On October 5th, Lachlan Morton will set out on his next challenge: racing across the American West on one of the nation’s most fabled routes.
Lachlan is going to try to ride the route of the Pony Express faster than the horsemen who carried mail from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, during the heyday of the legendary 19th-century postal service.
He admires the courage of the young riders who signed up for that wild, high-speed horseback relay across the prairies and mountains that connect the western states.
“The way they could get mail across the country at that speed – before there was any railroad connecting it – was revolutionary,” Lachlan said. “The idea of people traversing such massive distances just captured my imagination, especially knowing a lot of that terrain. Think of these big open spaces – huge plains, mountain ranges – and you imagine a slow transition, but with the elevation and the vegetation it's always evolving, and when you're covering big distances you get a really diverse variety of riding. It's a great canvas for adventure. It's existed there for so long, and you feel like you're participating in what the country is all about."
The Pony Express was founded in 1860 with the promise to deliver mail across the West by horse in 10 days or less. The fastest recorded time for the 1,966-mile (3,164-kilometer) route, which crossed Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California, was set in 1861, when young horsemen carried Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address the distance in seven days and 17 hours, changing horses every 10 miles (16 kilometers) and riders every 75 to 100 miles (120 to 160 kilometers). They carried the message that helped persuade California to remain in the Union.
The postal route ceased operation in October 1861, when it was eclipsed by the first transcontinental telegraph line. The Pony Express only ran for 18 months. And yet, stories from its early letter carriers – galloping across the range, day and night, whatever the weather, whatever the danger – inspired Americans long after those early postmen had delivered their final envelope out of its mochila, on time to its final destination, of course. Their heroism, their willingness to do something hard to help unite the United States when it was most divided, represented America at its finest. Legends from the Pony Express have connected Americans more than any single letter they ever carried could.
Now, our Australian adventurer, whose past exploits include riding the entire route of the Tour de France, plus the transfers, faster than the pro peloton; setting the fastest time for the Tour Divide, a rugged bikepacking odyssey from Banff, Alberta, to Antelope Wells, New Mexico; and breaking the around-Australia record by bike, wants try to ride the route of the Pony Express faster. He will carry letters from citizen to citizen, delivering them between stations on the route.
"The appeal for me is the history of it," he said. "It's wild to get into that mindset – you're a kid trying to make some money, and there's this opportunity to ride a horse with a mochila full of mail through the night for 75 miles (120 kilometers) flat out, across remote, gnarly terrain that no one else has been crossing. It's quite a courageous thing. It's hard to imagine, and that's why I want to go out there and try to get a better understanding of what that would have been like, and the difficulties they faced doing it over 150 years ago.”
Lachlan's plan to cross difficult land at pace was inspired by the strategy adopted by the Pony Express during its heyday. Just as those young riders switched horses, riding thoroughbreds on the plains, pintos across the middle section, and American mustangs through the Sierra Nevada, with quick pit stops at remote stations en route, Lachlan will swap between his Cannondale TopStone, SuperSix, and Scalpel, choosing the best bike for each stretch of country that he will encounter.
"The idea is to mimic how they used to switch out horses," he said. "I'll be swapping between a gravel bike, a road bike, and a mountain bike depending on the terrain. The route I've put together tries to get as close to the original as I could. I'm excited because it'll use all the different disciplines I've raced."
Lachlan will travel light, resupplying and switching bikes from a truck that will follow him across the West with his brother Gus, who will document the trip on film. Nights in the desert and mountains will be frosty, and there will be hot days where Lachlan only has tumbleweeds for company under the October sun. Most of the Pony Express route is very remote, so there will be long stretches where Lachlan will have to fend for himself, pushing on and on towards the setting sun, like those early riders on the range.
"You start on the plains, essentially, coming across Kansas, then across the basin through Wyoming, into Utah," Lachlan said. "The real crux is the Nevada section – the stretch from Salt Lake City across to Carson City – because it's incredibly remote and very exposed. There's a lot that could go wrong there, and you're very much on your own. That's probably the hardest part. Then you cross the Sierra Nevada on the southern side of Lake Tahoe and drop through the foothills, which I know well because I live out there now, and finish in Sacramento.”
The first Pony Express riders were early American heroes – brave, young souls who helped knit the country together by carrying messages back and forth across the country.
Follow Lachlan – and his dot – on his journey as he seeks to better their times and understand their role in forging the United States.
He will be posting daily updates from the trail on this page.