When the entry lists for the elite men’s road race at the AusCycling National Championships came out, an unexpected name jumped out – Lachlan Morton (EF Education EasyPost). Was a road comeback on the cards for the rider who announced that he had left top level road racing completely behind and would embrace an alternative calendar?
Well, no, as it turns out – it was just a brief relapse.
“I was in Australia. I felt like this is probably my only chance to race the road this year,” Morton told Cyclingnews. “I figured I'd just come in and see how it went, there was nothing more.“
After coming back to Australia for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic had struck to see family over Christmas, Morton settled in for some training toward the 185.6km race on a circuit featuring the climb of Mount Buninyong Road. He lined up his wife to help out in the feed zone and pinned on number 27 to race the Australian Road Championships without any teammates and in a field packed with returning WorldTour professionals.
“I prepared well enough, but I haven’t done a road race in ten months or so, so I wasn’t sure how it would go and it more or less went how I thought it might if I’m honest,” Morton said with a chuckle, as he stood on the sideline of the course while the remaining members of the field were still out in the heat speeding through the final laps of the race for the Australian title.
It was a DNF for Morton, who is now more accustomed to far longer distances hadn't been there to sit quietly in the field and make up numbers just so he could finish, rolling the dice as part of a gutsy early move instead.
Morton went out with a 17 rider group in the second lap of the race, held in temperatures around 30°C but feeling warmer with the extra bite of afternoon sun. He could often be seen at the front driving the pace and it was clear that this move working was his plan A, and perhaps B and C as well.
"I figured if I came here, like, I might as well,” said Morton of his decision to go out in the break and try and keep pushing it along. “The only chance I would have to be at the front of this race was to be in front of the strong guys, so I put myself in that position and if I had the legs, I could just go.”
The group, however wasn’t working as well together as Morton had hoped and the gap wasn't big enough, which is why at more than 120km to go Morton went out on his own.
“I figured if I went, either someone will come across or like those guys will at least be forced into work a little bit. But yeah, I wasn't dreaming of going to the finish or anything.”
He was pulled back and then there was a five man break pulled off the front including Luke Durbridge, with Morton remaining in the chase group but more than 100km into the 185.6km race, Morton and the remnants of the breakaway group were swept up by the group of favourites. Then the accelerations began and "my legs were pretty toasty by then" said Morton.
Race over for Morton, and perhaps not just for this year but for good.
"It was cool to come here. I was counting the laps to the end from when it started, so I think that means I probably had enough of doing this, I feel good about that," said Morton.
“To come here and race, be happy enough with the preparation and see where you get and then still be like, 'you know what, I don't need to do this anymore'. Otherwise you kind of kid yourself all the time thinking like, oh yeah, I could duck back in there and whatever. But I have a lot of fun doing a bunch of different races now.
"I think I've done enough laps around Buninyong now, I don't need to do another one."
Now with the Australian Championships over, the stampede to Adelaide for the Tour Down Under begins, with even Morton a part of the procession. But he is back to doing it his way, not going over to line up with the rest of the peloton. Instead, he is making the journey in a group organised by former teammate Mitch Docker who are riding the 700 odd kilometres from Melbourne to Adelaide.
