Lachlan Morton will do the Tour by bikepacking without assistance and wants to arrive in Paris before the peloton

Australian Lachlan Morton wants to remain one of the most original professional cyclists of the moment, and to do so he is now proposing to go back to basics. Morton will complete the 21 stages of the Tour de France solo and without assistance, including transfers. And he intends to arrive in Paris before the peloton.

Lachlan Morton keeps proving he is a very unique cyclist

EF Nippo professional cyclist Lachlan Morton has just embarked on the adventure of completing the Tour de France, but Morton won't be riding with the rest of his teammates. He will ride solo and complete the entire route by his own means, meaning he will carry or buy everything he needs on his bike to sleep and eat on the journey.

This adventure has been presented as the Alt Tour (the Alternative Tour) and in theory it will be a 5,510km route with 65,500m of vertical drop in which Morton will have to ride as many hours per day as possible, including resting days.

"I think my time on the bike will be about 12 hours a day, but I'll be out there for longer, as you inevitably spend time standing still, getting water and food. So I think for more than half the time over the next three weeks, I'll be riding."

Morton was with his team-mates in Brest on Saturday and then set off an hour later than the peloton to try to avoid coinciding with the Tour convoy and avoid the road closures.

For those who find all this crazy, there are two arguments that make sense in this story. The first is that the first editions of the Tour de France were contested in the same way and the big goal was to finish it. The second is that Morton is not new to this type of adventure and last year we saw him win the Badlands in a way that nobody imagined, cycling for more than 43 hours without sleep or stopping to complete 710 km and 16,000m. A few days after this epic victory he travelled to Italy to ride the Giro d'Italia.

"In a strange way, I've been building and preparing my whole life for something like this. I feel lucky to have the team and the support I have, because they can see that there is value in interacting in a way that is more than just getting results. I hope that by doing things like this we can bridge the gap with a wider audience and provide inspiration."

The whole adventure can be followed at alttour.ef.com