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EF Education EasyPost-backed rider and adventurous spirit Lachlan Morton has shattered the previous Around Australia record, averaging over 450km per day for slightly over 30 days.
The Aussie covered 14,200km in thirty days, nine hours and 59 minutes, more than a week faster than the previous best.
That was Dave Alley’s 37 days, 20 hours and 42 minutes set 13 years ago while covering 14,251km.
“Mentally, it’s a lot of time to be focused,” he said after completing his odyssey. “And every morning you wake up and your body is kind of like destroyed and you push through, it just chips away at you. So definitely the last four or five days were a pretty big challenge mentally.
“You’re just trying to keep showing up and doing it every day. It got pretty tough. I was definitely in a state of fatigue that I hadn’t really reached before so I had to lean on the crew and rally to get home.
“Just dedicating such a massive amount of time to pushing yourself every day. That is the real challenge I think of the Around Australia Record. I’ve never been so relieved to finish something as I was today.”
Under the rules set by the Road Record Association of Australia, riders taking on the fastest known time (FKT) mark need to ride for at least 14,200km.
They also need to pass through at least six of the following cities: Adelaide, Brisbane, Broome, Darwin, Esperance, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
‘A feeling pretty hard to replicate’
Morton’s journey began and ended in his hometown of Port Macquarie. According to his EF Education EasyPost team, he started his ride most days around midnight and continued until 5 or 6 p.m. He’d then eat, shower and sleep, before starting the routine once again.
“I made the route into town to take in a lot of the roads I grew up training on,” he said. “I went past the house I grew up in. It just brought back a huge amount of memories that made today very special.”
He was supported by a dedicated crew along the way, including his wife Rachel Peck and his brother –and former pro—Angus Morton.
Also helping out were his childhood coach Graham Sears, his longtime mechanic Tom Hopper, and friends Karter Machen and Athalee Brown.
In addition to keeping his spirits up, they helped with meals, washing of kit, finding motels, maintaining his bike and other tasks along the way.
The support he got in his hometown also made a big impression on him.
“Seeing lifelong friends come out, and a bunch of new faces who have all just been following my journey, it was an incredibly special feeling to be able to pull off something like that in your own hometown. It’s a feeling that I think is pretty hard to replicate.”
Turning his back on pro road racing
Now 32, Morton joined the EF Education-EasyPost setup—which was then known as Garmin Sharp—way back in 2012. He was with the squad until the end of the 2014 season, spent time with Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis and Team Dimension Data before returning to Jonathan Vaughters’ squad in 2019.
However despite a very considerable physical talent plus GC wins in the Tour of Utah and Tour of the Gila, he never really took to professional pro racing. He spent increasing amounts of time in ultra distance riding, with his 2,500 ride from Port Macquarie to Uluru the subject of the documentary film Thereabouts. Other epics followed, including the 2,000km GBDuro in Great Britain in 2019.
Morton won Unbound Gravel earlier this year.
His most recent ride in Australia saw him raise over $127,000 AUD ($86,000 US) for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, which provides books and learning resources to Indigenous children across Australia. Donations are possible here.
“Being able to use something that’s a passion for me to help people’s lives in some way is always special,” he said. “I think being able to have some impact on some of the places we’ve traveled through means a lot to me. I think on the whole, the cycling community is always pretty generous. It’s an expression of that.”
‘You’ve just got to keep trucking’
The money raised will be of great benefit, while Morton will treasure both his achievement and also the experiences along the way. According to EF Education-EasyPost, he had a close call with a kangaroo in his first week on the bike, and was dive bombed by cantankerous Australian magpies along the way.
His team added that he took time out 21 days into his ride to help an injured bird.
“The memories I have of riding through the outback in the north at night and having those sunrises up there is something that I think I’ll carry with me for a long time,” he said.
“As hard as they were, the big long headwind days were for me probably what I was most scared of and intimidated by and to be able to tackle 16, 17 hours of just riding straight into a headwind knowing that nothing’s going to change.
“You’ve just got to keep trucking your way into it, trying to cover as much distance as you can. For me, personally, it was a highlight to be able to manage that.”
A new Thereabouts film based on his record-breaking feat will be released in January.
30 days, 9 hours, 59 minutes | Port Macquarie, NSW | KM 14,203
Lachy rolled into his hometown of Port Macquarie at 1:54 p.m. completing his loop around Australia and setting the fastest known time for the Around Australia Record – beating the previous mark by a little over a… pic.twitter.com/SdtfHbQESt
— EF Pro Cycling (@EFprocycling) October 5, 2024
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