Lachlan Morton on the great divide

[substandard]

https://efprocycling.com/culture/lachla ... 109341d630

Should be interesting

[fatbikephil]

I like that - he's not going to push it too hard but do it in around 2 weeks....

[gecko76]

"The course record, or fastest known time (FKT), is held by the late ultracycling legend Mike Hall, who completed the ride in 13 days, 22 hours, and 51 minutes in 2016." Or a fraction under two weeks.

This is the same guy who did the Tour de France unsupported, right? I like his approach

[redefined_cycles]

"The course record, or fastest known time (FKT), is held by the late ultracycling legend Mike Hall, who completed the ride in 13 days, 22 hours, and 51 minutes in 2016." Or a fraction under two weeks.

This is the same guy who did the Tour de France unsupported, right? I like his approach

Yes, same guy that did the unsupported Tour De France (and wore slippers towards the end). He also holds the Everesting record (I think about 6.5H to complete an elevation of 8849m). I reckon he'll be going for the record but doesn't wanna commit just yet.

Maybe we shall see Mike Halls record broken sooner rather than later (though I believe the Tour Divide and the Great Divide MBR are slightly different variants of the same thing. One being the waymarked (or not) official route and the other being the group start 'race'.

Shirley will be along soon to clarify if doing it solo still counts for brekaing Mikes record which was in a group start (so maybe even a slight advantage). Lachlan is pretty cool!

[Lazarus]

Not self supported , and he does not care apparently, so mikes record is safe

This time, I am willing to interact with the crew( who are recording it). It’s a strange thing, one on a human level, because it is my brother who is going to shoot it, to pretend that your brother is not there? It is a weird thing

Interesting to see if more rest is faster than dont stop.

[Blackhound]

FKT does not have to be set during the mass start, Lael's record was a ITT. Before Mike I recall a couple of record attempts in August by Craig Stapler and JayP. JayP certainly help the record for a while before Mike.

Speaking of which JayP is in hospital in Salida with various broken bones after a collision with a car. I don't know what happened but the injury list is extensive. He was attempting a ride from a revised start up near Lake Louise (I think).

[Dave Barter]

“This time, I am willing to interact with the crew. It’s a strange thing, one on a human level, because it is my brother who is going to shoot it, to pretend that your brother is not there? It is a weird thing. And then two, I think we’ll be able to come out of it with better documentation of what the experience actually was. Ultimately, I hope the ride inspires people to wander, to push themselves, and to see these big, wild places.”

It will be interesting ..but sorry, just another biking celeb potentially draining a little bit more of the pure from the challenge. I see contradiction in the paragraph above as a big wild place ceases to be wild when your brother pops by in a van waving a camera.

[sean_iow]

Can't break the record if there's a film crew following him? Isn't there a rule specifically about this? I seem to recall he did the same on the Colorado Trail.

I see he mentions he doesn't think it helps if you have a crew, and it night not make a difference when all is gong well, but they are a safety net. The comfort of a crew close by enables you to take risks you might not otherwise if you were truly self-supported.

[Lazarus]

better documentation of what the experience actually was.

Dave filmed his attempt ( good watch), no doubt others have as well, whikst solo
A seperate film crew, not actually riding, are hardly more real than a camera on the rider.

Everyone has to make a living but that is nothing like solo and , IMHO, not self supported ; you cannot have a crew follow you and claim you are alone.

[jameso]

I like how he talks about the support and official records. Maybe it's time to talk about classes of fkt in a similar way to climbing having on sights and practiced ascents. You rarely if ever could climb your top grade on sight and a supported ride may be less pure in some ways. The solo ITT may be purer than racing the TDR from the mass start. A rookie run is on sight, a 3rd or 4th run has advantages but may be harder mentally in some ways. How the rider deals with it all, expresses their experience etc is more important I think.
He's got a good platform. I agree with what he says about the value of inspiration from the ride, however we get inspired all of us on here know what it feels like.
(Edit to add, I think a rider could be filmed and still race self-supported, it's possible? I don't see the existence but unknown location or actions of a crew being much different to having a spot tracker and using a smart phone during a race?)

Sad to hear of Jay P's crash though. Someone else who was racing the clock in his own way for good reasons.

[fatbikephil]

I was wondering not so long since if the FKT thing may have it's day. It now boils down to just how far you can go without sleeping and seems to have moved away from the whole 'adventure' thing. There was quite a while when getting a fast time on a route meant a combo of nous, riding ability, fitness and ability to do without sleep but the first 2 seem to have been swamped by the last two....

Enjoying the riding seems to have been forgotten about - it's just who has the biggest leg and the most caffeine.. Oh I dunno, I'm past it so mebbes just jealous of all these young people getting into what is rapidly becoming a sport...

Anyway fair play to Lachlan on setting out not to break a record and just enjoy blazing through the route with enough kip to have fun doing so.

[Alpinum]

Wanted to write this before the server mistook its knee for its nose and was afraid my long rambling had broken it.

I like how Lachlan is honest about his style  (media crew, contact with friends etc.) before he even started his trip.
I also like how he plans to deal with rests yet still has an eye on putting down a fast ITT.

I hope he absolutely smashes it.

On the other hand, quite a lot of talk about records when apparently he's "not so fussed about it" 
Perhaps we'll come to a time when those fastest bikepackers out there just go and smash it to their likes without the record this and record that..? I wonder if the more support a rider has (sponsorship etc.), the more records are of importance.

I was wondering not so long since if the FKT thing may have it's day. It now boils down to just how far you can go without sleeping and seems to have moved away from the whole 'adventure' thing

Exactly what I keep thinking.

climbing having on sights and practiced ascents

My analogy would be alpine style vs expedition style. Or siege style vs. exped style.
Alpine style in bikepacking is tricky to come by (would mean autarkic, absolutely no tracks to ride on, no infrastructure, nada), but it surely pushes things into more adventure.

Edit to add, I think a rider could be filmed and still race self-supported, it's possible?

are you a purist or not? I think the outcome of your question depends on how much of a purist the asked person is.
It's a never ending discussion in mountaineering (what is alpine style). The understanding of what it actually is, seems to have shifted in the mainstream media and general understanding.
It's nice to see the GHM with their Piolet d'Or awards recognise the pure forms (see Kazuya Hiraide's and partner's ascent of Rakaposhi or what the two up on Gasherbrum IV are currently doing and will likely be awarded by the GHM) and not the x-th record on overrun routes on 8000m peaks. I think bikepacking challenges could do with a bit more style and less mediacrew "unsupported" "fkt" and first what not rides.

Like Joffrey Maluski's Iceland trip last March/April. Not one word, publicly, about how this is a record/first. Yet during the times we met in and around Reykjavik I realised that he was well aware of what he had just done. If I was to give a similar award in bikepacking as the Piolet d'Or, he'd get it and not a rider going faster on a well established route.

[Rapideye]

At the other end of the scale is Mat Ryder's films of his attempt that have been getting released over the last few weeks. Maybe cos he's a pretty normal guy, doing fairly normal distances and is a little more relatable to me than some of these other guys. I did like Joe Nation's too though. Lachlan's will be worth watching.

[jameso]

My analogy would be alpine style vs expedition style. Or siege style vs. exped style.
Alpine style in bikepacking is tricky to come by (would mean autarkic, absolutely no tracks to ride on, no infrastructure, nada), but it surely pushes things into more adventure.

An interesting angle about the level of self-sufficiency. Could get a bit like the self-appointed self-sufficiency rules police on bikepacking.net : ) A bit like the GBDuro one year when the riders had to carry all their supplies with them. Aside from how well you know the route or how much prep you do you can make any weekend ride more self-sufficient by carrying your own food. Plastic-free too, there's been talk about all the waste a co-op raid produces.
I also like the Crane's approach in Journey to the Centre of the Earth, they used shops and local generosity for food so they could travel super-light. A kind of Alpine approach that works with where bikes are mostly found, on tracks of some sort where there's food here and there. No reason to stay in places like that but I guess it's just 'how it is' in many places we ride. Carrying your own food to stay out in wilder places is also good, something that often happens and gets mixed up in trips without me having thought much about it as a different 'style'.

If I was to give a similar award in bikepacking as the Piolet d'Or, he'd get it and not a rider going faster on a well established route.

Agreed. Whatever we think of the idea of awards and all that stuff it's good to celebrate more than just speed from A to B. The risk is celebrating the 'extreme' instead and I don't see that as much different or any more valuable overall? Yes it's good to push ourselves, imho no it's not good to present that as a necessity or an attribute in bikepacking generally. (Edit to add, it's probably not right to pretend it's all just a jolly either). That's why Morton's approach to sleep breaks is a good thing, the sleep dep side of all this is a natural part of going fast but it's great to see riders finding other ways to do it. I always admired Matt Lee's riding style in that respect.

[johnnystorm]

Aside from how well you know the route or how much prep you do you can make any weekend ride more self-sufficient by carrying your own food.

If I carry all my food and top up with diesel at my local Tesco I can travel from Suffolk and spend a long weekend in Wales all while contributing nothing to my riding destination.

[jameso]

^ another good angle on it
Stopping at the pub is good style
The GBDuro thing was about covid restrictions I think.

[Lazarus]

Yes it was a covid rule

[redefined_cycles]

Stopping at the pub is good style

"Not for me", said the mangled liver

Sorry, I'll grab my down jacket.

[jameso]

Stopping at the pub is good style

"Not for me", said the mangled liver

Sorry, I'll grab my down jacket.

Could be a stop for food

[redefined_cycles]

Stopping at the pub is good style

"Not for me", said the mangled liver

Sorry, I'll grab my down jacket.

Could be a stop for food

So so true

[labrat]

I was wondering not so long since if the FKT thing may have it's day. It now boils down to just how far you can go without sleeping and seems to have moved away from the whole 'adventure' thing. There was quite a while when getting a fast time on a route meant a combo of nous, riding ability, fitness and ability to do without sleep but the first 2 seem to have been swamped by the last two....

Enjoying the riding seems to have been forgotten about - it's just who has the biggest leg and the most caffeine.. Oh I dunno, I'm past it so mebbes just jealous of all these young people getting into what is rapidly becoming a sport...

Anyway fair play to Lachlan on setting out not to break a record and just enjoy blazing through the route with enough kip to have fun doing so.

I’ve been quite vocal in my opposition to the growth of FKT - for one thing, certainly in the UK, people are riding on public roads and shared trails. Even putting aside the technical legality of the events as a ‘trial of speed’, there is a wider image thing there - for a sport (mountainbiking) that has such poor (legal) access opportunities, we really know how to go about alienating ourselves when we need to be winning friends. Of course, we know that in most cases riders aren’t going ‘fast’, but it’s only a matter of time - before someone does have to go ‘faster’ to beat the person before them. A race to the bottom.

But I have a deeper problem.

I was friends with Mike Hall. I had known him from when he was about fourteen, and we had ridden together plenty of times. I have little doubt that he was entirely blameless in the accident that took him away from us… but I can’t help wondering how much time and thought went into the route selection, and I simply cannot get away from a nagging feeling that sooner or later this challenge to ride faster, further, longer (and as has been commented) through endurance riding without sleep and to the point of human exhaustion, is going to end in something terrible - a rider whose concentration or ability to react has been depleted to breaking point.

And I think that event organisers need to see they have a duty of care there. Both to the riders and to others. Having lost Mike, and since then had my own experience with the pain of loss of an adult child, I think that that idea of duty of care weighs all the more heavily on me. I wouldn’t want to be the one attending an inquest and trying to defend the choice to put a rider who had spent eighteen hours in the saddle on a busy A-road. It’s simply not enough to say ‘it was their choice…’ - in fact it was quite enlightening reading the inquest report from the death of several prospective SAS soldiers from heat exhaustion in the Brecon Beacons a few years ago, and how they could have been avoided if rules that were already in existence had not been ignored. It’s also interesting speaking to some of the endurance horse eventers - where the longer events have mandatory veterinary checks along the route in order to monitor the horses recovery rate before allowing them to continue.

At the very least, I think that the longer FKT type events do need to introduce mandatory rest periods for the safety of both the competitors and others.

I hope that this is all taken in the spirit intended.

[whitestone]

The Tour Aotearoa Brevet in New Zealand has the following rule:

Between 9am one day and 9am the next, every rider must spend at least one block of at least six hours not travelling. In other words, the maximum time any rider may spend riding each day will be 18 hours (between each 9am-to-9am period).

There's also a rule that you cannot finish in under 10 days.

That of course is for a Brevet (essentially an Audax) rather than an ITT but there's no reason why an ITT or race couldn't have similar. Jay Petervary's Fat Pursuit requires you to boil a litre of water at the first check point to demonstrate that you've the kit and knowledge to use it. (Incidentally and somewhat forebodingly given the post I'm replying to, Jay had a serious accident five days ago, hit from behind by a car - https://www.jaypetervary.com/)

[riderdown]

And I think that event organisers need to see they have a duty of care there

This is the most important point as very tired people are more likely to make poor decisions, but

Regulation of a ITT is nigh on impossible and someone will always want to have the FKT and the internet makes it easy to share this

[fatbikephil]

Oof - thorny issue!
I tackled Alan Goldsmith on this and he did indicate a certain nervousness about what he's created. In 't good old days (OK 2015) people knew what they could and couldn't do and whilst there was plenty of sleep deprivation going on (such as Aiden Harding riding from Loch Maree to Tyndrum in one go) it seemed fairly 'reasonable'

But some of the roadie events going on do seem to suggest young super fit people are just riding well beyond any semblance of normal levels of sleep deprivation....

Who knows - we keep banging on about this but it appears that if someone offers a route, someone will try to ride it in one go without sleeping.

Statement of intent - after last years bleary eyed stumble fest, I'm going to get at least 3 hours kip on this years BB 300

[Johnallan]

First, I hope Lachlan has a flier and really enjoys himself

Second, I hope people stop trying to implement 'rules'. It's just riding bikes. Sometimes it gets a bit daft but if it was totally safe, I doubt most of us would be interested anyway