WHOOP Podcast - Cyclist Lachlan Morton Talks Tour de France and World's Most Grueling Rides

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

The Tour de France is underway, and this week Jeremy Powers sits down with world class cyclist Lachlan Morton of the EF Education-EastPost team. Lachlan has raced in some of the biggest world tour events, but he’s perhaps best known for some of his achievements in ultra long distance and uphill events. He recently set the world record in “Everesting,” climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest in just 7 and a half hours. He also rode the Tour de France route last summer by himself, riding 12 hours a day, sleeping in tents alongside the road, and raising $700,000 for charity in the process. Lachlan discusses his journey to cycling (3:42), going pro (8:50), winning the Tour of Utah (15:26), his charitable efforts (18:15), his WHOOP data while riding the Tour de France route by himself (25:38), recovery and adaptation (29:50), road racing vs. adventure cycling (33:36), and biking around the globe (38:08). Plus, Jeremy quizzes Lachlan on some of the WHOOP Data from the EF team (40:37). Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the WOOP podcast, where we sit down with top athletes, researchers, scientists, and more to learn what the best in the world they're doing to perform at their peak and what you can do to unlock your own best performance. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Woop, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. All right, the tour to France is underway, so it's fitting that this week we sit down with world-class cyclists, Lachlan Morton. Lachlan's accomplishments on the bike are truly legendary. I don't say that lately. He's raced in some of the biggest world tour events, but he's perhaps best known for some of his achievements in ultra long distance and uphill events. He recently set the world record in Everest, climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest, so that's 29,000 feet, in just seven and a half

hours. He also rode the Tour to France route last summer by himself, riding 12 hours a day, sleeping in tents alongside the road, and raising $700,000 for charity in the process. Lockland sits down with whoop resident cycling expert Jeremy Powers, who's a star himself, by the way, to discuss Lockland's journey to cycling and what he's learned throughout his career, his inspiration for doing, in his words, stupid long rides. The toll, the Tour de France route took on his body and what his whoop data looked like. Why perspective and gratitude are key components of success and his commitment to charitable rides and how he's raised millions of dollars by taking

on cycling adventures around the world. Also worth noting, we have new ways to interact with the WOOP podcast. You can email us, podcast at Woop.com, or you can call our new listener line, that's right, and leave a question or comment. 508-443-4952. That's 508-4-4-3-49-2. We also have an exciting new offer for WOOP podcast listeners. If you're a new member signing up for WOOP, use the code will, that's WI-L, when you're checking out and you get $60 off WOOP accessories to go with your WOOP membership. So that includes bands, battery packs, and of course our Woop Body Apparel. We also this week have the all-new rainbow band, which is pretty cool. So head to join.Woop.com to get started. Without further ado, here are Jeremy Powers and Lachlan

Morton. All right. So today we have the pleasure of speaking with Australian pro cyclist Lockland Morton of the EF Education Easy Post team. Lockland is a pro cyclist on paper, but he's actually a lot more than that. He's racked up some impressive racing victories over there, but he's also raised millions of dollars for different charities. He holds all kinds of what we call FKTs, which are fastest known times. Literally, Lachlan could have his own book of world records from the wild accomplishments that he's taken on and completed over the years. His cycling adventures, and not just that, the style that he's taken them on in have inspired a generation of cyclists and through that he's become a household name within the sport from, of course, the racing,

the charity, and the endurance adventures that he's taken on. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, mate. I wanted to start off by talking about how you got into riding and your brother, Gus, and some of the early beginnings. Because we had read this, a lot about you about, you know, this wild, intense athlete, getting up at four in the morning to train before school, about kind of being inspired by your brother. I just wanted to hear that from you a little bit about what that was like growing up, what your parents and your mindset and how you grew up. Yeah, I started riding like very young. I was, I think eight. I grew up on like a small farm just inland from Port Macquarie. And so we had like bikes and motorbikes

around and just like generally spent a lot of time outdoors, but we wanted to get into go-kart racing because we loved like motorsports. My dad was really into motorsports, but we also had some friends who we were super competitive with who was starting go-karting at the same time and they didn't want us to race against each other because they knew we'd kill each other. So dad agreed to get us some new like mountain bikes. in the interim like we were going to space out a year and i wasn't like super interested um but gus got really into it and then i was like you know at that point gus is two years old than me so anything he did was like the coolest thing so i just copied what he was doing and we joined like

the the local cycling club which for the size of the town we lived in was actually like really really big like i think we had like up to 200 members in like a town of the time probably 40 000 people in australia that was like prek at 11s and and like kind of the cycling boom there so it wasn't normal to have like a club like that and so we could turn up and race you know a crit on a tuesday and then like a handicap on saturday with yeah 200 other local bike riders and that was just kind of it we didn't really think about about cards after that and initially it was like just something you did like I would just go on there was no training involved you know you'd show up and race and like on Saturday morning play to play soccer in the morning and then

go race in the afternoon and then when when I was 10 10 or 11 we went on like a family holiday to Europe and we saw two stages of the Tour de France and then that was it for me like I decided then I was like this is what I want to do and that's when I started training and like you know basically singular focus from then for like the next 10 years of my life to get to the Walsua that was like I lived and breathed and you know raced everything I could and trained whenever I could to like achieve that goal. There was something where it was said that you would get up at 4.30 in the morning and before school you'd go and train.

And yeah, I just want to shout out that that seems like impossible for anyone to commit to. Even like the most ambitious like teenagers to do something like that is the mornings are generally pretty hard. Oh man, I was crazy. Like I had to like I'd always train from five until eight every morning. So I had to get up at 4.30. And that would give me, like, just enough time to get to school. And then I'd usually, like, instead of getting a lift home from school with mom, mom would come with my bike.

And then I'd just ride from school and back home and get in, like, another hour or two. And, yeah, that's basically what I did, like, week in, week out from when I was maybe 13 all the way until I was, you know, finished high school so yeah i used to love it like it was a very uh different relationship with bikes that i have now and i was very like competitive and driven by trying to win races but there was also something i liked even back then of like getting to school at you know quarter to nine and i felt like i'd already had a day you know and i would train mostly by myself and just kind I've had these awesome, like, you know, experiences in the morning, writing in the dark and then, like, seeing the sunrise every morning

and, like, really, like, feeling like I could achieve something before everyone else even got up. I mean, I was very, like, internally driven. My parents were always, like, trying to slide me down. But I just, like, that was crazy. No, I know. I think that that's what's, you know, really cool, really special, is that you are an outlier in this way, and it's kind of gone on.

because you and like I think somewhere around 2010 you would have gone to the Garmin like development team which was the big Devo team at the time for up and coming riders and you had signed a deal that like let you go from that team to their pro tour team because they believed in you so much that that had to have felt kind of amazing to be able to have kind of achieved that that was your vision since you saw that tour stage you achieved the goal yeah but to be honest that's where it got like that's when it started to get complicated because as you said like I sign this deal with the development team that would lead me into the pro team so I think I was like probably 18 at that time 18 or 19 and then it was kind of like all right like now what a little bit um and then you kind of start to mature a bit and realize like there's other things you need to pay attention to in your life to make you happy. And that's when, like, I started to find it more difficult to just have like a singular focus. Yeah, that was probably the hardest period I had been cycling maybe from when, like the first two years in the world tour, I think were pretty tough for me, for sure.

Yeah, and it sounds like that. It sounds like kind of you decided that it was, even though you maybe had like a golden ticket to your dream of going to the tour with a big team, you know, the young contract, the guy with like, yeah, huge, huge ambition and big determination, huge engine and the ability. But it was kind of like, you trained so hard to get to the goal and then you realize it. It's time to take another look at things because you get there and you see what you maybe, you didn't know. You're like, ah, so then you make this, you make this big decision to step down and you go to a smaller second tier. There's the upper echelon of pro cycling, which is the world tour. Then you kind of step down to a team called Jellybelly,

which was like almost a rebirth or a re-imagination of what you had thought pro-cycling was. Yeah, I was pretty jaded after two years of World Tour racing, for Monast. And I knew I wasn't really ready to step out of cycling because I was like 21, 22 or something and had never really done anything else. So in my head, I was like, I'll go race on Jelly Belly with my brother for a year. and used that year to like transition out of cycling into into the real world but it backfired because I joined just started really loving it again because the team was really small and we were just you know eight of ten riders kind of like living on the road together and like it felt

like being a junior again and it was just you know everyone was in it just for the passion which was super cool and kind of, yeah, like, rebooted my motivation, but also, like, helped me reassess, like, the position that you have as, like, a professional athlete, which is a very, like, it's a very privileged job to have, you know? And I kind of started to realize that. And then over the course of those two years, I really, um, all the, I managed to like switch around my motivations a lot and it kind of had this drive to come back on my own terms and I was like I wanted to go back to the world tour just to just to get there

and like get there with a new new perspective and just experience it again because I felt like if I didn't I would always have this regret you know but yeah those two use a jelly belly I think as far as like road cycling goes that's the most two like most enjoyable two years of racing I ever had because as I said like my brother was on the team we were all just like a really good group of friends you know Danny and Maddie Rice they're like family and we we managed to like achieve a lot which was it was a really cool and rewarding experience yeah that was I think it was super cool because I also race for Jelly Belly so I know I I know Maddie Rice and Dana have very well.

And I, yeah, I know that they have like a real family environment. It's almost, you stay, you know, in a lot of hotels and a lot of kind of, I'd say it's, it's more by the book with the pro tour racing or the bigger races. But at Jelly Bell, you might stay at someone's house. You might go, you literally might just kind of all 10 of the riders might be in like a just a log cabin somewhere like on bunk beds or on mattresses on the ground. It's so much more rugged and real and it changes. You show up to the line and you're this big professional rider, but you also just kind of, you roughed it to get to that point because everyone's trying to climb the ladder and it's a, it's just a different budget. It's a different style. It's a completely different environment to be racing within. Yeah, exactly. And like, as you said, it kind of makes you hungry because you're like, what am I doing here? You know, like, because he's like, okay, I'm in my 20s now. Like, I'm sleeping on the floor, some random house. Like, if I'm not here to race, like, this. go home you know what I mean and so you're like

alright let's race let's race and then you have this like shared bond with the group of people and yeah you get out there on the road and we really clicked as a group and yeah we we managed to win some good races together which then makes those wins

like extra special you know because it almost doesn't feel like your win it's just like as a group you're like oh man we did it you know I'll always look back at those like super fun memory you know I have other wins at other teams like before and after that um but never like they'll never even come close to the wins i had there um just as far as like a they were really fulfilling you got to check

the boxes you got to race with your brother you guys were the underdogs going up against teams that had quite possibly 20 times the budget that you did and you you got to do you know you got to do it your terms, right? Yeah, exactly. It was a very special time, for sure. During your time at Jellybell, you won the tour of Utah, and you've also won, you know, tour of the Gila, and you've had some, like, top tens in some pretty big road races that kind of just stamp the talent part.

Like, we already know this, but talk to us about that because, you know, in the world tour, you were young, you were coming up, but then you win the tour of Utah against some pretty, pretty talented guys, some guys that showed up wanting to win that race at this time. it's probably the biggest you know if not one of the biggest arguably stage races in north american soil and um you do it on this this underdog team with a group of riders that probably very few people know you've said it's the most meaningful win that you've had yeah yeah i think um you know we were having like a really good season that year and we we built up to utah and it was like you know our tour de france for that season so everyone was super motivated and

I think we all, like without saying it, we all had the belief that we could win. And then I still remember in that race, like, all the guys wrote so well. And, like, we controlled the race, like, basically start to finish in a way that, like, all the other teams were coming up. Like, why are you guys chasing everything? Why are you riding so hard? Blah, blah, blah. We were just, like, shut up.

We're just doing our thing. And, yeah, I think, like, because I don't. I took the lead back on the last stage and you go up over Empire Pass and descend down to Park City. So it's one of those. And the descents, like, it's really fast, but very straightforward, you know. So I think I had a couple of minutes at the top. So I knew I was going to win. So I had, like, 15 or 20 minutes of downhill to, like, soak it in.

And I was very present in the moment to be like, you know, this is probably going to be. going to be the best we never have because like my parents were at the finish like the whole experience with jellybelly with Danny and Maddie and like Gus pulling up the last climb for me like there were just so many factors that I was like I was very aware I was like this won't happen again so I really was able to enjoy that which it's not often you get that well I realize now you basically never get that you get that once maybe um so uh that was yeah a very very special win and like it was a lot of work to like make it happen for sure but I don't know at that point like it didn't none of that felt like work because I was really enjoying myself it's a good way

to segue because it's like there's this part of Lacklin Morton that's like a total stone cold killer like determined 13 year old on his bike in the morning leaves the world tour to rough it to like be the underdog to win to like get like check some boxes with his with his brother and these things and And then there's also this like, there's this other, this other version of you that's this charity alternative tour, kind of super chill off the beaten path version of yourself that you also have more recently been able to develop. And you've raised and done some like really incredible things. This year you've raised, I think 300,000 USD for the crisis that's happening in Ukraine,

the war with a ride called One Ride Away. Last year you did the Alt Tour, which was a version of the Tour de France that you. you did completely self-supported where you raised 750,000 USD for World Bicycle Relief. Talk about that as a general thing, the charity component and the alternative stuff. Yeah, I think, you know, I kind of segued out of the pure, like, road racing over a couple of years. We started doing like an alternative calendar and trying to race different events, like, off-road that, you know, one I'd always wanted to do, but two, just to like kind of see what they're about. and I had this like unique opportunity to do it with EF and I don't know just being a bit more

outside the race bubble you kind of start to realize that like being a professional athlete it's like a very selfish pursuit and you know the amount of resources we have as like a big cycling team they're all kind of funneled into just trying to get us to go faster and I think, you know, with just a slight rethink, it's like we could have a much bigger impact on, you know, the cycling community and then ultimately, like, the global community. That was kind of the motivation, I think, to start branching out and seeing what we could do, you know, as a cycling team or just as a bike rider to, yeah, try and better the world like a little bit, right? Like, it's not like we're out there doing huge things that a lot of other people are doing, but it's like, all right, let's just try and do something because, you know, we have a platform and we do have, like, the cycling community is amazing, you know, like the global cycling

community as a whole is very generous and we all kind of relate to each other on, you know, over, you know, riding bikes. so I think like I've been able to I guess engage that community through doing stupid long rides basically and that's kind of yeah the outcomes being we've been able to raise money but yeah my role in that is is pretty small if I'm honest like the alternative tour is just like it's like a dream July isn't it go away and ride your bike on the whole month no one bothering me and get to camp out, like, just right around France. Like, that's, that's stuff I like to do anyway.

This is the humble, the humble Lockland-Warton on this side, then, because I don't think it's easy. I think that's the thing that is, like, surprising is that, like, so few pros that I know have that balance lock, like, where in the last 12 months, you've raised a million, like, over a million dollars, and you've helped, like, a lot of people. You rode around France. Yes, it was a dream, but you did it in sandals. You had, like, terrible tendonitis.

you like cried, slept like three hours, you wanted to stop, like, this is the alternative tour and like all these things are, I think the thing that is, that is crazy is that like you can say you're more than a bike racer and you've, you've like taken what you're good at and been able to impact the world through doing that. I think that's like a very special accolade that not many people hold. Yeah, but I mean, I love those like uncomfortable situations, you know, like in a way I'm not like out there sacrificing a lot in a way like I feel like I'm kind of doing the things that I like to do and kind of meant to do for me it's been just about like perspective and kind of being aware of like how how lucky the position you have is and then

trying to rethink the way that like you can kind of maximize the position you're in use your ability to like i mean i kind of had a realization at some point i was like you know i could go all in on trying to win road races right and maybe come top 20 at tourist like once a year or something and like at the end of the day it's like what does that do right like that's just me trying to stroke my own ego to prove that like i can be up there but i could take like the same amount of energy and point it in different ways and have like a much like broader impact and yeah i think like it just comes down to like you got to let go of your ego a little bit just like let go of that part of you that needs to prove that you're as good as everyone all the time and yeah then i think like a lot of

different opportunities and doors and different rides you can do kind of open up so yeah i guess that's been like the transition and it's like something I enjoy a lot more also I've met so many amazing people in the last like two or three years like still through through riding but people from very different backgrounds and walks of life that yeah I just wouldn't wouldn't have otherwise and I've been to places and and you know had highs and lows on the bikes that you know I couldn't have dreamt of four years ago so it's been a really nice journey and it's It's something I enjoy it a lot, so hopefully I can keep doing it for many more years. You mentioned you like being in these uncomfortable situations, but the saying goes right

that luck favors the prepared. So I'm sure you've learned some things over the years from these trips. And can you talk about some of the things that stand out from you from the do's and the don'ts of these adventures that you've been taking on? It's a fine line I always say between being like overprepared to where you kind of like extinguish any chance of something going wrong because then it's not an adventure right but then you know if you're underprepared it can be reckless and miserable also um so i've definitely learned a huge amount like i think the first uh ultra i did was a bikepacking race in the UK called jibbi jura and that was like a week long boot camp basically of me trying to work out how to ride a bike long distances like

self-supported um and you know a lot of it is like very basic stuff like how to fuel yourself like how to make sure you have enough food what kinds of food um and then like keeping your like hygiene and everything like together um because that's like a very big consideration on an adventure it like that and then just like the mental approach how to basically overcome like tough moments and like keep a head that like enables you to keep moving forward which i think that's been the most like rewarding process to go through really understanding like what controls your emotions and then like how to to basically deal with those emotions you never like can rule them or conquer of them like you're always going to have these bad moments but it's it's kind of like your ability to

deal with them which i think like that's been the biggest learning process and then as far as like training and preparation you know there's always things you can do to get your body ready which has also been like it's a very different uh process than you would go through for getting ready for like a world tour stage race um so that's a nice nice process to go me too. Yeah. Last year, you wore whoop during the Alt Tour, and I was looking over the data as it came in.

You did not sleep very much. Actually, and in the video... It's not a single digit recovery. In the video that Raffer produced from the Altor, which was awesome, at one point, you like, F you whoop for like trying to tell me how to sleep. me how to start. Yes, it was hilarious to me, and I think a lot of people that watched it, it's because you do have to, like, completely get uncomfortable.

And at this time, like, trying basically to beat the racing Tour de France, to do this the old school way, completely self-supported. No one buying you food, no one giving you bottles, you stopped, you filled up your own bottles, you pitched your own tents, slept in ditches, like took showers at campsites, you did it on sandals, like all of these things. And then in whoop language, you did a 20.8 on the last day. Your dad came in, like, gave you this huge motivation to be able to, like, finish this massive day. I think it was like 14 hours of riding or something to meet the last day to finish on the Champsalise.

Like, just, you know, 20.8 is so insane. It's just such a big effort. It's 14 hours of your heart rate, like high or whatever it was. And you did this. And then I think the thing that was wild about it for me watching it was that the day after you know you basically like a proper pro athlete once you took you had you had a basically like almost three weeks of no sleep and this huge amount of strain and then you take like one night of rest and your heart your HRV just precipitously went down you had no sleep like 30 HRV and then you

automatically almost went back to like 200 after you got like 12 hours of sleep yeah yeah bounce back pretty quick it's interesting because like I think like for me the whoop score is like I mean I find it the most useful now because I coach myself and you can always like lie to yourself right and I've always said like if there was a tool that like enabled a coach to understand like how you feel when you wake up like that would be the most valuable thing right like forget power meters forget heart rate monitors like that's the thing so being honest enough to yourself to understand what that feeling is so yeah that that we've score kind of cuts through the bullshit really you know like you're going to wake up and like you're

like yeah I feel like about 7% recovered you know like that's definitely right so on a normal day you'd be like yeah I'm not going to step on that bike today and I can feel why but in that situation yeah you just kind of have to to get on with it but that like recovery that was interesting because that's kind of how I felt like during the alter I was able to put together all the different things I learned to, like, really look after myself as best I could, you know, while taking under something that's, like, incredibly difficult. But, yeah, like, the recovery was a lot quicker than I thought. But it was, like, in line with how I felt.

The thing that took the longest was my feet. Like, I couldn't put them in bike shoes for a really long time. That took a little longer. Yeah, I think it matches with, like, what we think about. Like, you're, you were probably so ecstatic and stoked, you know, your central nervous system was probably booming and you were like ecstatic to have accomplished this goal. And, like, then you got all this sleep and you're this insane athletes.

So you naturally, like, as soon as you get that, your body just goes through the roof. It's just like you fed it everything that it needed. Stoke, fuel, sleep. It just went right back as you would expect. Like, we see this all the time, you know, big athletes do triathlons or something. And they just, you know, as they build. and then they peak and then after the triathlon or the Iron Man or whatever, they just disintegrate. But then the next day or day after, it's just boom right back up.

And that's what's really cool about you is that your nervous system is very responsive in your data set, which is exactly what we would expect from kind of an outlier like yourself. Yeah, I always find like in those especially long races, like your body goes downhill for three to four days. And each day is progressively worse until you have. hit like this moment when you're like oh my god how am i going to manage you know and then basically you get past this trough and you can feel your body like adapting it's like it finally relinquishes and it's like okay this is what we're doing like we're going to have to get ready for it and so like everything starts to get easier you know i mean and then you're never getting back up to where

you started but like it gets to a point when your body's like all right i'm just going to accept that we're going to take like 12 hours of abuse every day and then we're only going to sleep for four hours and it's pretty remarkable when you can like I guess like quantify that data like you said like you give it one day off and your body's like oh wow I thought we were only going to sleep four hours and then we're going to get our ass kicked at like four o'clock in the morning again so yeah it's definitely cool to see that like that data so yeah so talking about the all tour. Talk about the Tour de France. It's going on right now, actually, when we're having this conversation, there's a stage going on, like the first big mountain stage. You've raced at the

Vuelta, which is the tour of Spain for anyone that doesn't know. It's also a three-week grand tour. You've raced at the Gero, the tour of Italy, which is also a three-week grand tour, where I think you famously said, I'm never doing this again, and I have something else in mind or something of that nature, where you then went to do the Alt-Tor. When someone asks you if you've raised the Tour de France, what do you respond with? Because you've actually done, you have done the Tour de France in a totally different way and a way more impactful way I'll add yeah no I still say no because I know like it's such a different it's such a different beast to take on the race I think a lot of my teammates who were racing that they were like

what the hell like how could you do that it's insane but I look at the race like when I turn the TV on in the morning and watch what these guys do I'm like how could you do that it's insane you know like the the challenge i did is much more in line with like my abilities and like my mindset right like i find that stuff significantly easier than the stress of like 180 guys all trying to get into one corner and then like raise full gas for 30 minutes up a climb and then you know like it did that's start i find that difficult you know so as much as i would love to like be able to, it's always on the plane, the person who sits next to you, and they're like, what do you do for a living? And then the second you say you're a bike rider, they're like,

have you raced the tour? And the second you say no, like, all credibility is out the window. I don't think that's true for you. Yeah. And I would love to just be able to say yes and then retain the credibility. But the second, like, you say no, they're like, they assume you're just like their friend that rides, you know? And they're like, so how do you really make a living? But, yeah, I'd still say that. Let me ask this question. Since we were talking about this kind of this difference, if you think about, like, guys that you've raised with and been teammates with for a while,

like a Michael Woods or like a Rigoberto Ron or some of these guys, like, I don't think that they could do what you do. And but also, I think hearing you, you just said, like, I don't think I would, or I don't want to. I think you can, but I don't think you want to. It's like, can you describe just that just like for a minute? Because I think that there is, I think for people listening, they're going to think, but you did you have race the gyro you have race the volta you have one tour of utah and hila and these

big races but like now also you're watching the tour yeah i'd never i'd never want to do that yeah i don't know it's interesting like um i still enjoy getting into road races every now and like the intensity of it but i think i only enjoy it because i know i'm not going to have to do it again next week so i think like the the pressure and stress of um and And the mindset you need to perform in like a world tour race, it requires like all of you, right? And there's not much space for anything outside of that, which I don't have the capacity to switch into that mode really anymore. I don't know. I feel like now when I get in the race, I mean, get into like a ridiculous situation where you're kind of risking your life to get into this corner, like in the first 20 wheels.

I kind of see it for what it is, you know, I'm like, okay, this is like, this is like a second grade race in Spain, but like, no one's hurt off, you know what I mean? I'm like, I can't justify the risk. And also, like, in the way I approach training now, it's very different than, like, I think you get ready for a very specific style of effort. when you're training and preparing for a world tour race and in order to get ready for that effort like the training has to be very very structured the recovery has to be dialed in like there's a lot of things that you need to pay attention to whereas I prefer to just go out and ride for six or seven

hours and see where I get to which like serves me well for for a lot of the stuff I do now and it enables me to like jump from from like discipline to discipline pretty easy I'm like you know, 85% prepared for everything but, you know, to perform and to enjoy like top level racing, you need to be 100% on your game.

There's definitely some athletes who I know couldn't just jump on a bike with all their stuff and like ride around France and camp and managed like that. I think like there's certain athletes who just couldn't

function. But I think if someone like really wanted to um i think a lot of the like world tour guys could jump in and do that but i just don't think there's like a a drive right i think for ultra cycling in general like your ability gets you the least far um it's like it's almost 50 50 you know 50 percent legs and then 50 percent experience and you know preparation so yeah that i think that's what i enjoy about that like the pieces of the puzzle uh there's so many things going on you know if you're trying to think like the next town where you're like okay i got to get water here and then it's going to be starting to get dark so i need to like fish that light out and then maybe i'm going to get like

30ks down the road and then i'll get some food here and then maybe i can you know it's like you're constantly like putting together different pieces of the puzzle and then there's always something going wrong you know because you're like all right i can just make that campside before dark and then like straight away you get a flat tire right and then it's like you know in your head you're like okay now I'm riding in the dark and like that's a whole thing to get your head around and like there's a lot of different things that can bring you undone it's not like in a road race it's very simple right like it's you're like okay I need to hang on to this group here and then like I feel good so I can attack here or I'm trying to get my teammate

into this corner it's just like basic wheel to wheel race which is the one thing I do still enjoy about it. You know, you get in there, and life's very simple. We're just racing a bunch of racing a bunch of guys to a finish line. But yeah, I think that's what also makes it very different. You, in one of the quotes that I have plugged here is like something along the lines of, like, I chase things that want me to keep me on my bike all day. And it sounds like that's what you're saying.

Like, you're chasing the stoke, like all the time. It's that there is another thing that's coming up. There's another adventure. And so, you know, with that, it's like my final, one of my final, one of my final questions to you is just kind of like, what is it that's going to be next? Because you've done some really awesome things. And I know that you're very creative guy. And I have this feeling that these aren't just like rash decisions that you're saying, I'm going to go ride the Tour de France. I'm going to go do this. So is there something that's really kind of like,

you know, it's an itch that you're just, you're dying to scratch that's coming up that you're excited about that you could talk about. And there's a whole bucket list now. Like I probably have like a list of 10 different like events that I would like to do in different parts of the world. I think now I'm very interested in, like, in competing in places that aren't traditional cycling nations. I find it really interesting to go and see what a different cycling culture is about and then be able to compete against the people there on their own terrain. Like, that's something I want to continue to do more of. And then, like, the one thing I really have been wanting to do for a few years now as the tour divide, like the route that goes

from Canada down to Mexico following the Rockies. Like that's kind of something that like really gets me excited. I would really love to do the like around the world route and do it in a way like there is a record and I think to do that record it would be like I don't know to probably too close to the road racing mindset. So I'm trying to find a way in which I could do that without just eat sleep ride and be able to experience the whole thing. So, yeah, that's kind of my challenge at the moment is to work out how to make that route like really exciting for myself.

Because my general rule is that if it's not, like I never do something for the sake of it or just for the outcome, it's got to be something that's like genuinely motivating. So, yeah, I think finding a way to make that like really motivating for myself is my challenge at the moment and then hopefully take that on in the next year or two. I still love racing. I'm always trying to jump into any race that's on around, lots of local racing or, you know, like doing this lifetime series is really fun. So I think from a racing perspective, I still want to go back to Cape Epic and have like a proper go with that race because, you know, that's a, it's a special race.

This is your other shoulder. The guy jumping on your other shoulder is now talking again. He's back. He's back. He showed up with a cape. He flew in. And he was like, Lockwood, don't try to run from me. I'm here.

He's like, don't forget, you've still got to get these things done. There's a lot of things left and done. All right. So, Locke, I got a couple of quick questions. We did some studying of the team's data over the last couple of, I'll say, years because we've been working with EF for a couple years. So I wanted to just quickly ask, if I were to pose you a question of some riders that maybe, like, who on the team, the EF team takes the most naps?

Would it be Alberto Betiel, Rigoberto O'Ran, Jonathan Kaisado, or would it be Alex house if you could pick what rider takes the most napsed in a team is it housey i think i think i think it would have been alex before he had uh dahlia but i'm still going to go with alec is it alec yes he has the most hours napped yes 52 hours and 48 minutes for the uh for the total hours nap throughout the year what a savage if if you had to guess who do you think has the lowest resting heart rate on the team. I know this is kind of a weird one, because this isn't one that you'd normally think, but maybe you have some spiky sense around you. Again, we'll use the same guys. We'll use like Rigo, maybe Chavez, Kaisado, Housie, yourself, Bettyal. Who do you think has the

lowest resting heart rate on the team? Maybe Riga. It's got to be Riga, right? He's pretty relaxed. He's incredibly fit. It's Bettyal, man. It's 28 beats per minute. Betel, actually, oh, wow. Yeah, okay, I could see that. Betel is an absolute beast. Absolutely. 28. 28.

And that's low. I know, I know. It's like, dude, we have to shake him. I mean, that's like every couple seconds you get a heartbeat in there for crying in the night. Oh, my gosh. He's an incredible athlete. Yeah, he really is. Cycling is easy for that guy.

Yeah, no, he is. Yeah, it's great. Okay. And then I have my last question. I'll give you a hint if you need. So go with this. Who do you think trains and has like the highest strains on the team? Okay. Wait. So the highest strains? Yeah, like constantly throughout the whole year. Like who trains the hardest on the team?

It's one of the riders from South America or the southern hemisphere, I'll say. Oh, is it Estabon? No. Guerrero. Grero had like a basically year-round strain is 18.6 for the year. Like basically he just always, always hustling Guerrero. Well, from his who data anyway so maybe he's not trained the most but he's out there living the dream doing whatever he's doing like working working doing things pushing the most his body's working the hardest i've seen have some pretty intense phone calls that i think would definitely bump in the score out for sure i think there's a lot of strain that's happening outside of the bike with that guy

yeah and you you have the highest strain on the team of 20.8 that day where you rode the last day of the tour man that was crazy as hell i wanted to ask one last question that i didn't get in because I think it will tap well. I wanted to just ask around what you did do and the money that you raised for the Alt Tour. I wanted to ask if when you got to give those bikes to that community and what that experience was like. Yeah, that's incredible to like close the circle there in Columbia and see where that money was going and just in very simple terms like see like the smile on kids' faces.

and they get given a bike like that. I think it was humbling in a lot of ways because you saw the amount of work that what Basker Relief are doing and how much it requires from people to make something like that happen. And, yeah, I think like kind of cemented the fact that it was just a very small piece of that puzzle. But, yeah, it's amazing. I mean, like, bikes have been the most incredible thing in my life, so then to be able to share that with other people.

just through the simple act of giving bikes is like, you know, it's the best. So it's incredibly rewarding for sure. Yeah, because for some of these people, it's going to be, you know, you give these bikes, they're going to, you know, have mobility, like the ability to get food and water and, like, you know, some of these other countries, not all of them, but some of them really kind of give people a different lease on life

to be able to move. And that same thing that you felt when you were like 13, that freedom, I think it, you know, by doing that big ride, you've essentially like given them that same. thing that you love that you know gave you so much it's going to give them so much i think it's uh i think it'd be really cool to be able to have that experience so uh glad to hear that it was it was that for you yeah yeah it was amazing like the the bikes that they're giving there really do like help transform the communities um yeah i guess just to witness that it's it's incredibly

fulfilling i can say it's been really great to be able to get to know you to be able to like talk about all this amazing truly like you know inspiring work that you've been done. I think, you know, I speak for everybody at Woop. We're grateful to have you on and to have you as an ambassador to the product. And thank you so much for taking the time. No, thanks, man. I enjoyed it. It's good to chat. Thank you to Lachlan Morton for coming on the WOOP podcast. If you enjoyed this episode of the WOOP podcast, please leave us a rating or a review. You can check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. You can email the WIP podcast, podcast at Woop.com. Call our new listener line and leave a question or comment. 508-443-49-2. That's 508

4-4-3-49-2. A reminder, new members can use the code Will W-I-L to get a $60 credit on WOOP accessories when you get a new WOOP membership. Okay, that's all we got for you this week, folks. We'll be back next week. Stay healthy. Stay in the green. Thank you.