Charity inspires Sheffield man to cycle over 16,000miles across 25 countries

Being on a pushbike from Singapore to Sheffield, 24-year-old Jake Johnson of Stannington, has clocked in about 16,000 miles – 26,000km – in a space of 11 months for Newlife, a charity for disabled children, which inspired him to fundraise as part of his trip.

The charity, he said, has funded special needs equipment for his 22-year-old sister, Lottie who is suffering from sclerosis and cerebral palsy, among many other conditions.

“My little sister is in a wheelchair and it is the fact that she received funding from Newlife that inspired me to fundraise as part of my trip.

“She can’t walk or talk or eat and drink through her mouth and she has severely impaired sight and hearing.

“She is, however, able to laugh in awkward situations and smile non-stop for hours on end,” he said.

But cycling through 25 countries, including the ones that are considered unstable during certain times, was one of the most terrifying experiences that Jake had to face.

“I was camping on a beautiful patch of grass on the Tajik side of the Afghan-Tajik border when I was woken at 11pm to a forceful whisper, ‘Hey, mister!’ It was a troop of three armed Tajik soldiers,” he said.

With the help of Google translate, Jake said the army told him that the terrorist group Taliban were close and he had to move his tent.

“I didn’t believe them so I argued to stay put. They became more insistent and I eventually had to move everything, before they abandoned me in the night,” he said.

“I had to cycle on and I found a benzine station and ended up camping outside the toilet of this establishment. It was quite smelly.”

As if that wasn’t the worst part of his adventure, Jake said he would come down with some sort of diarrhoea and vomitting about every month.

“The worst of this was in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan where I was for about three weeks. I was oscillating between ‘Pretty much able to cycle’ and ‘Completely bed-bound’.

“There was a point in the extremely remote no man's land between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan where I lost all my energy and spent 10 hours by the roadside laid down unable to move except to twist my body to vomit or walk the 10 metres below an embankment to let it out the other way. Grim!” he said.

Jake said he is now working on documenting his journey in a book that recounts his adventures to inspire armchair adventurers and those who are interested in big changes.

“I also plan to run talks about my trips and perhaps cycle-touring/adventure workshops for people who are looking to get out of their comfort zone a little bit.

“A portion of what I raise through this will go to the charity. Like the book, watch this space. I will make announcements about this on my person Instagram page @roadjake and my little-used Facebook page @HalfWorldAway.”

The 25 countries that Jake traversed were Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, France and finally back to his hometown in Sheffield.

Jake set off from Singapore on January 1 this year and arrived back in Sheffield on November 2 to the cheers from his friends and family.

Readers are also more than welcome to donate at www.justgiving.com/cycling-eurasia-for-charity and can contact Jake via email at [email protected] for more information.

Jake hoped to raise £5000 and at the time of writing has raised £3313.33.