The Alt Tour

 

This year's Tour de France had a very good first 9 days, with plenty of opportunity for the sport's brightest stars to shine ... van der Poel, Alaphilippe, Pogacar, Cavendish, van Aert, and on and on. Of course, these successes were mixed with more than the usual drama, crashes and disappointments.

But this year there is an "Alt Tour" that apparently is getting plenty of attention as well, as Lachlan Morton of team EF Education .. rides the entire Tour de France route including all of the "transfers" unsupported, bike packing it. Including the last "transfer" from the Pyrenees back toward Paris, which the regular riders will do by airplane, Morton will ride over 5000 kms. And he is sleeping outdoors. The Wall Street Journal has a good article today about how this may be where the sport of cycling is headed.  Indeed, most cyclists I know are more interested in ultra-endurance events like the Transcontinental, Transamerican, the Tour Divide, Everesting, RAAM, or maybe Audax events like Paris-Brest-Paris, London-Edinburgh-London, the occasional SR600, riding a gravel or bikepacking "all around" bike, rather than following the ProTour.  This is why Lael Wilcox, Fiona Kolbinger, or Lachlan Morton, can have large numbers of Strava followers, though not quite up there with Wout van Aert.

These ultra-endurance events are things we can contemplate doing ourselves, just a bit more slowly. And they are epic.

[Update: Morton arrived in Paris after 5500 kms of cycling in 18 days, four days ahead of the Tour.]