EF Pro Cycling’s latest film tracks Lachlan Morton and his friends on their journey east, driving a rented RV across the continent from Leadville, Colorado, and its famous mountain bike race, to Vermont Overland, the gravel competition where Lachlan lost his close friend, Suleiman “Sule” Kangangi, in 2022. It is not an all-conquering story. Armed only with a basic route and a few must-visit points including state fairs and natural wonders, they hit the road together in search of connection and community, not escape.

And that is what they found in card games around the RV dinner table, bike rides through swaying grass fields in Iowa, Illinois, and Ontario, flubbed baseball pitches and village-green concerts, the giddy rush of roller coasters. That is what they found in defeat.

When a mechanical took him out of the running at the Core4 race in Iowa, Lachlan considered dropping out. If he could not race for the win, what was the point of getting round? Other racers on the route encouraged him to keep going, so he pushed on.

Later, he said, “I am so glad I rode the course, because it made me remember that that is what everyone is doing here… This is the experience that everyone is getting. That gave me stoke and motivation.”

Most road movies are stories about winners—champions, rebels who escape society. That, after all, is the American dream. And yet what binds most of us are our defeats.

So, maybe the real rebels now are people like Lachlan, who can learn to see the beauty in all of our efforts and encourage others to keep going—to see far beyond the divide we create between winners and losers. In the end, it does not really matter who crosses the line first. It is our friends and the moments that we share with them that count.

Before Vermont Overland, Lachlan spoke to his friend Ian Boswell, who was also close with Kangangi before he passed.

“We chatted beforehand about wanting to go out and have a hard race,” Lachlan said. “That is the way Sule raced and we were trying to do justice to his legacy.”

The two of them raced their hearts out and crossed the finish line together, hand in hand, to pay tribute to their friend. Then, they waited to drink a beer and celebrate with all of the other competitors. 

It is moments like that that Lachlan will always treasure.

“You have a whole bunch of people from different walks of life approaching the event from different directions, and they all come to the finish having done it. I love that,” Lachlan said. “It has been an amazing trip. You look around and you realize that is why you go out and do trips like this. If you do not go out and seek it, those moments do not come… That is the whole essence of travel or exploring.”

Watch Far Beyond: The Great North American Road Trip, now available on YouTube.