Lachlan Morton's attempt to ride all the Tour de France stages plus its transfers is going so well that he expects to be in Paris around four or five days before the actual race.
The EF Education - Nippo rider is riding stage 17 of the race on Friday, July 9, putting him four stages ahead of the peloton having already completed the first passage into the Pyrenees.
Morton, who told Cycling Weekly on Friday morning that he isn't keeping track of the attention his ride is getting due to having "basic 2G internet connection that takes a lifetime to load up" is, however, submitting his rides to Strava.
The ride-sharing platform reveals just how fast the Australia is going too despite his weighty bikepacking set-up, with a maximum power output approaching 1,300 watts most days.
Riding around 300km a day, the 29-year-old is averaging around 24kmh each day and sleeping in his bivvy bag each night.
On Thursday, Morton completed stage 15's route that finishes in Andorra and then stage 16 that leaves the Principality and returns to France.
He was in the saddle for over 11 hours and climbed a whopping 5,142m of elevation, with a maximum speed of 76.7kmh. His average power output was 131 watts, with a maximum of 972, a very high figure when his luggage is taken into account.
Consistency and maintaining a rhythm is key to Morton's challenge, and the day before he produced similar figures, riding 285km in just over 12 hours, averaging 23.4kmh and averaging 138 watts. More spectacularly, however, is that Morton recorded a maximum power output of 1,258 watts.
Tuesday was Morton's biggest day of the week distance-wise, racking up 306km in 11-and-a-half hours for an average speed of 26.6kmh. Like he would almost mimic exactly the day after, he recorded a maximum power output of 1,259.
He began the week ahead of the peloton and tackled the second ascent of Mont Ventoux before riding south into a predominant headwind.
That didn't disrupt his going too much though, producing a maximum power output of 1,263 and averaging 25.6kmh as he ticked off 297km in a little over 11-and-a-half hours.
Morton is now riding back into the Pyrenees and expects to be in Bordeaux, the site of stage 20's time trial, by the end of the weekend or early next week.
He envisages the transfer between Bordeaux and Paris taking him two days, with his final day on his bike in the French capital likely to be on Wednesday.
