan's Alt Tour particularly means for French people. Wanna ride the whole darn route just like your favorite pros? Get your bike up to snuff, just leave your house, grab some snacks... you can refill and do laundry on the way!

More broadly, without all the resources, cars, gas, etc of a full "race" or event, you can still have meaningful experiences. That lesson seems like a great takeaway from the whole thing.

It's a great way to have an adventure without much harm to the planet.

Here's the no-fly policy for GB Duro, which Lachlan also completed: https://www.theracingcollective.com/gbduro.html#no-fly

I did recently 48 km (30 miles) walk the opposite way. I just took a local train from Oslo, Norway to Drammen and then just walked back. The scenery was stunning with high hills, forest, fields, fjords under bright blue sky. You just do not see this beauty from a car and even from a bicycle the perception is different. And the feeling of independence is very empowering indeed. I just new that the only thing that can get broken is myself. No worries about flat tires etc.

Can recommend the same during winter. Take the (local, gjøvik ) train nortwards, and then cross country ski back.

Injuries though, don't disregard them ... Cycling's a lot easier on the joints I guess.

Injuries are best prevented by slowly ramping up the distance. Many people see rapid progress in cardiovascular fitness but neglect strength work, quickly increase the distance and it results in injury. This is particularly true if you have led a sedentary lifestyle for years and decide to get fit!

It's certainly easier on the joints, although you're right about injuries. Knee pain regularly takes out professionals. Really important to know when to stop pushing.

Lachlan did a full 10-12 hour day in sandals because he was having knee pain starting.

Why do sandals help knees?

normal cycling shoes have a cleat you lock into the pedal with that allow very little movement. sometimes just a few mm of position change is all it takes to relieve a nagging ache and im guessing he found it easier to get comfortable with a shoe he can move around on the pedal.

I've stopped mid ride to adjust my cleats just a smidge when i was feeling discomfort. you don't want to mess around with knee pain especially when riding 12 hours a day

I suspect you're exactly right. I actually wish he would've said why the sandals specifically helped him because my immediate reaction was also, "what?"

Here's the article about it that has a picture of his sandal setup: https://cyclingtips.com/2021/06/lachlan-morton-just-rode-two...

In an interview with Sporza he said on day 1 he had knee issues because his cleat slipped. On day 2 he rode through the pain. On day 3 he wore sandals on his trip to a shop and noticed his knee didn’t hurt. So he bought flat pedals and continued on those using the sandals.

He also said the shop did not let him buy only the pedals so he bought the whole bike just for the pedals.

I have a pair of these SPD/flat pedals on my cross bike (it’s a light cross so I use it on road and even to commute if I need). Nice to be able to switch based on the ride.

https://www.rei.com/product/668198/shimano-m324-spd-pedals

On my mountain bike I clip in but use a shimano saints pedal that has a wide base so you can distribute weight off the clip a bit.

the sandals helped his blisters, but also he switched to flat pedals from clipless. That gives you extra freedom to move your foot to find a comfortable position, which can help with some joint pain. Me, I find saddle height is the biggest influence on my knee pain (too low, patella pain, too high, popliteal pain; my experience is from cycling from here in scotland to Corsica and back touring around france, among other tours. I'm a lot older and slower than Lachlan, tho)

Currently I've been "out" for almost a month cause of a few runs I did on a beach (usually I run in the forest). Obviously sand works your muscles in different ways but I didn't expect it to hit me this hard. Super frustrating.

oof, I remember trying some runs in the sand before and had to stop much sooner than I would've liked. It really worked my calves in a way that I was not used to.

You can somewhat mitigate this by running down on the apron, close to the water. (though; I assume maybe that's what you did because running/hiking in dry sand is damn hard).

I just finished a ride from outside DC to Pittsburgh over 3 days, ~365 miles(587km). So 10% of Lachlan's ride. I had saddle pain after day 1, so I stood on the pedals more. This quickly became knee pain, due to the extra exertion on my joints. So I transitioned between standing and sitting, and then my shoulders and arms started hurting :)

Mark Beaumont[0] has said something along the lines of "fix every problem early". I should have gotten chamois cream instead of standing up.

Anyway, all that to say I have no idea how Lachlan could do this without falling apart. Really incredible.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Beaumont_(cyclist)

Did you take the C&O to the GAP?

If so, very nice work doing that in 3 days! The climb at the start of the GAP is quite a workout

I did, and it was! I was short on time. I think stretching to 5 days would be perfect. I missed a lot of really cool towns due to time constraints. But that just means I can do it again and have a totally new experience :)

If you are experiencing saddle pain after only one day (even a big day like you did!) of riding, it might be that your ride position needs some tweaking. A smooth pedal stroke will have you bouncing on the saddle less.

You set out to ride 365 miles without chamois cream?

Ouchie.

Brooks B17, plain street shorts, no chamois... it is like sitting in your favorite easy chair.

For a short ride, perhaps. After a while most people will get chafing sores. A hard saddle, proper position and padded shorts "hurts" a bit on the sitting bones, but after one's adapted one can bike almost forever without any bum issues.

If your set up is good and you are used to regular riding shouldn't be a problem for 30 days of ~120 let alone 3. Assuming proper shorts and a good seat, of course.

Are you saying you undertook a ride like that without using chamois cream from the get-go? Dang, man.

Not for nothing, but the amount of riding you did there isn't CRAZY high for a serious cyclist. Often, fit or biomechanical issues don't show up until longer efforts. If you're still into riding, I'd look into a professional fit.

I use chamois cream for every "serious" ride (which means anything but popping to the shops in my jeans) now. My butt used to be tougher but now I get saddle sores much more easily, particularly when riding indoors with worse ventilation and a more static position.

Yeah, certainly any workout-worthy ride needs cream and proper shorts.

I switched over to riding a recumbant bike for long tours. I would never bike commute on one because it's not quite as nimble (e.g. if one has to swerve suddenly; you can't move your weight around), but for long touring caring tons of gear it's the best!

Top-end touring bikes are about $6-7k now, and you can get an Azub build for about the same price.

Just make sure to practice a lot, especially with a loaded bike!

I broke my right leg in six places on a recumbent, they have some very unexpected failure modes. Be careful.

Yikes - sounds like this failure mode needs to be elaborated on.

They turn out to be somewhat vulnerable to being sat on by a hippopotamus.

On a normal bike the area where your foot can get caught under the bike is limited to the bit in front of the pedals. That's very bad when it happens but the chances of it happening are very small. On a recumbent that area is pretty much everything forward of your hips and when it goes wrong you're in a feed-forward loop that you can't break out of with a normal physique.

As it happened: hit a speed bump, right leg slipped off the pedel, foot hit the pavement, leg was sucked under the bike at the forward speed of the bike. Ambulance ride, quite a bit of time in the hospital waiting for a slot for the operation, 7 hour operation (pretty long for something as simple as a leg fracture, which turned out to be a lot less simple once things were opened up and accessible because some of the bone fragments were too small to be reliably fixed in place). Almost five years later now and I still have two 30 cm chunks of stainless in there and a large number of screws to hold it all together. Intermittent pain (usually associated with fast temperature changes) and needing to 'warm up' for quite a long time in the morning before I can get around without discomfort.

Avoid recumbents.

This is useful info, thank you for the insight

You're welcome. Note that depending on the ride height this is going to be made worse as you get lower to the ground and you have even less time/space to react. Low racers are probably the highest risk category recumbent, both due to the (easily achievable) very high speeds and the fact that there is hardly any clearance at all between the frame and the ground.

Pedel->pedal.

I did a 3 month bike tour. On days I traveled, I went 60-80 miles on a touring bike with 30 lbs of gear strapped to it.

My experience was exactly the same as yours for the first week. I puked 4 or 5 times that week from riding up the maritime alps. Then after that I was a machine and felt like I could go forever. No pain, no chamois cream as others have mentioned - just padded compression shorts and lots of sunscreen.

Did you ride the Great Allegheny Passage?

>Cycling's a lot easier on the joints I guess.

murder on the perineum though.

Not for me anymore: https://www.sellesmp.com/en/pro.html

ymmv

I get that people think this, but it's really not true. With a good saddle that fits you on a bike that ALSO fits you, and good quality biking shorts (or a good quality bib), perineum pain doesn't really enter into it.

Takes some practice but very comfortable: https://spongywonder.com/

Shameless self plug for those into solo bike adventures, my 13000+ km ride between Lisbon and Istanbul

https://www.tomcooks.com/?p=lisbon-to-istanbul-bike

If you want to see Lachlan in action, here are some good videos from his past efforts:

Dirty Kanza 2019 (200mi gravel race in Kansas): https://youtu.be/kPODHtTdO24

GBDuro 2019 (crossing all of England): https://youtu.be/e74xncSCoqw

Lachy and his brother Gus have been doing rad shit like this forever. They produced three films documenting smaller, but no less impressive, excursions under the Thereabouts title.

Thereabouts (2014) - https://vimeo.com/102429420

Thereabouts 2: CO to UT (2015) - [link seems to be dead atm]

Thereabouts 3: Discovering Columbia (2017) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eMmVd401Z4

I'm suprised that nobody has mentioned that the origins of the TdF involved a continuous ride (actually more continuous than Lachlan's - sleep was counted as part of your time).

It was changed after a few years. Some say it was because it was too hard on the riders, some because it was impossible to really monetize the race in this format (as RAAM knows all too well).

He's riding to support World Bicycle Relief, you can donate here! https://give.worldbicyclerelief.org/campaign/ef-rapha-for-wb...

Ultra-endurance cycling is an entirely different discipline, just using the same vehicle. For anyone who's not familiar with it, see Beaumont's around-the-world record:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/18/around-the-w...

In long distance hiking there is often a brief intersection between unsupported and supported hikers. Once I even ran into a FKT attempt hiker 3 days in a row.. that was an ego boost.

Never in my dreams would I attempt to out-hike a supported hiker on purpose, let alone adding 25% offtrail miles.

This guy is proper bonkers. Kudos and props deserved.

Long distance touring and racing are two different beasts. He rode 12 hours a day. The peloton rides ~4 hours daily. Watts numbers are also very different, as racing forces riders to spike with extreme numbers to accommodate different race situations. Like doing your absolute max effort for 20 minutes to get in/control the breakaway, and then still have to ride +100km at a high pace.

But he wasn't out-cycling anyone, Le Tour is a series of short (by comparison to a full day of riding) one day races that happen to change location each day, not a single race (supported or not).

This Alt Tour thing would have to be compared to unsupported ultracycling events, where everybody is proper bonkers and this performance wouldn't stand out much. And compared to what happens at supported ultracycling, well, the RAAM is yet another different world entirely.

That's what cycling really is. I love riding, that's my only main of transport, and I don't see the point of races with so much assistance (technology, teammates, food, material, ..), and also the environmental aspect (consider all the vehicles, helicopters all the logistic, material for competitors, staff, organizers, spectators, ..).

Let's come back to the real essence of bicycling, it's practical, useful in all senses, healthy (endurance, good for joints, heart, lungs, everything), federating, help train to surpass yourself. We should stop consuming entertainment, but do it in our day to day life, as part of our lifestyle (I mean not take your SUV to go to gym), let's get rid of all those useless technologies, watches, GPS etc, it's not useful, listen to your body and feelings

just took biking again after a personal chaotic hiatus (11km to go to work)

my body is as capable as a plastic chair right now but it's still feels great to ride (I was surprised how good biking is for knees, my heart has a different opinion on that but still)

no traffic, no detour, no stress of other drivers, almost zero risk of accident (I don't go fast enough for that yet), no pollution

with covid there's quite a few more bike lanes and it's already a great pleasure, you can envision if everybody took their bikes more (for jobs or else) how cities would be leaner, cleaner, freer

it's probably coming soon

ps: I also agree a bit that we should drop a lot of "tech" and go a bit wilder more often

Nice, agreed. At least Sunday's should be car-free, stuff like that, and reducing more and more car traffic, that would definitely help promote bicycles

For the heart, maybe don't push too hard, I used to push myself to the limit in the hills every sunday morning. But nowadays I ride slow, long distances, but slow, timeless, I would grab some figs here and there to refuel myself, or buy (fruity) food sometimes (+ stuff like lentils and greens). Normally with frequent riding, you'll get a low resting heart rate (below 50 bpm), a low breathing rate, as a result sleep is easy and good quality

I was reading about car-free day, apparently it's been made official since long (1996 in EU).

And yeah we should push it up a bit more. Maybe preps some bike stock to make new people come to the party for a day and see. Also have more cargo bikes.

I can't push my heart anyway or I suffer consequences, I'm maxing out below 10mph just to let things come back. Even at those slow speed it's already having intense effect on my cardio.

This is dope. I’m not a fan of world tour cycling but Morton’s videos for his “alt” season doing Leadville, Kanza (now Unbound), GBDuro, etc. were really fun to watch as a fan of endurance sports.

Guy really seems to just like riding his bike without the pomp and circumstance I normally associate with bike racing.

Yes, and EF Racing should also be commended for allowing Morton (and other riders like Alex Howes and Taylor Phinney) to participate in these events.

The GBDuro movie[0] is really great.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e74xncSCoqw

Could someone in the bike racing world explain what "peloton" is in this context?

> Five days in and Morton was 420km ahead of the peloton

Of course a web search just comes up with Peloton exercise bikes, but this is lower case. So I'm guessing maybe they are not talking about a team sponsored by Peloton?

The peloton is the main group of riders in bike races.

Riders will usually spend most if the race in groups for efficiency and rest: most of the group will be drafting and only the front edge will be fighting against headwind.

The largest such group (usually containing the majority of the riders) is the peloton.

The peloton is the main group of riders. They all share the same time, even if they're spread out 50-100m.

The pack of riders who are on the main course and in close position.

Others have summed it up nicely, but for more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloton

With Google, that result is fourth. Not bad. But because they are so focused on things people can buy, the first visible page of results is dedicated to the brand and local stores, and then the brand's Twitter. I should've kept scrolling...

I made a wikipedia shortcode search, so I type: wp <item> about as often as I just do a google search

It sucks that corporations get to steal words from the common language.

Peloton is the bulk of packed cyclists that is grouped together in all long races, due to the lesser average air friction riders have to fight within it. In the tour de france, the peloton group have a pretty homogenous total race time, outliers being either people frequently in leader group, or people that have mechanical problems or bad performance. Being in leaders groups frequently generally means you have put more efforts in the races, the smallers the groups, the harders. Not keeping up with the peloton is generally catastrophic since you add extra effort in finishing the race atop of your bad performance.

As others have mentioned it's the main group of riders in a bike race. However, as is the case in this context, it can also be used to refer to the race in general, given that in the TdF all the riders will generally finish each stage within an hour or so of each other (or else be disqualified) and start the next one all together.

In this context, it's just a nice way to say that he was 420km ahead of the actual race.

A story about endurance cycling I enjoyed a lot is the one of Dean Stott's ride in S-America. It mentions a 65Km climb (Andes, I think).

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2018/4/special-for...

Isn't maintaining a solo pace much harder than maintaining pace inside a peloton (and isn't this a huge driver of the various strategies in long distance cycle racing)? Is this guy riding by different rules (eg. allowed to ride more hours per day or something) or is he just that much faster than the Tour de France cyclists? And if the latter, why isn't he out winning Tour de France?

He is riding three times longer each day. He is riding at a steady pace and not racing anyone.

He is riding at a much slower pace, and many more hours per day, than the Tour de France cyclists.

He's also riding the transfers between stage start and end points. Sometimes there can be 100 miles or more between where one stage ends and the next one begins. This largely happens when the race moves from mountain racing to flatter courses.

The competitors take a team bus.

The Tour is a little over 100mi/day, up to 6hr /day.

This Alt Tour was 200mi/day, 12hr/day

You'd need more precise bookkeeping to calculate how impressive his speed was, but his endurance is incredible.

A confounding factor is that at high speeds going a little faster takes a bunch more energy/biological resources (both wind and biomuscular effects), which counteracts some of the peloton advantage.

Strava profile --> https://www.strava.com/pros/3813861#interval?interval=202127...

He's riding a completely different ride. He isn't riding it for time per se but rather amount of days. Yellow Jersey at the tour de france rides for total elapsed time. Completely different levels of work involved.

For example - it says Morton was riding for 12 hours a day. Same riders on tour would be doing that ride in significantly less time. A completely different ride and bicycling capabilities.

I'm not diminishing what he has accomplished (which is awesome) just pointing out the differences.

For example: Sepp Kuss who won the stage the other day (https://www.strava.com/activities/5612150086) effort vs the ride by Morton Lachlan (https://www.strava.com/activities/5595556740). Morton's riding a roughly different ride (same terrain but different set up) and riding by about half the speed and 30% more distance.

Thanks for the explanation, that makes sense.

competitive riders also have all the road for themselves, makes things a bit easier

While this is all technically true. Lachlan and Sepp both are former winners of the Tour of Utah in the USA, which is shorter than the tour, but generally at a higher altitude with alpine climbs rivaling the staples of the Alps/Pyrenees in the TdF.

Lachlan was one of handful of pro/ex-pro riders to start tackling the Everesting[1] record as well, which is a clear example of his ability to ride at (and above) the "level of work involved" in a TdF mountain stage.

[1]:https://everesting.cc

> and 30% more distance closer to 40% so spreading the effort through hours per day is understandable.

Yes it is harder when no one else is working for you, not sure though if he did a time trial (short days) or had rest days. He also doesn't have any SAG, which makes it much harder as he found out with his di2.

He rode it with a di2? Why would you do that - batteries based is the worst for a long ride.

They last quite a while, I've used di2 and SRAM red. If I were riding this I would only need to charge it 2 or 3 times to get me through it.

Not so much in this case.

So as long as it's not off-road and it's properly charged, then electronic shifting is very, very reliable and standard kit for many ultra-distance riders, see, e.g. https://www.redbull.com/nz-en/trans-continental-race-kit-gui... and the late, great Mike Hall's bike https://road.cc/content/tech-news/219030-bike-check-mike-hal...

Benefits from an ultra-distance pov include quicker/cleaner shifting holds momentum better. Reduced chain rub and gear maintenance requirements. Less force is required to change gear which decreases the risk of repetitive strain injury. And the ability to add satellite shifters (aka "blips") to aero bars and the tops, which makes it easier to hold a riding position. Oh, and they can also be set up to be more intuitive to use than trying to remember how to juggle front and the rear mech's when completely and utterly spent :-)

All incremental at normal scale, but I can definitely see why it'd worth it to him at the scale of Lachlan's rides.

Keyword - properly charged. Thats the risk - the rest of it makes a lot of sense -- but the charging component is the issue. And if it goes dead your locked in.

Surprising choice for a long race based on durability thats all. A guess it is a trade off decision -- work vs reliability.

He is covering a lot more distance than the peleton. The peleton just rides the stage. Morton has to ride from stage to stage where in some cases the peleton may take a flight to get to the start of the next stage. Also he is carrying a lot more weight. He has a tent, cooking equipment etc.

Correct. As noted elsewhere, Lachlan didn't race a formal event. He did the ride for charity. The goal was to cover the entire Tour distance (transfers included) in less time than the actual race. And he met that goal.

Drafting (riding behind another cyclist) can cut the effort by about 30%. So, the rider at the front of the peloton might be doing ~400 watts (and likely more, especially in the last hour of a ~5 hour stage), while cyclists in the back are only doing ~280 watts.

To put that in context, as an average masters cyclist, 400 watts is an output I can do for a couple of minutes at most. And 280 watts is an output I can maintain for about an hour.

A top Tour overall contender will average >200 watts over the stage, and on a critical climb, might average 350-400 watts mostly solo (or in small groups) for 10-30 minutes.

Discussion of Uran's power in a stage win from 2017... https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/tour-de-france/rig...

Not from the Tour, but analysis of a young pro's power during his 2019 win at the 1-day Amstel Gold race... https://cyclingtips.com/2019/04/mathieu-van-der-poel-power-w...

One thing to note is that their output is also crazy compared to their weight. Looking at the numbers I sometimes think I could stay in the peloton. But then I realize I'd be dropped as a hot potato in the first small uphill segment.

Absolutely.

A strong recreational cyclist might have an FTP of 4 w/kg (FTP = functional threshold power = power one can maintain for an hour in perfect conditions). I can hit that target at peak fitness, but most of the year, I'm well below.

Mathieu van der Poel is about 75kg with an FTP above 400 watts. Over 5w/kg. He's a relatively heavy professional cyclist, but an amazing all around cyclist who can climb, sprint, and win just about any day.

Tadej Pogacar, the current Tour leader, weighs about the same as me (68kg), but has an FTP somewhere around 400 watts. Or 5.8w/kg.

Of course, 1 hour power isn't everything. The 5, 10, and 20 minute power these guys can generate is even more mind-boggling (not to mention more critical on race day, as they have to cover attacks and break-aways).

Hotel George V should have gifted him a full suite & spa service on arrival to Paris. So that, after 5 days of top-starred rest and nourishment, he could welcome personally the arrival of the peloton to the finishing line.

Interesting.

The Tour Divide is a race of similar length, both distance and time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_Divide

Did he done steroid tests?

Like any other pro athlete at that level he has to keep the anti-doping authorities informed of his whereabouts, and they probably randomly test him a couple times per year. But this particular event wasn't a sanctioned race so there wouldn't have been any official testing as part of it.

Did he get tested for EPO?

btw, we naturally produce more or less EPO

I thought Peloton bikes don't go anywhere.

Until I read these comments I thought he was racing against a Peloton bike delivery and I thought to myself well that's going to be easy because those things take months to arrive.

Not to sound cynical, but after seeing the enthusiasm about soccer and this reaching the front page...

Is there an argument in favor of Sports? It seems like a waste of resources.

I used to think it was a way to put the human body through emotions that we don't get through living in a civilization. But I'm not exactly sure that's true. And economic benefits could be traded to other entertainment or research.

Sports are a business and fall under entertainment anyway in my opinion. Owners make a lot of money and you won't see them footing the bill for new stadiums/fields generally too. Thats all tax-payer funded in the US. Internationally I'm not sure but I doubt they are footing the bill 100%.

The argument is probably that people enjoy it, does everything have to be in the name of result maximization?

Yes.

Improving your physical and mental health?

Commuting by riding/walking/cycling -- counts as sport/exercise?

Running kept me sane through multiple lockdowns.

> I used to think it was a way to put the human body through emotions that we don't get through living in a civilization. But I'm not exactly sure that's true.

I dunno. Riding my bike 100 miles, during which it hit 107°, made me think "Today is the day I am going to die of heatstroke." That's not a thought I have during regular, civilized life.

Isn't the enthusiasm enough of an argument? People like it. It's good to do thinks we like.

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