Doing It The Original Way
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The Tour de France we see today is not exactly how it started out back in 1913. The original concept thought up was to make the Tour so difficult there would only be one finisher who would therefore be the winner. Racing started in the early hours of the morning with riders having to fix their own bikes and feed themselves covering more than 300 miles per day. The one famous story is that of a cyclist receiving help from a blacksmith fixing his fork resulting in disqualification. This was all about being on your own and were allowed no assistance.
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This year Lachlan Morton a pro rider with EF Education is doing the old tour raising money for the World Bicycle Fund. The goal is to raise enough to purchase 500 bikes and he has already raised over $200 000.
Lachlan is currently 2 stages ahead of the Tour riders which is roughly a 600 mile buffer. His race is so different though as he rides each stage and then has to ride to the next starting point of the next stage. The teams obviously don't do that as they transfer between stages using busses and planes.
There is a huge difference in the total distance ridden by the time they get to Paris. Lachlan will have ridden over 5500 km compared to the Tour riders 3383 km. The pressure of having to stay ahead is forcing Lachlan to ride during the night as well as covering the 300 miles per day is the bare minimum. What is in his favor is he has no rest days unlike the teams and should be able to stay ahead. 21 days and 5500 km sounds easy enough, but realistically this is a monumental challenge he has taken on.
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His challenge started 1 hour after the first stage started knowing that over the next 3 weeks he will most likely be riding for 12 hours every day at an average speed of 25km/h. He has to stop to buy food and water as he has no support looking after him.
The one thing that made him do this was to learn and understand more about France. When you are in a race you don't get to see much as you are whisked away to hotels between stages and have no time to explore. Sleeping rough and going back to how the Tour was originally formatted will give him a different insight and understanding. He has quite a following now as people are coming out to find him and give him encouragement along the way.
Lachlan sincere act of discovering more about the race and france is quite inspiring.
I cannot imagine being on the road all alone with no help, and doing by this because of the fund raising procedures
I hope that he will find what he is looking for so that all his efforts won't be for nothing
this is a very tedious task for him. riding at night is so risky. hmm. i love riding but i have not gone to this extent before. i pray him success.
I haven't watched the Tour de France for so long, I've been disconnected from cycling that reading your post was a bit of a challenge.
What a nice gesture by the cyclist in raising funds to donate.
The Tour de France is hard to believe that it is designed only for super athletes.
This guy is amazing and unique, because not all people think like him and what he is doing is something nice, raising funds just to buy bikes and then give them away is something that a person does when he has love for something, like him for cycling. Good post brother, hope you had a good day.
Wow this is really going to be tough cycling race, getting to fix your own bike with no help or assistant. That's what I find interesting in the game.
Wow, this is amazing I must admit. How long can he keep up with this and I hope he raised the fund he his after.
Dude, that's gangster on a different level. Soon, we might all have to fix our own bikes 😆