How Do You Prepare For A Bike Adventure? Katja and Martin - Long Distance Cycle Touring

Ever wondered what you need to consider when planning out your own bike travel adventures? Well this week I've gone back through the archives and am featuring a section from my episode with Danish bike travellers Katja and Martin, as athey highlight what they did to prepare themselves for their huge journey of Cycling the Americas. You can listen to the full version of the original episode here 

You can also follow them via their instagram channel - @katjaogmartin.dk - and also read their blog www.Americasbybike.dk 

Head over to Old Man Mountain and checkout the Manzanita Cradle 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:24

Hello everyone, Bella Malloy here, host of the show. Welcome to another midweek mini episode of Seek Travel Ride. I'm aiming to fuel your wonderlust for your own bike adventures and help you get through the week. Today I'm actually going to give a bit of a throwback once again to a previous episode. The reason for this is previous guests of the show, Katya and Martin, two awesome bike adventurers from Denmark, have just finished an amazing adventure which started in Nepal and then they headed west, over Central Asia, over the high mountain passes, through some of the most dreamy and isolated landscapes there. And they travelled through Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, and they have just finished up their trip. Now, if you're new listeners to the show, you may not know this, but I featured Katya and Martin on their original big adventure, which started in Argentina. They headed north, travelled through South America, Central America, and then finished their adventures in North America in Vancouver. That episode was such a great listen, and I have selected audio from that to feature for this week's mini episode. Something that always struck me when I spoke with Katya and Martin was this idea that Martin had had heaps of experiences being a world traveller and a bike tour before this journey that they took on together as a couple. But this journey from South America up to North America was Katya's first experience of doing something like this herself. And there was a lot of wisdom shared about how they took to this trip as a couple, how they developed their route to sort of ease Katya into it, but also to build her confidence and experience for sections of the trail to come because they did have things like the Peru divide as areas that they really wanted to go to. And so as someone who had no bike experience prior, it was how do you build your confidence up to take on that type of route and that terrain? There was also the wisdom shared about how to deal with cold weather climates, what sort of equipment to pack along the way, and also the mental resilience and fortitude you need if you're planning a trip from South America heading north because those winds in Patagonia, yeah, they have a reputation for a reason. Anyway, without any further ado, let's listen to some of that original episode from Katya and Martin. And if you'd like to listen to the full length episode with both of them, I have provided a link in the show notes, so just go into your podcast player and hit the description link there and you will be able to listen to the full episode as well. Take it away, Katya and Martin.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Well, yeah. Peru divide, I would say probably yes. But the thing is we started out like so I don't have a I didn't have a lot of experience traveling by bicycle when we left. We just had like a a three-week trip to Switzerland because I needed to see do I like even like biking up mountains? And if I don't like that, maybe we shouldn't go to the Andes Mountains, you know. Yeah, so I found out I love that, that's that's fine, let's do it. But during the trip, I was definitely out of my comfort zone, maybe 70% of this trip, because of all different types of reasons. But uh in the beginning, it was also can I actually ride a bike that far? And how many kilometers a day can I go, and how many days a week? And so we started out really slowly. So we just kind of took our time, also because there was a lot of headwind, so it was not that easy to go fast. But we also took our time and we had the privilege to take our time because we had such a long journey ahead, so like we had almost two years, so we were like, okay, we'll just take a rest day every fourth day if that's what we need, or we'll just stay here for two days because we need to rest. So I just kind of got into it very softly.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Kind of softly.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Kind of softly, because it wasn't so soft because of like the crazy wind.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Crazy wind from like day one, right? Yeah, exactly. We're not just talking about a pesty headwind which sort of like eats away at you slowly all day. Um I'm I'm picturing winds that you'd potentially have to get off and hold everything in your mind not to fall over, to not get blown off the road.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

It may have even well, yeah, we did get blown off the road quite a bit, and also in like the first day we only go 40 kilometers, and it took us the whole day, like eight, ten hours, because it we're just cycling five kilometers an hour against the headwind, and I was like, if this is how it's gonna be, then I'm not I'm not sure this is something I want to do. But yeah, the thing is like we started off slowly building up and then we took some challenges. So, in down in Argentina, we took like a little more remote trail into the mountain road where it was just like kind of sandy roads and stuff, but it was just to kind of build up on my endurance and build up on my confidence. I think actually that was the most important part. I had to be confident that I could actually like go up in the mountains. So before we we came to Peru, I'd already done a lot of these small like trips that small in the sense of small, but still like four days, five days on on all our food and water on the bike.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

So so we were we kind of built that up, yeah. I think that's what Katia is also explaining. And we from in Argentina, northern Argentina, we already went up to 4,800 meters, and so we had a lot of like say build up this confidence and and teamwork to understand how to be on this road. So that would also be so if if your listeners are like wondering, oh, can I do the Peru divide? So I would say it's good to get a little bit of experience on your bike on dirt trails and on steep descents and long ascends going up because you go from 2,000 meters up to 5,000 meters, so it's some crazy amount of uh altitude you're you're building up there. So, but all these things they come so catch a talk about it normalized now. That's what I'm also a little bit, but but you build up the confidence and you becomes second nature that we are out there. But Peru Divide is a rough trail, it's there's not a lot of supplies, you need to carry your food, you need to so for this experience, you need to practice a little bit or read up on it. I wouldn't just say, Oh, just go and do it and be naive. You should have a little bit of comfort in yourself and and and believe that. But when that's said, I would say if you want to do it, you can do it and and then just prepare for it. And that's that's the key for this kind of things is you need to prepare a little bit. But the training, yes, if you want to do the Peru ride only, but you should train a bit. But if you want to do a long ride like this, don't worry about training, that will happen along the way. Just take it slowly, like what Katya was explaining. We you build it up, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Katya hearing you say you, you know, in a way, you needed your own inner confidence and your own self-belief to know in your mind that it's so that you could keep going. And I guess, Martin, is that where as a couple you have the advantage of drawing on the experience from the big one, the big two are? And it's sort of, I guess, in your mind, you're also cognizant of the type of things that probably are going to be effacing you. You you've been in areas of high altitude before, you've been in remote places before, you've most likely had to have a heavy-laden bike for days and days before. And so these are the things that you're thinking about, you know, the master and the apprentice, sort of, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

I believe you're equals in this couple, putting that out there. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

We are equals and we look at each other as equals, but of course, we have different experiences. So that's just uh on an experience point of view that that I had uh let's say uh uh a few pennies extra of experiences that I could share with catch up, and and we did that along the way, and we were like, okay, now we move a task from me that I was normally doing. Now it's catch a take it over a little bit, the navigation, the using the stove, the all these kind of things. So slowly we build out the confidence and the understanding on what do we need to not say survive is a big word, but to to sustain ourselves on a long journey like this. But for sure there was this level of sharing some experience, and and then we had to learn to work as a team because we are different persons, so we have to find where are we comfortable and where do we have our challenges, and and we we support each other a lot in that also.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Yeah, it was sometimes it was actually a challenge to be this far apart in experience because it was easy for me to maybe step a little bit back and just let Martin do a lot of the practical things in the beginning because I was already it was already so many impressions that I had to take in just being on the trip and sleeping outdoors and having to find a place to wild camp and having to do all these things, and Martin's have done those things like a thousand times before. We had to like find a way where we were both comfortable, and I had to maybe be a little more out of my comfort zone so Martin didn't get too bored.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

No, I don't know. No, that's that's but we had to push your comfort zone a little bit in order to do a journey like this. There is a certain extent of discomfort, right? So but you get used to it and then it becomes your normal, and then it's comfortable to be there, but you have to push away from normal life a little bit. So there's no couch every night to sit and and watch TV, so so you start there and then we build it up, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Yeah, yeah. But I think we did it very well. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But it's just yeah, it was just like an a theme in the beginning of our trip that yeah, we had to figure out this like imbalance in experience.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

I imagine conversely, there would have been days where just from a physical element point of view, even mentally, that you would have felt awesome and happy, and Martin, you would have been potentially going through a downer because it doesn't matter how much you experience you have, you also have the experience of knowing that not every day you're gonna be happy as anything and and enjoying the moment. There's gonna be days of struggle or sickness. So that's true. I imagine, Katya, there there were moments where Martin was very thankful that you were there to help lift him up, and and perhaps he was looking at you with the mind of, Oh gosh, look at where you are today, and I'm just so whilst you started as the inexperienced one on this trip, for sure. I think that would have changed so much dynamically as as the kilometers and and as your little bike trail made its way up the Americas.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, for sure. No, anyhow, that's the a great part of being together as a cobble on a trip, is that we of course have days where I'm completely down with either my thoughts or or physically or ill or whatever, and and and then catch her has to to bring it up a little bit, or it's the opposite. And that definitely very fast became very much uh an equal game because that's not really based on experience. Sometimes it is, but it's more like just sometimes you're you're not you're in in your fittest state, right? And then you work as a team. But the positive of this is that you have the team and you can help each other, but you can also share the experiences. So now we can sit here in a couch and look at each other and say, Oh, do you remember when you were doing this or whatever? And and that's really nice being together and and sharing that experience. So, yeah, we we try to to help each other as much as we can.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Yeah, definitely. And I think it's just also we help each other in the way that we can. So maybe Martin can help uh me more in the practical things, but I can help him more with maybe sorting out his thoughts about things.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

So yeah, we have have our own like places where we know you're a bit stronger than me, or I'm a bit more practical with stuff. So yeah, we find we already knew that a bit beforehand, but but on a trip like this, it becomes magnified. You'd like you take a glass and you magnify everything because the weather, the situation, the food, your illness, you eat something, and then your stomach just turns bad, or we were away during COVID, so there was still a COVID thing. We just went on the on the back end of COVID, right? So there's a lot of places we had to wear masks or certifications of vaccinations, and all these kind of things were still a thing back then. So and I got hit by probably COVID at some point in Argentina, and we were out way, way out in a little nowhere. We had slept in a small and not a church, but it's like a shrine where they had like a saint, and we put our tent up in there, and and then I woke up in the morning with a headache and a high fever, and we had to cycle 40 kilometers to the next little village against the wind, and we were battling against the wind, and and I was feeling so down. And catch I was cycling in front and protecting me from the wind, and then we arrived at the village, and there was nothing in the village where we could stay. There was a little shop, and they have very little out there, and but luckily the people, and that's again the beauty of people around. We found a lady, and she had built a new house, and she still had her old house, and that was a really old house, probably from the very beginning of the village. It was a mud brick house, and very moist and humid. But she said, You can stay here and pay me a little bit of money, and we ended up staying a week, and Katya had to cook for me while I was in bed, lying there with fever and chills. And so these situations they do happen, and then it's just like we are very fortunate to have each other that we can help each other, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:43

I I'm just trying to put myself in that situation, like being on a bicycle to a feeling as we would say in Australia, sick as a dog, and just having to pedal forward into a raging headwind. Feverish.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Yeah, we were we weren't able to just stop because we didn't have enough food and there weren't any water out there. It was like a deserty landscape, and yeah, it's oh difficult.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah, in the moment it would be a nightmare. I guess I only say this in reflecting back, but I guess the simple thing is there's no decisions to make because there is no alternative. You have to keep going forward. Yeah, definitely. We talked about COVID there, and I think it's fair to talk about this now as well. We we've talked about the raging headwinds you faced. There's a reason why the major overwhelming majority of bicycle travelers travel from north to south when they're doing this trip.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

A trip this big, you're obviously gonna have a days of headwinds, whichever direction you're taking it on. But the prevailing winds are definitely prevailing for a reason. Yeah. You took the decision to go from south to north, yeah. That was a timing thing as well, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 14:51

That was it was primarily a timing thing, actually, because we were ready to go, and and we didn't want to wait five more months. So we decided to do this trip in I think it was April, and then we were thinking, okay, we can we can leave on in January, and we didn't want to wait the five months more, you have to wait for summer in Canada. So that's that's primarily it. And then we had a couple of friends from Denmark who have done the same.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

South to north.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

They also did it south to north, and they were like, it's doable. This is a Danish thing, yeah. Yeah, it's the Danish way to do it. You didn't know what that means.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

I should just ask this actually, this is an assumption of mine that most people go north to south. Is that right? Or have I actually got it wrong?

SPEAKER_02 15:41

No, it's true. Yeah, we met so many going the different direction than us. So yeah, that's true. And I do understand it because it is tough, but then again, I mean it's not it was only like a month out of yeah, the 21 months. 21 month 21 month of five kilometers per hour bicycle travel. Yeah, anyway, so I mean, in the in the long term, it's not such a big problem. But if you're I understand if you're if you're going for three months or something, I understand that you don't want to battle a headwind for for a month, you know. So yeah, on balance.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, we were a bit jealous when we met people coming from the north going south, and they just flew past us.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

They were like, oh, what a great day it is today.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yeah, enjoy that tailwind.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Oh, I could just imagine. I mean, I've had that passing strangers just in normal winds, or or you know, wherever I've been, yeah, you know, when you're on fire with a tailwind. What is the theory? There's no such thing as a tailwind, there's just good form. Uh when you see someone coming the other way, I've always my heart just drops full of like, oh yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Yeah, yeah, that was us.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

What I wanted to also point out there was because COVID, whilst it didn't change when you left, it did change a few things, and that would have been the start point of your route. Now, most people taking on this route start off at the very, very bottom, as far south as you can go, ish wire. Yeah, but you you couldn't do that because Chile was out of bounds when you started. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

And that's also have a connection with the wind because we had more wind because we stayed in Argentina than we would have had, probably in in Chile going in. Yeah, so we we weren't preparing for all of this wind.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

So we actually made that change very quickly, but yeah, because back then that was in the end of 2021, right? So then things were moving with borders opening and all this. So we still had back back in December 2021, we still had our ticket to Ushuaia, yeah, and we were still hoping fingers crossed, Chile had made some statements of opening their borders, but then we were getting too close, and and three weeks before we left, we left on the 4th of January 2022. Uh, we decided okay, we can't take the chance to fly to Ushuaia because imagine if we are stuck down there, we have to fly out again somewhere or whatever. So we looked at the map, and where is the furthest southern airport in Argentina? And actually, it's Rio Gallegos, which is a small town/slash city in those kinds. They are just on the border with Chile, and uh so we flew down there for that reason because we wanted to start in Ushuaia, that's why we normally you normally start on a tour like this. But COVID kind of put a little bit of a branch in our wheel, and we just settled up and said, Okay, that's just how we deal with it. It's still hurting us a little because when we say we started southern Argentina, people say, Oh, you started in Ushuaia, and then we have to explain exactly what we just did. Oh, due to COVID, we couldn't do it. And then afterwards we learned that there was actually a bus connecting through from Argentina to Argentina through Chile. So we could have probably gotten on that bus, but we didn't have this information beforehand, so so we just had to deal with the situation, and then luckily Argentina let us in because that was the other question. Maybe they won't let us in. You don't know when you arrive in the COVID times, and we had our certificates and all this planned out and did all the registrations we needed to, and and it was very easy actually. They didn't check anything, they just said, Yeah, have a good time in Argentina, and and that was good. So uh, so yeah, but crossing back into Chile, we had a lot of issues with COVID. Chile was very tough on it, and they in the beginning they just opened three borders through the whole range that have 5,000 kilometers of border with Argentina, and and luckily, one of them when we're halfway in Patagonia, we could go into Chile and enjoy the beautiful Carretera Austral, which is a beautiful area, and so yeah, so COVID was still um still a bit of a challenge. Followed us a bit, but luckily now we it we deal with it, right? And it's not a big pandemic anymore.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

When you were mentioning that the Caratera Austral, when you first started out, it wasn't even a certainty that you'd get to see any of that, was it?

SPEAKER_02 21:02

No, yeah, we didn't know. It was just a few weeks before we were there, we found out that they will probably open the border and then they did.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

So and then and then you made tracks for it straight away. Yeah, yeah. Was it Road 40 or Road 41 in Argentina? Which is yeah, yeah, exactly. Actually, quickly to my listeners, I will mention here Katya and Martin have an amazing website and a blog that's filled with photos of this trip. And I would encourage you to seek that out. I'll put a link in the show notes, but just quickly, the web address for your blog, it is America'sbybike.dk. Americasbybike.dk.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

I don't know if it's blog post one or blog post two. It's a photo of the road and it's just corrugated, it's horrible.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

It's not the Haritera Austral. That was what I was talking about earlier, actually. That was like one of the first uh challenges for me on the bike, like the real challenges apart from the wind. Those sandy washboard roads, that was just 300 kilometers of those, and then also the headwind. So it's just a good starting point.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

But then we when we made it into Chile, and we were really heading to Chile because the headwinds were grueling, and we know that on the other side of the Andes Mountains, so that's on the western side of the Andes Mountains, the winds are not as strong. So when you get into Chile, the winds completely disappear more. You don't have any headwinds, there's no wind. But what you get in that season that was in March, you get the rainy season. So we swapped the wind, we made a little deal, and then we said, There you go, wind, and then we got rain for three weeks. So, so we're but we're still enjoying all the line. We still had a great time.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

It's all the extremes because the other thing that happened when you first set out is not only did you have the wind, but you got sunburnt.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Then you also had real cold weather, and I imagine, like you know, we were talking about when you were on the Peru device, up to 5,000 meters, but where you were camping as well in high elevation, you were thinking freezing, I imagine, as well. Yeah, we had some cold.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Well, some we had some cold nights, but the worst weren't actually in Peru, it was in Argentina. Going from Argentina to Chile in the north of both countries, and Pasohama, it's called. I think people will maybe know if they cycled there, but we had yeah, nights down to minus 20 degrees.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah. Celsius.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Celsius.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Sorry. Did you say minus 20 degrees? Sorry. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Minus 2, 0, 20. Yeah. So that was the coldest night.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

That was the coldest we had. So we had a lot of cold nights, but there was those were cold.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Guaranteed I've got some Canadians listening to this show. Yeah, they don't mind. No, no, often Canadians go, oh yeah, whatever, that's not how do you keep warm? All you can do is put every single thing that you've got on and use each other's body walls. What other techniques are there?

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yeah, well, so heating up some hot water and putting it in the bottle and then taking the bottle down with you in the living pad.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

But we carry two sleeping bags actually, so that's a little trick maybe for other people on going on long tours. I think for a shorter trip, it's not um not a big thing. But because we go through all these climates that we've talked about now already, you know, we've had cold and warmth and all this. So we have um almost a four-season sleeping bag, which it goes down to like I think minus 10 or 8, something like that. And then we have a summer sleeping bag which is just down to two, three degrees. But when you combine these two, we are actually we're pretty good well off. But that also gives us flexibility through the season, so we can we can sleep well because we we really appreciate our sleep. So so that system of having two like a layered sleeping system, and it it's down sleeping bags, and it's like the heavy one is 700 grams and the light one is 200 grams, so it's not it's not a big thing to carry, but we think I think now is it's a good way to do it. It's like a quilt, the summer one, so it doesn't have a back, so it's more like a blanket kind of style, and um and then a good sleeping mattress. So that's rule number one: all the cold is coming from the ground, more or less. So if you don't have a good sleeping mattress, you can put all the sleeping bags you want on top of you, but you will feel the cold from the ground. That's how we keep warm. So the the sleeping system we kind of worked on a little bit, and then when it's really cold, we need to put a little bit of extra clothing on to jump into the sleeping bag, our down jacket on if we need it, and then like uh an algae bottle with boiled water in, and then wrap some clothing around it so you don't burn yourself, and then then put it down in your sleeping bag, and then we'll stay kind of warm.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

That's such a cool tip. You mentioned there, Martin, the wisdom in taking two sleeping bags. What other sort of things did you consider for this trip, knowing the details of the route and where it was going to take you, the places you were hoping to see? Like when you're dealing with remote places, were there stuff you took on this route that you took on it because of the length of the journey and the extremes, or apart from two sleeping bags, is everything the same?

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Oh, it's a it's a really good question. I think we've spent a lot of especially me, I like I like going through the details of our gear, and then we also that's one is the length of the journey, another thing is where do you want to have your comfort? So so you can go uh very lightweight, but that usually goes against your comfort. With the two sleeping bags, we get a bit more sleeping comfort. But if you would only have one, you would maybe have some cold nights, but you would carry less. So it's it's always a balance of weight, comfort, and practicality of the route. So with a long route like this, we we knew that we would have warm weather, cold weather, rain weather, snowy weather, and all so all these environmental things that we need to take care of. So we needed to carry it all, let's say. So we had a very warm jacket, we also have a wind jacket, we have a rain jacket, and so all these things we try to find the best best of both worlds: weight and comfort, and then going a little bit more for weight, so we are not the lightest one. So if you see the pictures of us, we have the standard set of pennies in the front back and a bag on top of the back one. So we carried a little bit more than what most people maybe do nowadays. I don't know, but a little bit more. And but that gives us the comfort and the possibility to carry a lot of food and water. But one thing I would say for a long journey like this is a multi-fuel stove that you can more or less burn whatever fuel you can find. So if it's gas or petrol or diesel, but we mainly use petrol because in most places people have a car or a motorbike or a scooter or something like that, and they run on petrol. So if they have petrol, we have fuel for cooking, and then we are happy. So we we carry that, and you need to learn a little bit how to use it. So I would recommend practicing a little bit with it. But it's that's one of the best things we have in our bags. That's our petrol stove because it it runs even in 5,000 meters, or yeah, so it's it's just a bulletproof stove.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Okay, listeners, that's where we are going to leave it for the midweek episode here, and I hope that you enjoyed those insights that Katya and Martin both shared from that amazing trip that they took through South, Central, and North America there. I've also provided a link in the show notes to their Instagram account. You can flick through their stories and see images not just from that trip, but also from their most recent trip, traveling from Nepal all the way across to Jordan. As I said, some amazing isolated landscapes and insights into cultures that many of us just really do not know that much about. Now, a bit of news for Seek Travel Ride as well is that in the coming months in UK and Europe, I'm going to be taking the podcast live. That's right. I'm going to be joined by a few previous guests of the show. We're going to be doing some live events. So keep your eyes peeled on our social channels on Instagram. You can find me there at Seek Travel Ride. Or alternatively, sign up to our Seek Travel Ride newsletter and you'll be the first to learn about when these shows are going to be taking place and how to get tickets to them as well. I'm pretty excited to be able to team up with some previous guests. For me, it'll also be an opportunity to meet them face to face for the first time. And I am super stoked about the adventures we are no doubt going to be sharing with you there in the live audience as well. Now we come to the part of the show which I really enjoy, and that's where I get the opportunity to say a big heartfelt thank you to you, my super fans, who have shown some more love and appreciation for the show and bought me some coffees. This week I'd like to say a big thank you to Jacques Prusienne, who's also a monthly supporter of the show, and he says, Thanks for the fantastic podcast, Bella. Well, Jacques, thank you a million percent for being such a super fan. You've been so supportive, I think, since I first launched this show. Yeah, thank you for supporting me on buy me a coffee and really appreciate it, and I hope that you're out there on some of your own bike travel soon as well. I also like to say a big thank you to Lonnie Miller, who said, Thanks for the inspiration for bikepacking. Our club recently completed a three-day loop from King City to Monterey and Carmel and returned back to King City. Well, thank you, Lonnie. I'm glad you have been enjoying tuning into the podcast. It looks like you have turned that inspiration for bikepacking into action with this mini adventure as well. I love the ideas that in three days you can condense a lot of adventure and fun and come away with it no doubt with more experiences and hopefully left you scheming for more bike adventures to come as well. Thank you heaps for supporting the show. And listeners, if you would like to do as Jacques and Lonnie have done and support me on the podcast, you can do so by hitting the Buy Me a Coffee link. I provided it in the show notes, or simply head to buymeacoffee.com forward slash seek travel ride. Buy me a brew, but more importantly, tell me what it is that you love about tuning into the podcast and where are your next bike adventures going to take you. Until the next episode, my name's Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.