Sean Conway - Cycling the Earth: A Life-changing Race Around the World

Hell and High Water

In 2012 Sean Conway gave up his photography job to try to break the record for cycling around the world. His dream came to an abrupt end when he was hit by a truck and badly injured in Arkansas, USA. After two weeks of recovery he managed to get back on his bike and continue his journey. In 2013 he became the first person to swim the length of Britain. Sean has also cycled the length of Britain and in 2015 he ran it unsupported, making him the first person to complete a British triathlon. Sean has also climbed Kilimanjaro dressed as a penguin and once dislocated his shoulder cheese-rolling in Gloucestershire. He lives in Cheltenham and is currently restoring a Second World War boat.

www.seanconway.com

Ever wondered what you are really capable of, if you tried?

SEAN CONWAY was stuck in a life dead-end of his own making when he heard about a round-the-world cycling race. He was immediately inspired but could he really cycle the world, solo and unsupported?

Six months later, after a punishing training schedule, Sean was averaging 180 miles per day and was on course to break the world record. But then disaster struck, and he was forced to face the possibility that he might not be able to complete the race

During his 16,000-mile journey, Sean cycled the famous Pan-American Highway across the Atacama Desert, outran tornados and relied on fellow travellers to ferry water across the Australian outback. He learned things about himself he didnt know and rediscovered a sense of freedom that changed everything. This is a book about an amazing and sometimes incredibly difficult journey, but its also about not settling for the nine to five when youre dreaming of adventure

For Martin and Missy Carey.

Without your selfless generosity Id never have been able to complete the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cycle around the world. Ill be eternally grateful.

Thank you.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a photographer and see the world. I had visions that my life would be spent on assignment for National Geographic, catalogue shoots in the Peruvian jungle and high-end advertising campaigns in the deserts. Jungles and deserts, thats where I wanted to be. I remember vividly my first camera, which I swapped for a packet of sweets from Cameron Barnes, one of my best friends at school when I was ten. That may sound like a good deal, but the camera really was a piece of shit, and the sweets were a roll of Super-Cs and some biltong (my absolute favourite). The camera had no focusing option and just three exposure settings: sun, cloudy and night. But it looked cool and when I pressed the shutter for the first time a fire started to burn inside me to travel and capture the world.

I remember sending the first roll of film in to the local pharmacy to be developed. They had to send it to the big city to get it done, which would take a week. It was the most exciting week of my existence on this planet. Eventually Monday came back round and I went to pick up the photos. I was so nervous: what if they were all blurred, over-exposed or just generally shit? I so wanted them to be good. But I was handed the prints and Janet, the elderly nurse who worked at the pharmacy, told me, You took some really great pictures there, you should be a photographer when you grow up.

I was hooked. Throughout my teens, I became obsessed with photography. I spent hour upon hour in the darkroom, photographing the school prom, rugby and cricket matches and trying every sort of photography I could imagine, from wildlife to journalism, and I bloody loved it. Piles of National Geographic magazine were scattered all over my room, the best pictures carefully cut out and stuck to the wall as I imagined crawling through a crocodile-infested river to get that one shot of a nearly extinct and elusive sloth. God damn it. I was going to be the best photographer anyone had ever seen. I honestly and truly believed that by the time I was thirty years old that would be the case. I was going to see the world and my camera was going to be my ticket to adventure.

November 2010. I had done the journey from London to Birmingham three times this week and it was killing me. The 50 mph speed limit for non-existent road works was a joke, but nothing like as much as what my life had become.

I was in Birmingham to take family portraits at the Busy Bees Nursery. The glamorous National Geographic commissions hadnt come through. Instead, I was setting up my lights and background in the only room they had available at the nursery: the fucking toilet. As a summary of where my career had ended up, it couldnt have been more accurate. I spent the next ten minutes trying to fit two fairly large parents and their four kids on a background that was only two metres wide. The father stepped back at one point, putting a huge hole in the paper backdrop. I had no choice but to include the urinals on either side of the background to get everyone in. It was going to take me a hundred years to Photoshop this photo and I was 35 down already with the torn background. Even if they bought the full package at 25, I was still making a loss.

Smile, whos the cheeky monkey?

Click. Click. Click!

Whos a silly sausage? You are!

Click!

With each release of the shutter I could feel my soul slowly dying. I was in complete autopilot mode as child after child was brought to me and sat down on the white background, which was now covered in piss, vomit, snot and dog shit from someones shoes.

Waaaaaah! The fifty-seventh baby of the morning started to cry profusely. I was lying on my side, camera in one hand, puppet in the other trying to make a clearly miserable child smile so their parents could get some sort of decent photo for that years Christmas card.

Thanks Sean, one of the nursery staff said. Unfortunately there are a few babies sleeping and their nap time finishes in a couple of hours. Could you wait until they are up? Their parents really want some photos.

How many of them? I asked, knowing full well, from experience, that it was likely to be four at the most.

Two, but their parents are well off and always buy the full package. I was losing more money but waited begrudgingly. When the kids eventually woke up, they cried their eyes out and I didnt get one decent pic to sell to the parents. I packed up the studio, threw my piss- and shit-covered background in the bin and headed back down the M1 towards London. I thought my life couldnt sink any lower. I was wrong.

February was always the most depressing time of year for a photographer. Everyone was feeling a bit fat so didnt want photos of themselves. It was cold, monotone and bleak outside and no matter how you looked at it there were only so many ways you could photograph that lonely leafless tree on the top of the hill on Hampstead Heath. The one thing I did have to look forward to this particular year was my thirtieth birthday. I had organised a big bash in Proud Galleries in Camden with the theme of Africa. I had made up a Zulu warrior costume.