A competitor in this year’s World Cycle Racing Grand Tour has written an e-book about his experiences. Sean Conway’s ‘World Cycling Stripped Bare’ attempts to reveal the secrets that will allow anyone to cycle the planet.
“Conway woke up one day, realising he was sick of the rat race, wanted to do something that would shape the rest of his life,” says the e-book blurb. “With virtually no cycling experience, he decided that he would try and become the fastest person to cycle around the world.
“Six months before he departed he had no bike, no funding and couldn’t even cycle 40 miles without having to catch the train home.
“Find out everything from equipment, nutrition, training, safety, sponsorship, and how to go from cycling 40 miles to 200 miles a day. This book will make sure you are as prepared as you’ll ever be when you get there.”
The 20,000-word 'World Cycling Stripped Bare' is available now from Sean Conway's website priced £1.53 (RRP £2.50)
The ultimate aim of the race – to break the 106-day record of Alan Bate – was only met by Yorkshire’s Mike Hall, who obliterated it with a staggering new benchmark of 91 days. Only two other riders – Richard Dunnett and Simon Hutchinson – made it to the finish within the rules dictated by Guinness World Records.
Conway did in fact make it back to London one week before the Olympic Games but with 16,000 miles on the clock it wasn’t enough to satisfy the official criteria.
Despite this, he certainly has a story to tell. Just three weeks into the race and averaging 180 miles per day, he says he was hit by a truck in Arkansas, US - an incident which left him with a broken bike and nursing a string of injuries that included a compression fracture to the spine.
After a period of recuperation he got back on the bike with the new aim of making it back home. "Not sure I am physically up to it yet but I am determined to carry on cycling around the world whether it takes me two months or two years. I will do it!" he wrote on his website at the time.
Having made it, he's hoping the book will inspire those who are daunted by the prospect of a solo ride around the world. “It was a crazy few months on the road and although my race was ended by a reckless driver I still had the adventure of a lifetime,” he added.
