5 Continents, 5 Years, 5 Causes

Jerry Kopack [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Bike Life, a podcast from the Warmshowers Foundation. Here we celebrate our global community of touring cyclists and hosts who make life on the road unforgettable. Through stories, insights, and shared experiences, we explore the connections that fuel every journey. Whether you're pedaling across countries or welcoming travelers into your home, you're part of a movement rooted in generosity and adventure. Discover more and join the community@warmshowers.org now let's hit the road together. Hey, everyone. This is Jerry Kopeck, the host of BikeLive, coming to you from the Rocky Mountains in Breckenridge, Colorado. Today's episode, I'm talking to Pial and Kristen Mindertsma, the inspiring couple behind Cycle 5 to survive.

Jerry Kopack [00:00:53]:
They're cycling across five continents over five years to raise $2.5 million for five powerful causes. Let's dive into their mission and the stories behind those miles. Hey, guys. Welcome to the show.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:01:06]:
Awesome. Thank you.

PL Meindertsma [00:01:08]:
Thanks for having us.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:09]:
Now, where am I finding you guys today?

PL Meindertsma [00:01:12]:
British Columbia, Canada, just an hour outside of Vancouver, BC, home of the old. Was it 2010 Olympics?

Jerry Kopack [00:01:20]:
Right? I remember that.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:01:21]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:23]:
Okay, well, I have got so many questions about your mission, but let's start with the basics, and then we'll get into your backgrounds later. So first off, tell me, what is Cycle five to Survive?

PL Meindertsma [00:01:35]:
My wife does a much better job.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:39]:
Take it away, Kristen.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:01:41]:
Yeah. So this is an initiative that kind of was sparked by PL turning 50. We like to say this is his midlife crisis. So instead of buy. Well, he says a few things, but instead of spending a lot of money on stuff, he decided that he wanted to do a deep dive into just more of a. His purpose outside of his work as a father, as a husband. What else is there? There's got to be more. And so he turned 50, I turned 55.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:02:13]:
And he has a marketing background, so he liked the number five. And it's sort of the drive to survive movie F1 series. It all kind of rolled into this, well, maybe let's do five rides. So it birthed this Cycle five to Survive initiative. That's sort of how it started.

PL Meindertsma [00:02:37]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:38]:
Any color to add to that?

PL Meindertsma [00:02:40]:
Well, I mean, several years before that, I had done a bike packing trip across B.C. to raise money for another foundation. And it was during COVID and I just felt it was. It was such an incredible experience that when I came back, my wife met me. So I was on the road for seven days, and I said, I want to do more things like this. I want to do more rides do more good things with charities. And then just as work got stressful and kind of doing a self deep dive, like quite Kristen said, like what else is out there that really inspired taking that to the next level. And that's where the 55 by crits, et cetera, et cetera came from.

PL Meindertsma [00:03:20]:
So there was a few little things that led up to that. But we'll need an hour to unwind all of the details of that. But that's the Cole's notes version.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:30]:
Got it. Well, we definitely have plenty of time, so we will get back into that. So you took off on this seven day trip solo, is that correct?

PL Meindertsma [00:03:39]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:40]:
Christian, where were you?

Kristen Meindertsma [00:03:42]:
Where was I?

Jerry Kopack [00:03:43]:
Yeah. Why didn't you go?

Kristen Meindertsma [00:03:45]:
Well, so actually the way it worked was we have a ride here called the BC EPIC.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:50]:
Yes.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:03:50]:
Which is. Yeah. So that was 2020 to 2020. Our son was graduating. It was Covid. And so we had decided he was going to school in Manitoba. And I had driven across the country from Ontario when I moved out, but pl had never been anywhere and our kids really hadn't been anywhere in terms of like driving across the country, in terms of driving like through Canada. So we rented an RV and we took our son out to school in Manitoba and then.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:04:23]:
And our daughter. And then when we came back, we dropped him off in Nelson. I used to live in Nelson. That's where we met. I was living in Nelson when I met Pierre. And so we kind of brought the RV back and visited my friends on the bikes. We dropped him off and then I brought the RV back home with our daughter. So yeah, I just had come back home and I guess it was summer at that point, so just waited for him to make his way here.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:04:51]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:52]:
Now pl.

PL Meindertsma [00:04:53]:
Were you.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:54]:
Have you always been a cyclist? Were you new to cycling? Were you new to bike packing? What. What inspired you to sort of take off on this trip?

PL Meindertsma [00:05:00]:
Well, it's interesting now we're getting kind of into the. Where it all kind of started. We were just debriefing about this a few days ago. I mean, I grew up as a kid in the Netherlands, so I grew up on a bike. I remember biking to kindergarten 3km as a 5 year old with my mom and dad to kindergarten. So I kind of grew up on a bike. And like Kristen mentioned, I met her when she lived in Nelson and we were doing triathlon racing at the time. So we.

PL Meindertsma [00:05:29]:
We actually did Ironman together ten days after our. Our wedding day. So that's our Iron man honeymoon. And then.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:37]:
Which. Which one?

PL Meindertsma [00:05:38]:
The Penticton one.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:39]:
Okay.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:05:40]:
Canada.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:41]:
Yeah.

PL Meindertsma [00:05:42]:
And then we were camping probably around 2017, and ran into this guy at a campsite with these packs on his bikes, and that's when gravel riding was getting pretty big. I just bought a gravel bike. I took it with me. I was bombing around on it, and this guy shows up with all these packs hanging off his bike, and he was cycling across Western Canada, just from B.C. to Saskatchewan. And I was so fascinated with that whole idea of kind of, like, camping. I had my gravel bike. I could do both things at once.

PL Meindertsma [00:06:10]:
And that kind of inspired me to get into bike packing a little bit. And then here we are cycling around the world bike packing.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:18]:
And, Kristen, did you get on board with that idea of bike packing right away as well?

Kristen Meindertsma [00:06:25]:
Yeah, like I said, we met on the bike, so being on the bikes were something that we did. It's funny, we did Ironman when we got married in 22,000, and then neither of us rode a bike for 15 years. We just. I had kids. I was working, coaching. He was building business. And 2015, it was like, I gotta buy a bike. So bought a bike off a marketplace and a road bike, and then he bought a road bike the next year, and then it was back on.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:06:55]:
And so we do quite a bit of riding. And then when he talked about the bike packing, I was just like, yeah, why not? Like, it's just normal for us to be together on the bike. And that's. I think when we. I. I don't know, we just. It's really good for us to be together on the bike. So.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:07:10]:
Yeah, I mean, you know, with Pl. If he gets an idea, as soon as he says it out loud, it's 99.9% chance it's happening. So I have to be careful when I say anything, because when. When you're in, you're all in. And if you're not in, he's going, and you're just trying to catch up. So when he first talked about it, I'm like, okay. And then it was, yeah, you're all in. So.

Jerry Kopack [00:07:37]:
So talk to me about both of your backgrounds and how you came up with this idea of wanting to tackle this mission. Pl. Why don't you go first? You said you have a marketing background.

PL Meindertsma [00:07:48]:
Yeah, Well, I think Krista touched on in the beginning, like, the us being together on bikes, meeting this guy at the campsite than me doing the BC epic to raise money for a charity, and then turning 50 and just kind of having a bit of a moment of, like, what else is there? Besides just working every day. And I mean, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with good works and good money, but I felt there was just a little bit more. And that's where the five started. I turned 50. My wife turned 55. I was thinking, I want to do more bike rides. Maybe I'll do five bike rides. And I'm like, well.

PL Meindertsma [00:08:24]:
And as a business guy, I got to set smart goals, so they got to be measurable, attainable.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:28]:
Yeah.

PL Meindertsma [00:08:28]:
So I. So I kind of. The bike rides were easy, and then the charities. I said, no, I probably got to do five charities and probably needs to be a fundraising component. So originally, the goal was to do one charity every year and raise a hundred thousand dollars for one charity every year. Wow. But as we started to tell the story, people are like, dude, that's crazy. And we were introduced to this lady, and she's like, you're going to do all that and only raise a hundred thousand per year? And I'm like, I don't even know how to raise money for charity yet alone raise more.

PL Meindertsma [00:09:01]:
So she challenged us. She goes, I think you should raise $500,000 per year. So I said, well, let me sleep on it. The next day, I woke up and I'm like, I don't even know how to raise a hundred thousand. What's the difference between 100 and 500,000? I really don't know. I don't know if this is attainable. So we set the goal of 500,000 per year. But then people started asking me, well, who are the five charities? And I'm like, oh, shoot, we have a couple of them picked out.

PL Meindertsma [00:09:24]:
So then it became a bit of a mad scramble. And we've had charities and we've supported a lot of great causes. So natural thing for us was to go to the charities we were supporting. We knew the founders or we knew people on the board, or we knew large donors, and we crowded five good charities, and we met with several others that just didn't kind of fit in. Chris will say, kind of in pl fashion, I created a bit of a business plan for this initiative. We have a purpose statement. We have core values, and we had all five charities on a zoom call. And the charity that we're going to do first, they're the ones who suggested, why don't you do all five at the same time? Instead of starting over every year with a new charity, just raise the money and split it equally amongst all five every year.

PL Meindertsma [00:10:13]:
And that has been an absolute lifesaver because Anybody who's been in the fundraising world knows how difficult it is to talk to people about. So in business, I know how to raise funds and show them what the return under equity is. But now I'm asking people and telling them, really, there is no financial return. There's only an emotional return. And I'll do my best to figure out how to share my journey with you. And people got on board. At first, it was. They were on board with the whole idea of wanting to support me and Kristen on this initiative, but it's slowly, slowly pivoting a little bit.

PL Meindertsma [00:10:50]:
But anyways, that's a long answer to your. To your short question. No, that's kind of how it unfolded. So, yeah, every year, all five charities, they give us an impact report, they send us videos of encouragement. I mean, you'll probably ask more questions where we can ravel some of these things a little deeper later.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:11]:
I have, I have two questions, and I'm glad you went into that depth because it answered a lot of the questions I was going to ask. Two questions that I didn't get, that I didn't talk to you about yet is, do you feel comfortable enough to disclose those charities? Is that okay?

PL Meindertsma [00:11:26]:
Absolutely, I'd love to.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:11:27]:
Absolutely.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:28]:
Go for it.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:11:29]:
Yeah. So we. They, first of all, I guess you have to understand, it has to, like, they have to be business, sports or education related. So we're raising for specific things. Business because he's in business, education because I'm in education and sports because that's where we met. And we just believe the power of activity is. Is it's just worth it. So we went to some of the charities.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:11:53]:
So Hope for Quora is one charity, and that's in Ethiopia, and that's a charity that we been supporting for quite a while. The local founder who started, she's a nurse and she basically was in this area called cora, which is originally was a leopard colony that was living outside of the garbage dump. And then it's morphed into this city that just exists off of this garbage dump. So she. I should know how old this foundation is. She went in and she started this Hope for Cora Foundation. So that's our first one. The second one is Himalayan Life.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:12:32]:
That one is in Nepal. Again, a local founder in Vancouver, and they take kids, they build schools and they take kids off the street and they clothe and house them for their whole educational 12 years. They do community programs as well. So that's the second one. The third one is Opportunity International. They are all over the world. The one specifically that we're raising money for is micro financing for women in the Dominican Republic. The other one is ide, which is the Paul Polak foundation, and that's innovation.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:13:15]:
So they are all over the world as well. And they go into communities where they will help them create something like a bamboo foot pump to help irrigate their fields. And so they will help invent that, build it, start, sell it, etc. And then the fifth one is.

PL Meindertsma [00:13:38]:
What am I missing the last. Where did we visit last?

Kristen Meindertsma [00:13:41]:
Lcc. Lcc? Yeah. That is Lithuania College. It's in Lithuania.

PL Meindertsma [00:13:48]:
A university.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:13:49]:
It's a university and it's a international university. So they have students from 61 countries around the world represented there. And we raise money for Pathways to Peace. So we support students who come from countries at war to go to school there, get educated, and then hopefully go back to their communities. So we. It's to it. We cover tuition, transportation, whatever they need for those students. So there's students from the Ukraine there, Georgia, Afghanistan, and so we raise money for that for those particular students.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:14:26]:
Those are the five, right? Yeah.

PL Meindertsma [00:14:28]:
Yep.

Jerry Kopack [00:14:29]:
It's.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:14:30]:
It's pretty cool.

Jerry Kopack [00:14:31]:
I have.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:14:32]:
And they've all come through networking or connections that we've had over the years and, and actually rekindled some of these former connections when we found out certain people are in charge and they, you know, 15, 20. Well, 25 years ago they played volleyball with PL in university and now they're involved in this one charity. So it's been really cool to see, you know, it's like that six degrees of separation with. With the world. So. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:00]:
So I have to say I have goosebumps listening to your stories about these charities. It sounds like they all do incredible, amazing things. I haven't been to a lot of the places that you have mentioned, but when you mentioned Nepal, I have spent considerable amount of time in Nepal and Nepal, well, just. It always had my heart. The people there are some of the most amazing, resilient, kind, generous people that I've ever met. And I've seen firsthand the need for the children in Nepal. And so thank you so much for choosing them as one of your directives. And did you.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:37]:
Have you started talking this? A little bit. Just through general networking. But did you have specific story or connection to each of these five places?

PL Meindertsma [00:15:47]:
Yeah, we did. I think like Kristen said, hope for Cora. Our kids started by writing letters to some of the kids that we were supporting. Lcc, the founder is local and have known him through business and my partners. Himalayan Life is The gentleman who founded that's also from Vancouver, again through Connections, the Opportunity International, they're one of their main directors of fundraising is a guy I played volleyball with that I ran into just on a complete kind of weird scenario where one guy said, hey, you should come to the fundraising event. And my friend Jamie standing up on stage doing the emceeing and I'm like, holy cow, I haven't seen you for 20 years. So they're, they're all very, very incredible people who started these foundations and we've built relationships with all the founders and it's, it's unbelievable. It's so good.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:16:45]:
Yeah.

Tahverlee [00:16:49]:
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Jerry Kopack [00:17:37]:
So do you guys have a plan or a goal to visit any of these places and check out the work being done?

Kristen Meindertsma [00:17:45]:
Yeah. So that's what sort of spurred this whole thing. Opportunity International. When we were just even thinking about this, we got a call a week before and said, hey, we're taking a group to the Dominican. Do you want to come? And within two days we booked flights. We were there for I think three days. Like it was, it was like a four or five day turnaround to get to the doctor to go visit this potential opportunity to, with this micro financing for, for these women. And yeah, so we sat in on these incredible gatherings of these women that were, you know, starting their own savings program.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:18:27]:
They were the bankers, they were everything. And it was, you know, putting in a quarter a week. It was incredible. And that really, I think for us solidified this idea that, yeah, like, we want to make connections with the, like, we want to really have charities that we believe in. And so that was, we were able to do that and then we were able to. This was a bonus ride. After we did the tour divide in 2023. We ended up Himalayan Life, the founder, who is a bit crazy and is A cyclist.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:19:00]:
He's like, hey. And he wrote us out for the Tour Divide. He rode with us for the first day from Banff. He said, I've always wanted to do this thing and I want to ride to the five areas that Himalayan life has schools or projects in Nepal in October. Do you guys want to come? And pl's like, well, it's got the number five, so I think we should go. So we, as soon as we got, we got back, I think late July from the Tour Divide.

PL Meindertsma [00:19:30]:
Yeah.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:19:30]:
Was it July? And then we flew to Nepal in Aug, in October. And so we were able to gravel ride our five communities all through the Annapurnas on our bikes with support with Himalayan life and visited all the five areas and pl. And like when you said about Nepal, like we were just it. We'll never forget that. And we will go back to ride. We're hoping to ride and when we're done, everything to go back because they're building a new school and it was just like to ride in the mountains there. Just life changing for sure. And so that would have.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:20:10]:
So technically that's our Asia continent, but it was a bonus ride. So we still have to go back to Asia. But our European divide. Last year we wrote we got to spend the week, opening week at LCC at the university. And again, just such a good reminder of why we're riding. Because when you're having a crappy day, it's really nice to have these connections with these boots on the ground, people. And so, yeah, our hope will be to visit the other two as well.

PL Meindertsma [00:20:39]:
Yeah, the lc, the LCC trip. Last year we planned our European Divide route to be in Lithuania the first week of September. So we had a chance to be part of their opening ceremonies, do presentations to students. But to your point, Kristin, when we do Africa next year, the goal is to start in Cora and visit the leprosy colony. Over 200,000 people live off of the garbage dump there. To visit them at the start of our ride. And if you guys follow us, you'll see some of the things that they're doing. The founder held the first ever bike race on the central streets of Cora.

PL Meindertsma [00:21:16]:
And I mean, if you watch the video, and it's crazy, right? Can you imagine all these cars running down the street and you got about 20, 30 cyclists on bikes that you and I probably would consider as something that we wouldn't ride. And them chanting, go Cycle five. Like, you have all these kids yelling and screaming and they're on video like it's. It's Unbelievable. You can't, you can't make it up. Like, it's crazy.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:42]:
Yeah, I think that's one of my most powerful takeaways from just traveling internationally and abroad because, Chris, I think you brought up a great point. So we sometimes get caught up in our own world and I think, like, wow, I'm having a really tough day or life is hard. And then you go to these places where life is so much different and it's a great reset. It's a great check in. You think yourself, like, wow, I've got no problems. I'm fine. And the people there, they welcome you in and they're so hospitable. Wow, you're serious.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:18]:
You're giving me goosebumps about this. Your mission sounds incredible. And so regarding your mission, how far along are you guys into this? You mentioned Asia, you'd mentioned Europe, you mentioned North America. So what continents have you done thus far and what do you still have to tackle?

PL Meindertsma [00:22:35]:
Well, we, we, like Kristen said in 2023, the first ride was the Continental Divide. And that was basically because we were going to do the Dominican Republic. That represented North America. And that was a very early onset. It was a route that was well documented. So we did that first. Then we thought, okay, what are we going to do next? Well, we probably should work ourselves into the more difficult continents. And then I learned about the European Divide route, which is, I mean, the continental divide is 4300 km and the European Divide we just, our total length last year was 7850 km from the top of Norway to Portugal.

PL Meindertsma [00:23:15]:
And they say it's now that's the world's longest off road cycling route. So for listeners, this like, we're legitimately bike packing. We're, we're not on main, I mean, we are on main roads. So we did Europe last year, South America. We're leaving here in about six weeks and we're starting in Bogota, Colombia, and heading south to Ushuaia in Argentina, which I don't have the route planned yet, but it'll be, I know it's over 10,000 kilometers. No idea altitude. I know we're doing the Peru Divide, which if you go to bikepacking.com it looks absolutely incredible. So we'll be cycling between, you know, 4,000 to 5,000 meters of altitude for a week or so, going through Peru.

PL Meindertsma [00:23:57]:
And then next year, the hope is I'll have enough time to figure out logistics for Africa. And the goal there is to start in Addis Ababas, Ethiopia, and head all the way south to South Africa. And then the last route is to go across Asia, and we're going to pick some of the old silk routes. And there's some good documentation on some of these routes, but That'll be a 12, 13,000 kilometer trek where. Yeah, it'll be more than six months, probably. So that's kind of it in a nutshell. Of the five continents we've chosen and the routes that we're planning on doing.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:30]:
And have you guys been on target with your fundraising goals?

PL Meindertsma [00:24:35]:
Almost.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:36]:
Okay.

PL Meindertsma [00:24:36]:
So, like Kristen said, when I have a mindset on something, I get pretty tenacious. And our first year target was 500,000, and we raised 405, which again, blew my mind. And then last year, we raised 425. And we hope we'll be on target for 500,000 this year. And the reason I feel that way is the story. We actually have some evidence now of the work we're doing. Like, the charities are giving us impact reports. They're sending us videos of exactly what the money is doing for the students.

PL Meindertsma [00:25:10]:
And now the story is shifting more towards the charities than it is about us. And although our initiative, in my mind, it's a way to get people's attention, and it's a pretty crazy initiative. Like this South America, right. It's six months. And even the people in my office yesterday who know I'm doing this, they're like, so, when are you leaving? I'm leaving June 15th. Okay, when are you gonna last in the office? Gonna be June 1st. Yeah. Yeah.

PL Meindertsma [00:25:36]:
And they're like, oh, you're gonna leave June 1st so you can start training, right? I'm like, well, I've been training for the last decade. And they're like, when are you going to be back? Hopefully before Christmas. And, like, okay, for. And they're like, for Christmas, when are you leaving?

Jerry Kopack [00:25:53]:
June.

PL Meindertsma [00:25:54]:
Christmas. They're like, that's like one, two. That's like six. I'm like, yeah, it's over 10,000 kilometers. Like, how long is 10,000? Like, almost the entire length of Canada. And they're like, that's a long ways. Right. To get your head wrapped around what we're doing is.

PL Meindertsma [00:26:09]:
Is difficult for people who don't cycle. So the story is a bit crazy.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:14]:
Yeah. I've actually been in South America. I've not done the full route that you've done, but I've cycled from Bolivia to Peru along the Altiplano in July, and it's technically their winter, but it's the most stable time of the year to hit there and again you're right. So 4,000, 5,000 meter passes and plateaus and it's fantastic.

PL Meindertsma [00:26:37]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:26:39]:
I went from Cusco to La Paz and it was absolutely amazing. It's like a whole different world. And at some point you and I, the three of us will talk, we'll talk about the Silk Road because I've, I've been through parts of that as well, through Kyrgyzstan and I was in Pakistan last fall. Really, really unique, diverse, incredible landscape, people, culture. So I am, I'm excited for you guys. It's making me want to get out and do something.

PL Meindertsma [00:27:07]:
Well, I'm excited touch base with you because half of this stuff we're doing kind of blindly. So we're just kind of getting our bikes and start pedaling and we'll kind of figure it out. But.

Jerry Kopack [00:27:15]:
Well, you seem like a pretty analytical guy so I'm assuming you're going to have some good routes plan and, and Kristen, what, what's your role in all this? Like do you try to keep him in check? Like hey pl. Like that's a little audacious. Let's not do this. Or you just like, you just trust him and go.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:27:31]:
Yeah, I mean I do trust him and go. I mean we like he's. Because he's really digging into this deeper purpose. I'm, I really am. It starts, started as a bit of a supporting role for me. Just sure, I'm there for you. Let's go. Because I feel like I went through this journey a little while ago and then the first ride went really well.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:27:54]:
This last ride was really difficult and I think for us as a couple too, just to navigate a marriage while we're riding and how we, we're very different in how we deal with stress and stuff like that. So it really highlighted quite a few things that we could do better on this bike the next trip. And I think one of the things is, you know we, we have this racing background and so we like to go fast and hard and so the last few. And then with Europe only being 90 days that you had to complete the ride because of visas, then there was a little bit of pressure to kind of have to always ride and go and we, we probably, you know, over planned a little bit and tried to this. We were a little bit too much of we're riding and for this one in South America we've, you know we're actually, I feel we're actually going to bike pack it, you know more of let's see how the day goes. We'll plan. You know, this is where we'd like to be in a week. But if we have to stay a day, sure, let's stay a day.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:28:56]:
And we're going to go hike Machu Picchu. Sure, let's try and do that. Whereas the last few have been more. Let's ride. Let's. Let's really hammer. Let's go fast. And so I think that's going to alleviate some of the stuff I'm generally in the last two.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:29:13]:
I haven't done it. Like, he's got the map. I don't have the map. You know, I don't have service. Like, I didn't buy a plan. And we've decided that, yeah, like, I need to have my own plan so that I can help with some of the other stuff. And I'll have the root. But I don't know, because we're so different, I feel like if I have the root, it might be worse.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:29:32]:
But Pl wants me to have the root this next one. So we'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll shut it off halfway.

PL Meindertsma [00:29:38]:
The reason why I wanted to have the root, like, when we did the European ride, she asked great questions, like, so where are we going today? And I'm like, not sure. Do we have enough food? I think so. Where's the next place to get food? I'm not sure. And then we'd go somewhere. I'm like, there's supposed to be a store here. There's no store here. Then she like, well, where's the next one? Like, I don't know. So I felt a little inadequate because I do like to have things somewhat under control.

PL Meindertsma [00:30:08]:
I. I do like to feel like I know what I'm doing and being in that situation. And while we're doing that, we're also capturing GoPro footage. We carry a drone, so we. We. We create weekly video. So every week we'd have to find WI fi to upload all of our videos back home to create a video that we'd send out to our donors. Because one donor said, you know, I want to feel like I'm part of your journey.

PL Meindertsma [00:30:33]:
And I said, well, the best way to do that is for us to actually capture our journey. So the stress of uploading, video capturing, video, organizing the route. And then my wife asked me fair questions that I couldn't answer. I felt like I was stressed for three months, making sure everybody had everything figured out, and I didn't. I didn't have any fun at all. So I'm going to change that. On this ride.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:30:56]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:30:57]:
So it's interesting, my partner and I, we went to northern India in the Ladakh region a couple years ago, and we went to Pakistan.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:31:05]:
Himalayan life. Is there a place in Ladakh?

Jerry Kopack [00:31:08]:
Yes.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:31:09]:
That started the whole charity.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:11]:
Is that right? Okay.

PL Meindertsma [00:31:13]:
Migrant workers. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:15]:
When you get a chance, make sure you guys make it up there because the place is magical and you will really, really, really love it. But what I was supposed thinking is that with roles traveling as a couple, my partner and I, we travel as a couple and I have a bit more experience bike touring than she does, but I don't want to deal with the navigation. So I turned over all navigation and route planning to her and she took it and ran with it. And so I would just be the one her. I was like, hey, where are we going today? How far are we going? Do we need food? And she just like, she's got it. And I was just on autopilot. So for me it was really, really fun.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:31:52]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:53]:
So you.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:31:53]:
Because I don't really care, but you know, you're just like, hey, where are we going today? And then I'm not realizing that stressing him out. And because he's. He want, he gets it in his head and like I said, you have to be careful what you say to Pl because he takes it a run. So if I make a comment like, oh, I don't want to ride at night or I don't want to do this, then all of a sudden, two weeks later, we're like, how come we don't ride at night anymore? Well, you said you don't ever, ever want to ride. I'm like, no, I just said like. So we're figuring out how I can verbalize what I'm trying to think or if I'm. I need to throw a fit for a bit and just rage because I'm hurting and he just wants to shut it down and keep riding. So we're figuring that out.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:32:36]:
But I think because we're taking way more time to do this trip, this next one I think will give us the space to figure out our own stuff on our own, versus we don't have time to work this out right now. Let's just keep riding.

PL Meindertsma [00:32:51]:
Yeah.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:32:51]:
So that's a big change for us.

Jerry Kopack [00:32:54]:
And I think the cool thing about this is it sounds like you're going more open ended, less bookended on time. And so if it rains for a day or two, like, hey, we can sit this out and work your way through it and just sort of really engulf Yourself more in the culture.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:33:10]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:10]:
So speaking of that, and I know this may sound simplistic, but you guys probably knocked off the easier destinations first, like North America, Europe, et cetera. And the more challenging ones, South America, Africa, and Asia. Do you guys have any place that you're really looking forward to seeing? Any of these places?

Kristen Meindertsma [00:33:33]:
I, I. South America, I think the whole thing, like, love the culture. When we hit Spain and Portugal.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:39]:
Yeah.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:33:39]:
Last year, it was just like, this is amazing. Like, we just had so much fun with the people, like you said. And we realized, too, last year, you know, it's easy. Well, it's interesting. Like, some of the stuff that we've listened to, especially with bike packing, when you're solo, it's this. You want to be off in the mountains, and you sleep by yourself, and you tend by yourself. But for us, because of our initiative as well, we want to be around people. And so on the European divide, we often stayed in towns because we realize it fuels us.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:34:15]:
First of all, we get to meet the people more, and we're sharing our story, which is one of our things on these rides, is we want to share our story and be memorable, like, make memories. So I think with South America would be interesting because I think we'll be more isolated with where we stay and camp. But I'm just looking forward to the whole thing, like, just the people and. Yeah, I think mostly the people in the little communities of villages love those way more than the cities and so. And then getting down to the bottom to see the penguins. I mean, come on. Like, who doesn't want to go see the penguins?

Jerry Kopack [00:34:50]:
Absolutely. What about you?

Kristen Meindertsma [00:34:52]:
Flamingos, of course.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:54]:
Yeah. That sounded like Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Pl. What about you? What's. What's on your. On your hit list?

PL Meindertsma [00:35:04]:
Well, I actually don't know, to be honest with you.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:09]:
You're the analytical guy. I mean, but.

PL Meindertsma [00:35:12]:
But I get focused on what I have to do next. So it's so the way my brain works. I struggle being in the moment where as soon as I'm in the place where I'm like, this is fantastic, my brain right away tries to figure out, where else can I get this and what am I going to do next? So last year in the European divide, we're halfway through, and I'm already thinking about the bike that I should build for when I go into Africa. And she's like, well, let's just enjoy this ride. So I am just getting into the beauty of South America and Understanding. And I'm now just starting to get excited. I mean, I have. I have a business I still run.

PL Meindertsma [00:35:50]:
I'm trying to do this off the side. Like, there's so many things that happen in my world on a daily basis that I can only. My. My brain can only handle so many logistics at once that I think once we come back from this ride, I'll start thinking about Africa and then start looking. Well, I can tell you I want to ride with elephants and zebras. And, like, I have a vision of cycling through the jungle and capturing footage of wildlife that. That I want to do for sure, whether it's through a reserve, hopefully not out in the wild, but through a reservation. But I definitely want to capture footage of me, us on our bikes with, like, giraffes and zebras and those kind of things and elephants, for sure.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:33]:
I had a similar vision when I was riding through Zambia and Zimbabwe about riding through national parks. And I was told in no uncertain terms by the wardens, the officials there that for at least where I was, not possible. For the simple reason is that elephants will kill you. Like, they can stomp you out. So I'm not sure where you are going to go. But I was turned around on at least three or four different. Because I did a quick game drive in Zambia and Botswana and also in Zimbabwe. And a lot of the roads that we were on in, you know, the traditional Land Rover, Land Cruiser things, you know, they were dirt roads, like, oh, I could totally ride this.

Jerry Kopack [00:37:17]:
And then. So I came the next day after my game drive, and I pulled up to the guard shack. It's like, hey, can I just go? And the guy looked at me like, what are you thinking? Like, there's. There's elephants there. So it may be possible. It just wasn't where I was. So I hope it works, but just be aware that it may not happen.

PL Meindertsma [00:37:38]:
Well, I'm 6 7, so maybe I'll stand up with my tall neck and maybe I'll look like one of the crazy animals in there.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:37:45]:
He just right behind me.

Jerry Kopack [00:37:48]:
I love that. Guys, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to share your story, share your inspiration. All of the links to your foundation, to your charities are going to be in our show notes, but for our listeners, tell us how they can get involved or follow along with Cycle five to survive.

PL Meindertsma [00:38:10]:
Well, I think. Go ahead, Kristen.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:38:13]:
Well, I think the biggest thing for us right now is our social media. We're really trying to just amp up our followers just so that we can get our A bigger reach. So following us on Instagram, we've just started tick tock just because apparently we should with all of our bloopers of all of the silly stuff that happens on our ride. So. Yeah. And then our. Our main web. Our main web page.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:38:41]:
If you sign up for our newsletter, we don't spam you with tons of stuff, but once we're on the road, you'll get a video, like, you'll get a link, a newsletter that just updates you of where we are with hopefully a movie, a little video of some sort of. But yeah, our social media for sure, because then you can see everything about what the charities are. We're gonna have a buy me a coffee link tree thing happening. So just follow us. Really?

PL Meindertsma [00:39:08]:
YouTube. We have a YouTube channel.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:39:10]:
Yeah, it's all on the page, like everything. But if you go to our webpage and subscribe to our newsletter or Instagram, honestly, it's silly. But it's a big push right now to spread the word because we're trying to get people to just even think philanthropically as well. Whether it's your time, your treasure, your talent, just get out and start helping people.

PL Meindertsma [00:39:33]:
I love that.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:39:34]:
Yeah, philanthropy in action. That's our thing right now.

Jerry Kopack [00:39:38]:
Excellent.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:39:39]:
Ride your bike well.

Jerry Kopack [00:39:40]:
And you guys are setting off when for South America?

Kristen Meindertsma [00:39:43]:
We fly out June 18th.

Jerry Kopack [00:39:44]:
June 18th. Okay. I want to have you guys back on the show after you're back because I want to hear all the crazy adventures that you got into and the people and the stories that went along with it along the way.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:39:57]:
Yeah. Can I say one other quick think about Warmshowers, since that's what this is. I signed up just so that we could kind of find places along our route. Wasn't even thinking about being a host. I didn't even know if I had to be a host. We got a message about three weeks ago out of the blue from an Argentinian who's walking across from Vancouver across Canada because of Terry Fox, which is one of our. The first foundation we raised money for. Anyway, he shows up at our door from Argentina.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:40:28]:
Warmshowers stayed overnight. It was one of the best nights. And we still are in contact with him and hopefully we'll stay at his place when we bike down there. So Warmshowers has been in on the European divide and Tour divide. It's been amazing. So we're really looking forward to. We're really looking forward to seeing at places of Warmshowers on our trip.

Jerry Kopack [00:40:46]:
Good. And I hope that you do. I know that we have a great network across North America. Obviously across Europe, little bit not quite as dense offerings in South America, but we're definitely getting there. So, yeah, as you know, it's an amazing way to meet people, have this local experience, experience the culture. It's just wonderful. It's the story that you wouldn't get if you stayed at the local guest house or hotel. So I'm really glad that you guys are taking advantage of that and spreading the good love about Warmshowers.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:41:18]:
Yeah, it's been cool.

Jerry Kopack [00:41:21]:
So with that pl, I want to say keep focused, keep figuring out the next route. And, Kristen, your job is to make him be present in the moment.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:41:33]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Jerry Kopack [00:41:35]:
All right, thank you.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:41:36]:
Thank you so much.

PL Meindertsma [00:41:37]:
Thank you.

Kristen Meindertsma [00:41:38]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:41:38]:
All right, guys. And we're going to have you back when you come back in December or January. So I want to thank everyone for listening to my conversation with P.L. and Kristen Mindurzma. If you enjoy our show, give us a like a share on your social channels or just tell your friends. These stories hopefully will inspire you to set off on your own bicycle venture and maybe make the world feel a little bit smaller, one pedal stroke at a time. My name is Jerry Kopak, and until next time, keep the wheels rolling. And the story's coming.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:07]:
Thanks for joining us on Bike Life. I'm Jerry Kopak, and I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you. Please leave us a rating and review or just tell your friends. This helps us reach more cyclists and hosts around the world. To learn more or become part of of this amazing community, Visit us@warmshowers.org or follow us on Instagram at warmshowers. Org. If you'd like to be a guest on the show or have a question you'd like us to explore, email us@podcastarmshowers.org.