'Mind-blowing' - Lachlan Morton's mid-point assessment of Pony Express endurance ride across 'very desolate landscapes' of US western states

Lachlan Morton passed the midway point Thursday on his latest long-distance challenge, the Pony Express route, camping for a few hours in Wyoming with rugged terrain populated by sagebrush and occasional cattle. Before his reprieve ahead on day four, riding through Utah's Emigration Canyon into Salt Lake City, the Australian gave an update to Cyclingnews.

The ride so far, he said, was living up to expectations of "remote and harsh". He started on Monday in St. Joseph, Missouri, for the 3,164-kilometre (1,966-mile) ride across eight US western states into Sacramento, California. The route was made famous in the early 1860s by mail carriers racing on horseback. Morton is retracing the almost-exact path, using pedal power.

"I mean, there's just very desolate landscapes. They're all very different and challenging in their own way, but they're all very remote and harsh," he told Cyclingnews about his first impressions of the route through Kansas, Nebraska, a touch into Colorado, and into Wyoming.

"I'm familiar with these landscapes, but then piecing them all together in this way, it's pretty mind-blowing."

Cyclingnews caught up with Morton on the rough, almost-forgotten double-track leading from Wyoming to Salt Lake City. He had already encountered herds of cattle passing precariously close across his path and had a re-route through deep sand and leg-scratching brush under dark Wyoming skies when the almost-forgotten path seemed to vanish.

The original pioneers who raced across the open prairies and treacherous mountains switched their mounts several times to deliver papers and messages in eight days or less. The record on horseback was set in 1861 at seven days, 17 hours. Morton looks to beat that record, meeting up with support to switch bikes. It is a proper way for him to make his final ride in EF Education-EasyPost colours and equipment, where he has raced in multiple disciplines for 12 of the last 16 seasons.

"It's using all the different bikes I've ridden, and it's also very much a team effort. This is not something I could do by myself. It's relying on a group of people that I've come to know through my time with EF, and it's very much requiring a big effort by all of us, which I think has kind of been the story of my time with the team," he said.

The team posted to social media on Thursday that he was ahead of schedule, with a "400-kilometre lead over the Pony Express' fastest time" in Utah. However, the toughest terrain approached, and he admitted the opening days gave him a better understanding of the difficulty of the journey 160 years ago.

"I think it's a super interesting story for Pony Express, and the fact that it was around such a short time and is still, somehow, very celebrated and well known today," he said, referring to the two-year span of the Pony Express before the telegraph replaced the physical delivery of important messages.

"Seeing these landscapes and even trying to imagine doing it on horseback at all times in a year, night and day, it's pretty mind-blowing. I'm realising, I think, the power of the route."

On the weekend he'll cross Nevada, heading south of Lake Tahoe when he crosses the Sierra Nevada mountains that mark entry into California. In the true spirit of the route, Morton will deliver letters. It's all a flashback into history made real.

"It wasn't that there was heaps of people suddenly delivering mail. Ultimately, it didn't really work, it was never profitable. But the power of it was exciting. You know, it was something for people to be excited about at a time when the country was going through crazy change, and a lot of conflict. This was just a human-powered effort in a way that could get people excited about the country.

"That's kind of why I like to do these things. It's fun to do, but it's also nice to see people have something to follow for the sake of following and be excited about."

The names of the adventurous riders who blazed the first trails west are forever remembered on a Pony Express National Museum website. Perhaps Morton can make the list, with an asterisk. Follow Morton's progress online.

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