RACING THE TOUR

WorldTour rider Lachlan Morton loves a madcap challenge, and this summer he took on his biggest one yet, riding the Tour de France route and all the transfers unsupported in a bid to beat the pro peloton to Paris. Chris Marshall-Bell tracked him down to do a turn on the front

- Chris Marshall-Bell

Standing under bunting featuring yellow, green and polka-dot jerseys, and with a large sign a few metres ahead of me celebrating the arrival of the Tour de France in Saint-Gaudens in just four days, I am getting impatient. Not for the Tour’s arrival, but for Lachlan Morton. I’ve been trying to catch him the previous three days, but he is so fast, so intent on making it to Paris ahead of the actual Tour, I keep missing him.

Looking at my watch, I tell myself yet again that, yes, this definitely is the roundabout I’d been told he’d pass. He then appears, wheels screaming, tightening his sandals (more on this to come), and then bombing down a hill. I hurry after him, coming to an abrupt stop within seconds when he hits the brakes, correcting a wrong turn. The smell of hastily hand-washed Lycra and a man far removed from the luxury of modern-day life wafts back to hit me.

The Tour is in town: not the race itself, but a longer and wackier version of it.

Old school touring

It is day 14 of Morton’s unorthodox tour around France, coined the Alt Tour. The EF Education-Nippo rider wants to emulate the essence of the first-ever Tour, in 1903, that required competitors to ride hundreds of kilometres each day and from dusk to dawn. He is covering each of the race’s stages and all the transfers in between. When I finally catch Morton, he is approaching the 4,000km mark. He would eventually reach Paris after 5,509km in 17 days, a whopping 225 hours of riding time. In the process, he hopes to raise money for World Bicycle Relief (see box).