Tumbles and triumphs as Andrew nears goal

Six months after embarking on an epic cycling journey across the world, Andrew Crompton is finally nearing his final destination. His trip, which sees the Bolton insurance broker aim to raise money for Carers Trust and the Bolton Lads and Girls Club by travelling from Manchester to Melbourne, spans three continents, through 18 countries and 14 time zones. In recent weeks he has braved his first (and hopefully last) nasty fall, been treated like a celebrity by selfie-loving locals in India and put in his longest day of cycling so far. Carers Trust caught up with him in Cambodia just before he headed to Vietnam and on to Australia.

Beaming on a Zoom screen from his budget hotel in the Cambodian town of Ta Keo, 60km from the Vietnamese border, Andrew Crompton seems surprisingly spritely for someone who has been spending up to five hours every day of the past few months on a bike in sweltering temperatures. The Bolton businessman set out on his bike in July last year for the challenge of a lifetime and has been in the saddle ever since.

But cycling 12,500km is not without its hazards, as Andrew discovered when he set out from Mumbai very early one morning in an attempt to beat the heat. “It was a stupid thing to do,” he admits. “In India, they’ve got these huge speed bumps. I mean, they're just incredible - hit these things and you're in a world of pain if you’ve not seen them and it was dark when I set off because I wanted to get cool mornings. So I hit one about 10 minutes in and it literally took me straight over the handlebars.

 

“It was a bit painful. I faceplanted the tarmac. I sprained my wrist - that’s still not too good. I got a big hole in my hand, one on my wrist, one on the other wrist, the other hand, the shoulder, a really bad one down the arm and the knee. And then of course I split my eye open as well so I've ended up with a scar across my eyebrow. It took a little bit a while to recover from that.”

I ask if he took he rest of the day off after that and Andrew is incredulous. “Oh, come on. No, just 20 minutes - we had a ferry to catch!” he replies, before describing how he patched himself up with plasters and bandages that proceeded to come off as the heat took its toll during the morning. The injury to his palm, in particular, made gripping the handlebars difficult but he cycled on and insists everything was fine, despite the pain.

The general state of the roads on the west coast of India from Mumbai to Goa, some of which had been washed away by monsoon rains, coupled with steep hills and sky-high temperatures made for some of the most difficult cycling conditions so far. One day saw him climb continuously for 60km, pushing him to his physical limits. India brings the challenge of sharing its roads with a sea of other vehicles, people and assorted cows, buffalo and monkeys sauntering down the street.

“There's just animals everywhere walking down the highway,” said Andrew. “They’re just walking towards you and there's no traffic laws, really, there's just guidance, so you're on the main highway and cars are coming at your head on. Drivers overtake, look at you, hit their horn and expect you to move and the only place you can go is into a ditch. You don't remonstrate, you don't get angry. That’s India, that’s what happens, everybody just carries on. I never saw one episode of road rage which is staggering with what I've seen over there in the last few weeks.”

Andrew also seems to have taken on something like celebrity status during the Indian leg of his journey, getting stopped four or five times a day by drivers wanting to know about his journey and why he’s doing it. On one occasion, after pausing to look at the stunning Jog Falls, which sees water from the mighty Sharavati crash down 830ft, Andrew was ambushed by a school bus of 30 children and their teachers, all picture with the exhausted cyclist who had just sweated through a 5,000ft climb. At one hotel he was even made guest of honour at the birthday party of a 75-year-old man who had been tipped off about Andrew’s feat. Other people insisted on giving him free tea and other refreshments as he made his way through the country.

“They were just the most friendly, nicest people you can come across,” he said. “I think that's what's made the biggest impression on me in India is that a lot of the people I met have got nothing really but they’re just fascinated by your story and what you’re doing.”

Andrew, who was temporarily without his right-hand man John “Millsie” Mills on the Indian leg of the trip, was joined in Goa for Christmas by his family for a few well-earned days of rest and relaxation, though the celebrations where he was staying put his hometown of Bolton’s in the shade. “They did know how to party on Christmas Day,” Andrew recalls. “We went to Christmas lunch at this hotel, they had live music on, Indian Santas rolling around, people were all dancing at two o'clock in the afternoon. They were absolutely leathered by 3 o’clock. It was a great day.”

From India, Andrew flew out to Bangkok in Thailand, spending New Year’s Eve alone before being rejoined by Millsie, who is driving the route alongside his friend. Even what looked like a rare break from his bike, when he continued part of his journey by boat, turned into a lengthy detour.

Andrew explained: “When we said it was a boat down the river John thought it was going to be a floating gin palace but when you see this boat, it was barely floatable and it’s a public bus for the river. So it gets loaded up with the locals, all their possessions, also the driver’s delivering stuff to the shops and dropping people off. So this thing should take five hours but it took seven because he's acting as a delivery guy and we’re helping him unload food, vegetables, helping old ladies off the boat and there are other boats coming in off the river to meet us. I’m thinking ‘crikey, how long are we going to be on this?’ To see how they live on the river is just incredible.”

Cambodia also saw the longest day’s journey of the Andrew’s so far – 151km across five-and-a-half hours of cycling in humid conditions. 

“The guide who’s with us at the moment is an ex-Cambodian mountain bike champion and he’s 8.5 stone and his legs are probably 6 stone. He’s a brilliant cyclist but even he was saying the other day ‘we’ve got to stop, I can’t go on, this is just too much’. So it was tough,” says Andrew, with some understatement.

After crossing Vietnam, Australia is up next – though there’s still plenty of cycling to do at this point. “It’s the home leg but it's the longest leg in fairness. So we've still got about 4,000 kilometres to go. But nonetheless, we're not fighting our way through airports and land borders and everything else which is the real problem bit really, particularly land border crossings which are really problematic.”

By the time he crosses the Melbourne finish line in late March, Andrew will have travelled around 65 miles each day on his bike. All his costs have been self-funded so every penny raised from the trip will go straight to work to transform the lives of unpaid family carers and boys and girls from deprived communities.

Andrew first learned about the importance of unpaid family carers when a friend became the primary carer for his parents. It made him realise how little support and recognition there is for unpaid carers, despite the sacrifices they make. Andrew’s company, Watson Laurie, has been supporting Carers Trust ever since. And in 2000, Andrew was introduced to Bolton Lads and Girls Club, when he agreed to become a mentor.

Bolton Lads and Girls Club is a children and young people’s charity based in Bolton. They provide opportunities to improve the lives of 4,000 active members through universal open-access play, youth and sport provision together with bespoke targeted services, supporting the most vulnerable.

Carers Trust is a major charity that is for, with and about unpaid carers of which there are an estimated 7 million in the UK. With support services at breaking point and the country still coping with the ravages of Covid, carers are at crisis point and need help more than ever.

Both charities are immensely grateful Andrew has taken on such a Herculean task to raise funds for them. He is doing incredible work in fundraising and spreading awareness for both organisations and all donations towards are welcome.

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