Bikepacking Adventures in the Canadian Rocky Mountains & What Does Adventure Mean?

Could you imagine going on a bike adventure as a family with two young children? Well this week we are hearing from Eglė Cibienė who is doing exactly that with her husband Liudivikas and their two small toddlers. Hear all about their experiences on one day cycling in the Rocky Mountains in Canada. You can follow their journey via their instagram channel - @eglezidonyte 

Join me in London for our Beyond the Bike Live Shows. Book your tickets below:

Beyond the Bike - May 14 Session

Beyond the Bike - May 15 Session

Find out more about the Seek Travel Ride Lightweight Bikepacking Tour here

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello everyone, it's Bella here, host of the show. Welcome back to another midweek mini episode of Seek Travel Ride where I am sharing your stories as listeners about one day of your trip and helping to fuel the Seek Travel Ride global community with some Stoke and Wonderlust for bike adventures. This week I have an awesome story to share with you from Agler, and she's going to be sharing what it's like to actually go on bike tour with her husband and two kids. They are currently touring down through the Americas, and uh let's just say her story is super insightful. I have the ultimate respect for people who tour in this manner. Uh I did have the privilege uh to interview Cedric and his son Azua. Cedric Azua and his wife Roku, they all tour and have done since Azua was a little kid as well. And so listening to Argyll's story really took me back there to their journeys as well. Also, I wanted to give a shout-out to the fact that for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the clocks have shifted for many people, and it really is the start of the idea that summer is almost upon us. It's a time where we get to plan bike adventures and look forward to some time away. And I wanted to give a shout out to my Seek Travel ride tour. It's happening at the end of June in France. We all get together in the city of Toulouse for five days of riding. I've set this up specifically to be a small group tour so that we all get an awesome experience there. And it's also a way for you to perhaps dip your toes into what it's like to take a bike travel tour. It still involves packing luggage on your bike, so you have that element of it, but we are doing hotel stays and all your foods catered for. And of course, you have me as one of your ride leaders there to tell you all about what I love in this area of France. If you are interested in this tour, I still have some spots available. So I have got a link in the show notes where you can go and look and learn all about it. And who knows, maybe this will be the first bike adventure for you in summer 2025. I would love to see you there to join me. Okay, now it is time for our listener story of the day. Let's listen to what Agle has to say.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Hello everyone, my name is Agle, and together with my husband Ludwigus and two kids, we are cycling across Americas. Our babies are one year old and two years old, and we basically travel with a tent and wild camp all the way, with some little exceptions. I would like to share some of the specifics of traveling with bicycles and little kids. A day to picture our daily grind and daily challenges would be maybe just a regular day from our first three months in British Columbia. We used to call it our warm-up in the Rockies. We started our trip in Vancouver and headed north at first to make a loop through the Rocky Mountains. It was summer, and we were learning all things related to bicycle touring, as this is our first ever cycling trip. We learned what to carry and what not to carry, how to handle maps and diaper changes, what's in our food bag, and how long can it last for us. So we usually would wake up at 5 a.m. The babies would still be sleeping. At that time, Perkunas was two years and three months old, and Gire was nine months old and just started walking. So the whole point of waking up early would be to cycle while it's still cool and not too difficult because during the day the heat would come up to maybe 32 to 40 degrees Celsius, and it would be pretty challenging for us to cycle, pulling a load of 200 to 300 pounds each. So we used to call the middle of the day our siesta during summertime. So we wake up really early. Imagine packing the tent while babies are still asleep. They are not heavy sleepers, they are pretty sensitive, so we quietly exit the tent and pack everything outside. Most of the things usually would be ready in the evening, so we wouldn't have to, you know, make noises. And one by one we take the babies out of the tent and kind of dress them up in down overalls and put them in the trailer, and during that time we also fight mosquitoes, like it's a teamwork. So mosquitoes wouldn't wake them up too. So it was a successful morning at Terry Fox rest stop, rest area. You're not supposed to camp there, but oh well, we don't usually have much choice as we only make like 30 to 40 kilometers per day, and sometimes we just have to stop wherever we are. Like in the morning, if the babies decide to wake up, like after half an hour of riding, we would just stop on the side of the road and wait for them to be sleepy again. Like wait for their lunch nap so we could move. Because the little one was just a baby then and she didn't really enjoy riding in the trailer. Our plan B would be for me to put her in a wrap in a carrier on my back and cycle a bit. But yeah, it would depend on the roughness or on the road if I could do it. So that morning was successful and it was really beautiful. You know, the colors when you wake up early, it's really pretty. And so we make maybe I don't know, like more than 10 kilometers to Mount Robson Visitors Center. We were really looking forward. Mount Robson is the highest peak of Canadian Rockies, and it's supposed to be beautiful, it was. So we come, there's nobody there yet, no people, and at around 8 o'clock while we are just making breakfast on the stairs, people start gathering, it's so crowded, and we realize nobody's gonna let us camp there. So many rangers and yeah, and stuff in there. So we ask at the visitor center where could we camp tonight? What's the closest area? And they suggest there's a lake a little bit up the trail. It's called Kinney Lake, it's beautiful, and it's like eight kilometers of a trail. The person we were talking to called it, oh, it's not too steep, it's basically a valley, you're following a river, and so we decided to go there. He said, No problem with the bicycles. Yeah, but we learned quickly on this trip that our rigs and setup is not a usual one, and we shouldn't listen to advice much, and we should explore on our own at first. But we didn't have much choice at that day, and we decided okay, let's try it, let's just go. And I don't know how we pushed our bikes to the top, to that campground. Many people helped us, it was pretty rocky, you know, and they see me. I was carrying the babies at the time, like the baby trailer, and my husband had the cargo trailer with food. So the baby trailer, it has two wheels and it can get stuck behind pretty much any rock, and you have to uh dismount and push your bike, try to push it over. Not always I can handle it. Maybe Ludvikus, my husband, has to come and help me, or there were many people on the trail, so I was happy to receive so much help. So we push everything to the top. Then we see it's a really pretty campground, and we should stay maybe a couple of days more. So we check our food back, how long can we last? And yeah, just decide to stay a little bit more. Few days, I think two nights after that, we wake up, there's nobody there, and we wonder like maybe it's because it's Monday, or I don't know. Why did everybody disappear? And sometime later in the morning, like a provincial park staff person comes up, and he's pretty surprised to find us there. We travel without internet or like without a sim card that has reception. We have like emergency devices, like like cards on the phone where we could call, like on an emergency. So basically, that person says, Road is closed, there's a fire nearby, a wildfire, you should go down and just you know, cycle south or find a way of transportation to get out of this area. Uh, and we had no clue about wildfires at that point, it was our first experience. In Europe, we don't really encounter anything similar. At first, we thought, like, oh, it's a perfect place to just wait out a couple of days and maybe it's gonna be over by then. But we talked a little to more rangers and realized, oh, maybe it's gonna be a month or more. It was the fire in Jasper uh during summer of last year, 2024. Yeah, it was a pretty serious situation. And it looked a little bit apocalyptic when we went down and saw that there are there's nobody on the road. And yeah, some ranger saw us and just took care, you know, it could be a paradise cycling in an empty road in this beautiful nature, but he said no guys, you should get out of here. And he gave us a lift a little bit south, and we had to replan our journey from that point. And now we are in Mexico, and yeah, probably everybody who cycles long distance know that this kind of change of plans happen often. Yep, I think that's it.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Wow, Agla, thank you so much for sharing your incredible story and insights there of what it's like to travel with two young kids in tow as well. It was amazing when you were talking about just, you know, little logistics. I often laugh about how long it takes me to get up and ready in the morning and set you know, packing up camp, and I don't have two little ones to think about. I don't need to worry about waking other people up necessarily and you know, I can do things at my leisure, but just the idea and the insights of having to go through a separate routine, having to be extra quiet when you're getting up earlier in the morning to get everything set up. I also love that hot tip of having things ready to go the night before, so there's less for you to have to sort out and figure out on the way in the morning. And I think many bike travellers can probably think about that themselves and the routines that you've built up yourself after multiple days away. But then also just the physical side of touring it's something that I've noticed. There is no one single way to do bike travel. Everyone has their own way. Some people are all about, you know, packing lighter and going further, some people don't care to be packed too light and have shorter days. And just the idea that, you know, practically when you're travelling with two young kids in tow and all that entails, of course it means that you have shorter days. But it doesn't mean there's any less effort involved. And then just this story about what it was like to be there in that area of the national park such an incredible beauty, I imagine, but just the battle to get to the campground sounded immense. And then not knowing why you were the only ones there, and then realizing there was a huge wildfire. Something that you said there also that's not lost on me was the concept that you've not experienced wildfires before. So it was a foreign concept to even think that a fire could be that destructive. But for me, growing up in Australia, I've had far too much experience knowing what our bushfires are like, and I can just imagine the horror and the apocalyptic feel the sky must have had there with the wildfires that were raging down. I'm so thankful that you were able to make your way out of the national park safely and as dreamy as having that beautiful landscape all to yourselves, safety is the number one importance when we're talking about wildfires. And as you said right at the end, having to be flexible and changing your plans, I think I I say it all the time, listeners, but it's the most important thing to pack into your bike luggage before you head away on this trip. Listeners, I'm going to be sharing some photos from this day, which Agla has shared with me. They are absolutely incredible, and to check them out, make sure to look on our Facebook or Instagram social media accounts. You can find us there on Seek Travel Ride. And Agla, I wish you and your family a incredible rest of your tour. Listeners, keep an eye out in the months to come because I do plan to catch up with them for a full-length episode to get right into the details of this amazing family adventure. Now, in another roundup from the community, last week I sent out a Seek Travel Ride monthly newsletter, and in it I was sort of posing the question of, you know, what does the word adventure mean? It was something that got struck to me when I saw a previous podcast guest, Shir Shapoti, share a similar thought on her Instagram page. And it was all around the idea that do we have to do hard things for it to be an adventure? Do we need to suffer through a moment to feel like it's worthwhile and all those sort of things? And also I posed what does it mean to you in the newsletter, and I've had a few responses which I would love to share with you. First one is from Alice Terrien, and Alice said to me, Bella, in regards to your question, should something be hard to be classified as an adventure? I think for me, an adventure must involve putting myself out of my comfort zone. And that's different for everyone, since we're used to different comfort levels, different weather, everything. So going to another country is an adventure, a new language, new food, new culture. In the word adventure, I also hear the quest for something out of the ordinary, and again, that will be different for everyone. Well, Alice, I fully agree with you. As you said there, something out of the ordinary, and it's really subjective, isn't it? Because it is so different to all of us as well. What's out of the ordinary for you could be commonplace for someone else, or vice versa. Another response I had was from listener Brian Sampson, who's currently on a mega journey, by the way, Brian. I love tracking your travels at the moment. Anyway, Brian has said Bella, I think adventure is anything that takes you out of your comfort zone. Nervous excitement and butterflies in your stomach. New Zealand didn't feel this much of an adventure because I never got that feeling. It was relatively very physically hard, but I was never uncomfortable. Riding the chaos of Indonesia the past few days and not knowing the language has brought me a bit outside my comfort zone and it feels like the adventure is back on. Visiting Machu Picchu and Cusco, surrounded by Westerners, well that felt more like a holiday. But riding through the markets of Juliaka and Juanceo, gosh, I don't know if I pronounced that right, Brian. Uh, with no Westerners in sight felt like an adventure. I think that's why I get excited to ride through cities like Sao Paulo or Lima, which is way outside my comfort zone. Thank you, Brian. Well, Brian, thank you. You had sort of hit on something there that which is very similar with Alice as well, wasn't it? It was about getting out of your comfort zone. And I must say, reading those two emails, it sort of put the light bulb in my head that it is about our comfort zone, not necessarily physical discomfort, but something that makes us feel a little bit unease, something that's not ordinary for us, that I guess heightens our senses, and that really does envelop us in that word of adventure. Listeners, what do you think? Do you agree there with Alice and Brian? Tell you what, let me know. Find me there on Instagram at SeekTravel Ride, and I want to see what other answers do you have? What does an adventure need to be? What do we have to experience for it to be called an adventure? Listeners, I want to take some time now and tell you all about what's getting me excited, and that is our live sessions, Beyond the Bike. This is a collaboration put together over many months between previous guest Jude Crewold and myself. We first sort of swapped thought bubble ideas, I would say is fair to say, Jude, in December and have back and forth how could we make something like this work? What are the sort of things that we would want to attend in a night full of bike adventure? And I'm pretty excited what we're offering up for you. So if you were in London or nearby, I fully encourage you to check us out. Two shows, each of them will be different. So the first is on May 14th, and then we have one the very next evening on the 15th of May. You'll be joining Jude and myself and a panel of two other previous podcast guests. And we're going to be sharing all about our experiences and stories from our bike travels. And then we have some film screenings as well. I'm super stoked to say that Jude's incredible documentary film Alone Across Gola, which tracks his experience through the Liberian jungle there is going to be one of the films that we are showing. In addition to the discussion and the film screenings, we're going to be finishing off the nights with an audience Q ⁇ A. That's right. You get to finally ask some questions of our guest panel, maybe even to myself. I'm super excited to have the opportunity to share such an amazing evening with you all. And if you are interested in attending, tickets are now available for purchase. I have got links in the podcast show notes, so if you can access them through your podcast player. Otherwise, go to EventBright and have a search for Beyond the Bike in the London listings, and you will find both events there. I really hope that you can make it, and I'd love to connect with as many Seek Travel Ride fans as possible. And now I want to give a shout out to you, my super fans, who've been absolutely monumental and bought me some coffees. First one is to Andreas Schneider's, and Andreas says, I love listening to your episodes. Some people, Steph Devry, I had already followed on socials before, and those episodes with people cycling the world, including the Himalayas 40 years ago. Wow, so inspiring. Thank you so much. I also absolutely adore the Aussie accent. We lived in Brisbane for five years, between 2015 and 2020. Now I'm back in Germany, I've got so many fond memories. Well, thank you so much, Andreas, for sharing your thoughts there, for supporting me and the podcast on the show and buying me some virtual brews. You're right, when I reflect back, there are so many different journeys taken by our guests, and all of them are inspiring, and I'm super chuffed to see that that's what you are drawing from when you tune into the episodes. I'm also happy that you love my Aussie accent. Personally, I cringe when I have to hear it for hours and hours each week during audio edits, but I'm glad it's bringing a smile to your face nonetheless. And then I'd also like to shout out Gavin Host, who says, Thanks for hours of entertainment, Bella. We absolutely love listening to your episodes every week. You've such a great way of learning and sharing your guests' stories. We have to admit though, it's the most expensive podcast we've ever listened to. We've both bought new bikes and we're starting to get our kit together in preparation for our first bikepacking adventure. Thanks again from fellow Aussies Aisha and Gavin. Well, Ayesha and Gavin, thank you so much for buying me some virtual brews, and um greatest apologies for hitting your bank balance there. I must say I did laugh out loud when I read that line, and I am actually really stoked to know that I have fueled your fire for bike travel and you have so many adventures ahead of you both there. Totally keep in touch with me. Let me know where your bike adventures take you and let me know how it all goes. So listeners, if you want to do as Andreas and Gavin and Ayesha have done, you can also support me on the show and bite me some virtual coffees. Just head to buymeacoffee.com forward slash seek travel ride. Buy me a coffee, but most importantly, leave me a message, let me know what is it about the show that you love the most and where are you most inspired to take your next bike adventure. Until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.