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news
Lachlan Morton (via YouTube)World Tour pro Lachlan Morton wins “unimaginably hard” GBDURO bike-packing event
Lachlan Morton has won the inaugural GBDURO, a 1,960km four-stage self-supported bike-packing race from Land’s End to John O’Groats. The Australian EF Education First pro, who has also raced World Tour events such as Strade Bianche and the Tour of California this season, completed the route in 111 hours and 44 minutes. He described the experience as “unimaginably hard.”
GBDURO consists of four timed stages, each around 500km in length. Much of it is on road, but there are gravel tracks and bridleways too.
The clock stops when a rider enters each checkpoint and starts again when they leave. According to the organisers: “This gives riders the time to share tales and drinks around the campfire,” while also, “addressing sleep deprivation issues which hang over the ultraracing community.”
Having completed the route in the lowest aggregate time, Lachlan wins precisely nothing at all.
D O N E
This is Lachlan Morton checking in from John O’Groats, Scotland, the finishing point of #GBDuro. He calls the #alternativerace “the most incredible journey of my life.”
More to come!! #exploretheworld #rideTopstone pic.twitter.com/wU3WWqOQtm
— EF Education First Pro Cycling (@EFprocycling) June 28, 2019
“That was unimaginably hard,” he said at the finish. “I never realised that I had never done anything hard in my life before this. It was the most incredible experience in my life, so beyond anything I have ever done before.”
EF Education First-Drapac riders have been taking part in a number of ultra-endurance events this season, stemming from the team’s new Rapha sponsorship.
Team CEO Jonathan Vaughters said it would be fun to see the team in a new setting, and be able to interact with people who see cycling differently than professional racers.
“That’s always been a huge issue in the sport,” he said. “How our team experiences cycling on race day is different from how 99.9 percent of riders experience riding a bike. This is about us getting closer to that feeling — the simple feeling of riding a bike somewhere new.”
Earlier this month, Morton finished third overall at the 200-mile gravel grinder, The Dirty Kanza, crossing the finish line side-by-side with team-mate Alex Howes.
“I’m very conscious being a WorldTour rider coming to an event like this,” he said afterwards. “We didn’t want to bring WorldTour cycling to Kanza. This is a great event, and we didn’t want our presence to change anything. We were just a group of friends here to participate in this amazing event, and that’s exactly what it’s been. We went out there and gave it our best and tried to have fun doing it.”
Taylor Phinney also took part in that race.
In August, the team will send riders to the Leadville 100 mountain bike race; in September, they’ll be back in the UK for the Three Peaks Cyclocross; and then later the same month the last event on the team’s ‘alternative calendar’ is the Taiwan KOM Challenge.
“We can go and show up in different events that regularly a WorldTour team has no interest in, but that I think the majority of the cycling audience is starting to have a really big interest in — gravel events, ultra-endurance events, some mountain bike races,” said Morton.
“I think we can have a much bigger impact on the sport… It’s not about the results, it’s about the sport and an exploration about where the sport is going.
“It’s not about turning Dirty Kanza into a WorldTour race, or going and smashing the record at Leadville. That’s not the point. It’s more about looking at the season as a whole and it being an exploration of the sport. And then having the ability to share that with anyone who is willing to watch.
“In that way, the hope is you get people more interested in all levels of the sport. If we do it right, it’s a win-win for everyone.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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16 comments
Hey all,
i took part in the event and finished 4th.
one hell of an experience, vast chunks of the route there is no way any media car could follow him,
lachlan was super down to earth, fully embraced the ethos of what the unsupported vibes that the racingcollective strive to achieve.
rode with him for around 90 mins at the start over a variety of terrain and boy he can handle a bike off road!
The smokestone fatbike i’d chosen was slower on the mainly road section in Cornwall and Devon but really came into its own in wales and, northern England and Scotland, even nabbed a few KOMs!
would recommend the event to anyone looking for a more environmentally aware adventure, no plane flights needed to get well out of the comfort zone!
In total 12 of the brave 29 pioneers completed the route, it was hard as nails!!
cheers, Andy
66BEA669-A108-488C-B2AE-245E112C4095.jpeg
@brucedinsmore23 Yea I saw that.. I'm darn sure that whoever EF send to race the three peaks will get their arses handed to them LOL. The pictures from that race should be good
I like this, seeing pro's mixing it up with us normies.. I get why it might be best to keep pro's out of amateur events, but I can't help thinking I'd love to see how fast Tom Pidcock could ride Hell of the North Cotswolds or Lachlan Morton ride the Fred Whitton.. just for giggles.
Peted76 - I read in the article that they are sending riders to race the 3 Peaks cyclocross race, so come and watch this and see how ex pro or even pro riders get on. Thomas Frischknecht had a go at the 3 Peaks in 2012. He's multiple world champion and Olympic Silver medal winner.
He only managed 30th place in the 3 Peaks, over 40mins down on Rob Jebb the winner.
They're still riding, with a group currently near Inverness - look on the race website as ridein quotes.
He is a cool dude and an honest ethic. But who finished second ? No clue if there were any other riders in the event as they got zero coverage. Letting WT riders in absorbed all the media attention.
No one else has finished yet! Lachlan Morton pulled off an incredible ride and finished first by miles. You can see how far ahead he was by rewinding the tracking map on https://www.theracingcollective.com/gbduro.html#
Thanks for clarifying
Road CC say 111 hours, Cycling Weekly say 158 hours ??
The race website, https://www.theracingcollective.com/gbduro.html, states 111 hours and 44 minutes as LM's finish time. Possibly the 158 hours indicates the total elapsed time from when he set off initially to the finish which would include the time at each stage start/finish as well.
The difference matches the time he reportedly slept along the way.
What their press release about him “winning” GBduro doesn’t mention is that he had a Rapha support car following him. Hardly fair and misses the point of ultra races.
I did wonder about that. The support car no doubt contained the three photographers and videographer who documented his journey, providing more advertising reach for the new Topstone and his Garmin computer than any normal ad campaign. I do like the guy, he seems a genuine lover of the bike who just happens to have phenomenal amounts of watts at his disposal, but as Adam Blythe once said, 'pro cycling is about business, that's all it is."
Francis Cade and partner had a car following them as well, and he's just a vlogger.
It contained media vlogging gear, and they weren't allowed anything that would support their racing effort, no tents/food/gadget. Just the bits he needed to create the media content to promote the event. Seems likely that Morton had the same, no?
And it resulted in soem lovely, and quite inspirational, pics: https://cyclingtips.com/2019/06/lachlan-morton-just-keeps-riding/
He broke the rules if he had a suport vehicle with him - this is the problem when you get Ex pro riders doing these bikepacking adventure races. I wonder if and what drugs were considered?