SEAN'S 2014 CYCLE RIDE

IN the first of a two-part series, MATTY SUTTON caught up with Commonwealth Challenge cyclist Sean Newall

A GLASGOW worker has raised more than £3500 for charity after completing two parts of a four-leg challenge to visit all the Commonwealth countries.

Sean Newall, 30, recently completed the second leg of his Commonwealth Challenge, cycling nearly 3000 miles round the African continent.

He is hoping to complete four trips in total, visiting all 70 Commonwealth nations and territories to celebrate Glasgow 2014.

So far he has covered more than 28,500 miles, completing more than 25,500 over 11 months, visiting a total of 19 countries on his first trip.

In the process he has raised £3500 for children's charity Unicef and the Myocarditis Foundation.

Along the way, Sean has experienced the best and worst of human nature and has witnessed natural wonders, cycling through some of the most beautiful and dangerous places on earth.

He set off on his first adventure on July 23, 2010, as the four-year countdown to the opening ceremony in Glasgow began.

The idea for the trip hit him a few months earlier when he was trekking in the Himalayas.

A keen adventurer, Sean, who works as a Glasgow Life assistant based at the Emirates Arena, was struck with the idea of visiting all the Commonwealth nations.

He decided he would cycle to Delhi, in India, for the Games handover ceremony on October 13, 2010.

Sean said: "I decided to do it because the Games are such a big thing and I have been hooked on it for so long.

"I was thinking, all these cool and wonderful different places are coming here and I just wanted to go and find out a bit more about them."

Setting off from George Square, Sean cycled through Europe and Kazakhstan and got to Delhi with a day to spare before the ceremony.

From there he rode round most of the Asian Commonwealth, through Bangladesh and Pakistan, and all the way to Sri Lanka, before flying to Malaysia and down to Australia and heading back to Scotland.

One of the highlights of his first trip was a wedding in Malaysia - he was invited to the ceremony as he cycled through the bride's village.

One particularly hard part of the journey were the seven weeks he spent cycling through rural Australia, which Sean described as a "nightmare."

He said: "I did 4000 miles out in the bush.

"There is a wind system there that always goes in the same direction - I thought I would have it behind me, but I picked a route that would have it in front of me for 4000 miles.

"It was also their wettest summer on record, so that meant there was huge numbers of bushflies and mosquitoes. The bushflies would be biting me all day, so they were the day shift, and the night shift would come on and the mosquitoes would arrive.

"I went 200 miles out in the bush without a saddle, because it broke, and I couldn't find anywhere to fix it.

"I got hit by Cyclone Yasi... it was just one thing after another.

"But the feeling of knowing I have got through it, that was the best. From then on, everything was really easy."

Averaging 12 hours a day on his bike, Sean took to resting where he could, often sleeping in the open.

But 11 months and 23,000 miles in, disaster struck.

Sean was 27 miles outside Tangier, in Morocco, and preparing for the last leg of his journey back to Gibraltar and British soil.

He decided to stop cycling at around 2am to catch a few hours sleep.

Sean said: "I was woken up at 5.45am with a knife to my neck, another guy held me down and a third guy stole everything off the bike, threw it in the back of a car and drove off.

"At that point you can't understand what's happening.

"I had so many people wake me up to just give me stuff, like 'here's a hot chocolate,' and this wasn't the first time I had slept on the side of the road.

"I lost everything, I had everything stolen apart from the bike."

Throughout his journey, Sean, from Larkhall, lanarkshire, had been documenting his journey, collecting flags from each country and shooting film and taking pictures.

They were all stolen, along with his passport, and he was forced to go to the British Embassy to get an emergency passport to get home.

Sean said: "I hadn't washed my clothes since New Orleans, five or six weeks previously, because I was on the home straight. I had started with eight clean sets.

"So the thieves got the most mingin' bag of dirty washing. I would have loved to have seen their faces when they opened that."

Determined not to give up so close to the finishing line, Sean returned to Scotland and spent 10 days gathering fresh kit, begging and borrowing items from friends.

He flew back out to Morocco and finished the journey, completing the first stage of his challenge.

Sean said: "When I look back now, I didn't realise it at the time, but I cycled right past Abbottabad, the place in Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden was found.

"I cycled right past the $50 million reward.

"You would think places like that would be dangerous, but not a beach in Morocco."

To find out more about Sean's trip, or donate, visit http://thecommonwealthchallenge.com/

Read about the second leg of Sean's Commonwealth Challenge in tomorrow's Evening Times.

matty.sutton@ eveningtimes.co.uk