Lachlan Morton Rages Against the Conventional Path of a Pro Athlete
Photo from the film Thereabouts Reprise #2.
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
Lachlan Morton rides his way, on his terms. This is simply a different rider that rides for different reasons. He rides to complete challenges and help other people. He suffers to defy his perceived limits. Lachlan embodies a higher purpose than to simply compete, win, get sponsors and get more money.
He grew up in Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia, a beautiful coastal city north of Sydney. Together with his brother Gus, they formed deep bonds by riding bikes as kids, teens and then adults. Their high school cycling club and local races gave them the backbone to be the riders and humans they would would become.
Following a highly successful but unfulfilling cycling career for Lachlan and film school for Gus, the two brothers introduced their pursuit of alternative calendar event in the film Thereabouts.
“The best rides are the ones where you bite off much more than you can chew, and live through it.”
Following burnout in professional cycling, Lachlan turned inward and began to travel his own road in cycling. To make cycling what he wanted it to be, not what everyone thought it was or had to be like. He began to go on his own adventure, his own unique way.
“People expected me to do great things,” he says. “They talked about how talented I was. But I kept thinking, ‘This training, these races, the mountains, they still really hurt. If this is what it feels like to be talented, then being talented must really suck,” Lachlan Morton in Ian Dille’s article for Bicycling Magazine.
Throughout his life, Morton has embodied a desire to live for a higher purpose his way. He champions an alternative calendar to professional cycling, and he’s lived an alternative life that’s to be admired and celebrated. Morton shows us all that he can do what you want to do in life, how you want to do it. Lachlan wanted to ride the Tour de France his own unique way, so he did it. The alternative life he lives is evidenced so clearly in the film “The Alt Tour” presented by EF Cycling.
“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”
Following successful additional alternative calendar rides, Morton took things to the next level in 2022, riding in one single push from Munich to Korczowa-Krakovets on the Polish-Ukrainian border, covering 1,064 kilometers in 42 hours and raising over $250,000 for Ukrainian refugees. It’s a feat you just don’t see other athletes accomplishing or even trying.
His Alt-Tour ride, where he rode the entire Tour De France course unsupported in 2021, raised over $700,000 for World Bicycle Relief. In 2022, Lachlan rode the Divide, a trail stretching from Banff, Alberta, Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico on the U.S.-Mexico border in 12 days, 12 hours, and 21 minutes.
This is all documented in EF Racing’s first full length feature film called The Divide. Check it out below.
In 2024, Lachlan won the UNBOUND gravel race, the premier gravel race in the world. He set a course record this year and his fourth attempt at the race and put on a stunning performance. Back in 2019, this was the race that started Lachlan’s pursuit of the alternative calendar.
As of this writing, Lachlan is riding around the entire country of Australia. He plans to complete the journey in 35 days at around 400 km per day. It’s just another way he inspires us all to get out on a bike more. You can follow the journey on his instagram page and then earlier this year he released Thereabouts Reprise #2, which you can view below.
Lachlan Morton embodies the true spirit of the orange acid and the athletes, artists and musicians we profile. You can read more about his accomplishments here at his profile on the EF Racing web site and check out his dope playlist on spotify below that features some of the Orange Acid’s favorites such as King Krule, Pusha-T and of course Lou Reed.
“I’m losing the precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news. ”