After six days, 21 hours and 15 minutes and 3,217 kilometers on the trail, Lachlan Morton rode into Sacramento, California, at 11:19 p.m. local time this evening, 19 hours and 45 minutes ahead of the record pace set on horseback by the riders who delivered Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address from Missouri to California on the route of the Pony Express back in 1861.
For Lachlan, the real triumph was not riding faster than the 197 or so horses that those riders used to relay news across wild, rugged country at a gallop. This was his love letter to America – a country that can never be conquered, only better understood and brought together, the country that Lachlan now calls home.
Exhausted after struggling through the Sierra Nevada in the bitter cold on his final day, Lachlan rode the final kilometers to the Pony Express Terminal, also known as the B. F. Hastings Bank Building in Old Town Sacramento surrounded by dot watchers, friends and family.
“I had an amazing time,” said Lachlan. “I wasn’t desperate for it to end, which was odd. I was really just having a great time. It was something I’d been dreaming about for years, so it’s great to be here. It’s great to have the community out here, too. It’s such a big route that it’s always hard to know what to expect. You look at a map, but you just see a line. You don’t really see what that line is going to mean. There was a lot that was intimidating, but I felt like I was able to enjoy it a lot more than I expected, even though it was really hard. There was so much riding that I loved, and it was a combination of the kinds of riding I really enjoy doing. On top of just being hard, it was really satisfying. I didn’t think I’d be able to enjoy the route as much as I did, given how challenging it was. It’s very satisfying.”
When Lachlan set out from St. Joseph, Missouri, just a little under a week ago, he was inspired by the courage of the original Pony Express riders, their will to ride into the unknown, undaunted by danger or hardship, and their determination to do something that would help unite American citizens across distances near and far.
“The scale of it still blows me away.” said Lachlan about the original Pony Express riders. “Thinking about it in a historical context, it’s still hard to wrap your head around what that meant 160 years ago, piecing it all together. It’s hard to do even now. When I was out there with people, a GPS, and lights, there were times at night when I was imagining trying to ride as fast as you could through that desert without being able to see where you were going. It’s still unfathomable.”
That is the kind of courage upon which the United States was founded. In Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California, Lachlan saw that same courage in small towns and cities along the trail.
There was Shawn Kruse, from Gurley, Nebraska, who runs a little diner called The Outlaw, famous for its cinnamon rolls and French toast. Shawn greets every local who comes in by name and welcomes outsiders, like us, as if they were Gurley’s own. His diner is the heart of his community.
There was Tyler, from Kenesaw, Nebraska, who sells Polaris and mows lawns for extra cash. Tyler’s pride and joy is his family. He brightened Lachy’s day when he came over to chat one night when Lachy was bolting down a late dinner in the park.
There was Nate in Lyman, Wyoming, whose family has been ranching the same land for generations; or Kyle, the tourism director in White Pine County, Nevada, who moved west from Virginia after college and never looked back; or Katie, the owner of the historic Pony Express station in Dayton, Nevada, who spent years restoring the site and whose dream for her town is that they keep preserving their rich history.
There were hundreds and hundreds of Americans like them, all facing life’s joys and struggles with a smile, who spurred Lachlan on when he met them at gas stations, local coffee shops, and remote intersections on the route of the Pony Express.
When he and the crew met them, they asked them simple questions: What makes you happy? What is great about your town? He wanted to learn more about them and their America. Some of their answers made it into the letters he carried from place to place along the route.
What everyone Lachy and the crew met shared was a real love for their homes, their pride in their towns, their neighbors, and their communities. Some of them descend from the emigrants who headed west with wagons, horses, and cattle along routes like the Pony Express when the country was first being built. Many more came later and continued to build this great country.
Their courage is still there. The United States is still being built.
“There are so many remote locations and communities in those places,” said Lachlan “I think it requires a certain appreciation for the place you are in, and a resilience, to live in such harsh environments. It’s cool to see that attachment to the past and an appreciation for history these people have.”
Lachlan faced his own hardships on the route. But when he was pushing into a bitter Wyoming headwind, or bogged down by mud or sagebrush in the Nevada mountains, or rising at 2 a.m. for another entire day and most of a night on the bike, he always remembered that this challenge was his choice, even if he sometimes questioned that choice. Many who came west before him had little choice but to build better lives every day. What a country they built.
Lachlan’s toughest day was his last one. The push from Middlegate Station in Nevada across the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento forced him onto his Cannondale Scalpel, as he raced across rough, mountainous terrain to try to get to the Pony Express’s final station in record time – and ahead of the tropical storm that was blowing in from the Pacific.
The day began in the Nevada desert, where sandy tracks eventually gave way to the alpine roads of the Sierra Nevada. After days of battling disappearing trails and deep sand, Lachlan was pleasantly surprised by what he found in the mountains. The route took him past Lake Tahoe and onto a gravel trail running high along a ridge before descending back towards Highway 50.
It was some of the best riding of the entire trip.
“I really thought we were going to be bushwhacking,” Lachlan said. Instead, he found a beautifully maintained trail that he reckoned was among the five best he’d ever ridden, given the circumstances.
“I was having just the time of my life,” he said.
After six days of battling the elements, the final day was shaping up to be a special one. From the sandy desert tracks that morning to alpine roads around Lake Tahoe, gravel high above the valley, and trails through the mountains, Lachlan had experienced just about every kind of terrain imaginable in the space of a few hours.
“The day’s already won,” he said.
Once back on Highway 50, Lachlan had just one more dirt section to contend with before he could settle into the final stretch towards Sacramento. The route would take him through Placerville and on towards Folsom, made famous by Johnny Cash’s song about its prison.
From there, Lachlan would pick up the American River Bike Trail, following the river towards Sacramento, just as the original Pony Express riders had done more than 160 years before him.
With 120 kilometers remaining, the finish was finally within reach. But Lachlan knew better than to start celebrating early.
“Sometimes if you let your brain think you’re there, it can become a lot harder than it is,” he said.
Instead, he focused on taking it one kilometer at a time. And after almost a week of riding across America, he had found a simple thought to keep him going. He was no longer riding towards an unknown destination or another remote camp in the wilderness. He was riding back towards familiar roads, his family, and the cycling community he had come to call his own.
“My mantra right now is just that I’m riding home,” he said.
By 11:19 p.m., Lachlan was in Sacramento. The timer read six days, 21 hours, and 15 minutes since he had left the Pony Express stables in St. Joseph, Missouri, 19 hours and 45 minutes faster than the old horseback record. Lachlan thanked the crowd that had come out to greet him and everyone who followed along and cheered him on online.
And then he headed home.
Photo credit: Karter Machen (Instagram: @kartermachen)
