Lachlan Morton chases Tour Divide record time but with self-imposed sleep quota

One of the constants of bikepacking races and records has been dealing with sleep deprivation while pushing the body's physical limits, but Lachlan Morton wants to try and deliver a fast time over the route of the annual Tour Divide race – without giving up too much valuable rest time.

The Australian, who has a habit of taking an unconventional approach, is setting out to go as fast as he can over the remote and rugged 2,671-mile (4,298km) trail from Banff, Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico, with one proviso – he is delivering a self-imposed quota of 12 hours of rest every 48 hours. 

“I’ve done a few ultras now and they have all involved a fair bit of sleep deprivation in trying to go fast,” Morton said in a statement from his EF Education-EasyPost team. “The last one I did was the Colorado Trail around this time last year. And I enjoyed that experience, but in the last kind of push I was pretty sleep deprived and wasn’t enjoying it and had that realization that ‘I don’t want to do this again.’”

The fastest known time of 13 days, 22 hours and 51 minutes was set in 2016 by the unmatched ultra-endurance behemoth Mike Hall, who died in 2017 when struck from behind while racing in Australia. Morton's focus, however, is not on taking that official record – particularly as the presence of a camera crew would raise questions on this front – but going as fast as he can and seeing how it stacks up.

This year's winner of the Tour Divide, Ulrich Bartholmoes, completed the journey in 14 days, three hours and 23 minutes, getting impressively close to Hall’s record despite the race presenting sections of the peanut butter mud that played havoc at Unbound for the riders to push their bikes through. 

The German rider’s tracking dot data recorded a total stopping time of three days, seven hours and 31 minutes on the Tour Divide, which equates to approximately five and a half hours a day total stopping time though that is total stopped time, not just rest time, and in this case also included ten hours tucked out of the weather in a port-a-loo waiting for the sticky mud to dry enough to be slightly more passable.  

“I want to do this on a pretty good amount of sleep every night for a few reasons," said Morton. "The main one: I want to enjoy the riding, and it becomes increasingly difficult to enjoy what you are doing when you are running on minimal sleep, for me anyways, because you are not as present and aware. I don’t want to enter that space.

"Also just to be safe, I think that your decision-making and general awareness are pretty diminished if you are running on minimal sleep. I have never ridden this route before. It is a big undertaking, and to try and do all of that while pushing on minimal sleep, I think would be kind of reckless for me. But I still enjoy pushing big distances and mileage, so I am going to be — while I am riding — trying to cover as much distance as I can and trying to do it in a time that is as fast as I can while still sleeping.”

Morton has taken on long distances self-supported before, with his Alt Tour of 5,509km and 225 hours of riding over 18 days in 2021, though that allowed time for a good night's sleep. Morton has also taken on challenges where, like will occur for his Tour Divide effort, the clock doesn't stop. He rode the 849km Colorado Trail in 3 days 10 hours and 15 minutes, with around 12 hours of stopped time last year. 

“I am interested to see how much better I feel," said Morton of his self-imposed mandatory rest hours. "I think the body is going to get the chance to regenerate and replenish a bit more, but also mentally, having that break from what you are doing, resetting and then tackling it again, I think will help in terms of having that motivation to keep pushing every day.”

“I’m just interested. I don’t really have any solid ideas of how long it will take doing it this way, because it is hard, not knowing the route and what kind of speed you can maintain. You have just got to see how much you can cover. I am really interested to see with this approach, how fast you can really go and if it would be competitive with people who have really pushed that sleep element.”

Through the ride Morton will raise funds for Adventure for All.

Morton's ride will start on August 29 and can be followed via live tracking here.