Bikepacking Across Wild Frontiers

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 Bike Life, coming to you from the Rocky Mountains of Breckenridge, Colorado. Today, I'm talking with Dr. Liz Sampi, an adventurer, bikepacker and physical therapist who's ridden everywhere from Alaska to Nepal.

Jerry Kopack [00:00:54]:
She's also a pack rafter, combining bikes and boats on trips like circumnavigating Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria to deliver medical supplies. We'll talk about how two wheels and sometimes a boat can connect us to the world in surprising ways. Liz, welcome to Bike Life.

Eliza Sampey [00:01:09]:
Thanks for having me, Jerry. I'm stoked to be here.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:12]:
So speaking of here, where are you right now?

Eliza Sampey [00:01:16]:
Well, right now I am on the property that my partner and I own, which is outside of Darrington, Washington, which is a tiny little town in Northwest Washington, Washington, up in the North Cascades.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:28]:
Got it. Now, is that a van I see behind you?

Eliza Sampey [00:01:33]:
Yeah, this is our house right here. So this is a board transit, high roof, extended version. It's much bigger than the van that I'm used to, but I, you know, travel with my partner now, and we both work, and so we need a little bit of a bigger rig than I used to have when I was single.

Jerry Kopack [00:01:51]:
Got it. And speaking of that rig, do you still have that rig? And what was that rig?

Eliza Sampey [00:01:55]:
I do, yeah. So she's right over there. 97 Chevy Astro Van named Susie Blue. And I lived in her. Let's see. I think I bought her in 2015, sight unseen. When I decided to leave the last place I was living, which was Crested Butte, Colorado, and I lived in Susi for six years full time with my dog, and then another four years pretty part time.

Jerry Kopack [00:02:18]:
Got it. Was there a story or a reason why you decided to set off on a maybe a less traditional path, like living in a van?

Eliza Sampey [00:02:28]:
Oh, my goodness. Well, I've lived in vehicles off and on for a really long time, since I was probably 17 when I moved to Colorado from Minnesota. That was the first time I lived in a Pontiac, my Pontiac Sunbird two door hatchback. I remember that was Outside Fort Collins, Colorado. Yeah, his name was Eddie, and I drove him for a long time until his engine started on fire and then he was gone. But yeah, so I lived in that car and then I lived in New Zealand in 2003 in a station wagon, a holding coffin. Commodore 82. 82, same, same year as me, same vintage.

Eliza Sampey [00:03:03]:
And then I lived in a Jeep Cherokee. When I was first trying to become a professional bike racer, I was traveling all around racing and lived in that car. And so, yeah, it just kind of. It was just kind of something I did here and there when I was traveling on the road. And then I really wanted to do it full time and it just, it was a good opportunity. In 2015, I was supported as a sponsored professional bike racer. I had started my physical therapy and coaching business on the side. And so it just gave me a good opportunity to cut the chains from a physical location and just go full time with living on the road.

Jerry Kopack [00:03:39]:
And you're smiling, so I'm guessing it's treating you well.

Eliza Sampey [00:03:43]:
I love it. I do. I mean, there's definitely been. I don't know if you've read those articles online where, you know, influencer, like van life influencers are like, it's not every. It's actually, like, not glamorous and it's actually terrible because you can never find a place to park and how do you shower? But, like, so I'm not a van life influencer at all. Like, I never really posted much about that. I just posted about the adventures that the, like, living in the van allowed me to have, you know, such as bike packing and mountain biking, traveling in the world. But, like, I don't live.

Eliza Sampey [00:04:12]:
I didn't stay in towns. Like, I'm an outdoor person. I love living outside. And so I just lived out on public land and I showered, you know, naked in the desert or in the woods, wherever I was. And like, I just, I never really had a problem with a lot of those kind of typical things. You know, there was obviously a learning curve in that first year. I did three different interior builds on that van, and my partner and I are currently doing an interior build on this van for the two of us. But I, I love it and it really suited me well, you know, I did it, like I said, full time for six years and another part time for four.

Eliza Sampey [00:04:43]:
And now my partner and I are back in this van full time until we get our house. We're building a house outside of Tucson.

Jerry Kopack [00:04:50]:
So, yeah, you're going to have an actual house.

Eliza Sampey [00:04:55]:
I'm going to have an actual house? Yeah, it's kind of wild, but, yeah. We're building a straw bale house with earthen floors outside of Tucson, and we're having it as much of an indoor outdoor dwelling as possible. So lots of outdoor living space. A lot of very clean interfaces between outside and inside. We're both, you know, outdoor people. And so, like, we, like, living outside has been a huge thing for both of us. And so as we transition to more of a house life thing, we definitely don't want to lose that connection that we have with the land and with all the creatures that are around us.

Jerry Kopack [00:05:29]:
And I'm guessing you're not going to get rid of the vans, right?

Eliza Sampey [00:05:31]:
Never. No, no, no, no. I mean, I'll have Susie forever. Susie's going to become a guest room eventually when she's no longer running. And then this big van here will just be our transitional van. So we do split time between. We have two properties, one up here in Darrington and one outside of T. As we travel back and forth, we usually spend a month, sometimes even two, like, living in the van, going back and forth between the two properties where we also live in the van on the properties.

Eliza Sampey [00:06:00]:
So, yeah, I think, like, because of our nomadic lifestyle preference, we will always have the van to do that transition as, like, as slowly as we would like. Both of us hate rushing, and we like slow travel, and, you know, having the van just allows that. So.

Jerry Kopack [00:06:17]:
So it seems like bike packing just completely dovetails with your lifestyle, and you've been in some pretty incredible places. I'm just going to kind of ramble off a few. Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Peru, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and yeah, of course, all over the U.S. what drew you to this style of travel in the first place?

Eliza Sampey [00:06:39]:
It's kind of a natural progression from other ways of traveling through the backcountry. So I've been backpacking since I was 17 and backcountry ski touring long distance since I was about. About the same age, actually. And so I had the backcountry travel skills from those things. And then I've been mountain biking pretty seriously since I was 15. And so bike packing just seemed like a really easy natural way to combine, you know, the backcountry travel with. With mountain biking, which I love. And I tend to bike pack mostly on single track.

Eliza Sampey [00:07:13]:
Like, I. I'm not a big road tourer. I focus on single track routes and trails and, and, you know, different places around the world where not actual mountain bike infrastructure like there is here in the States. I find Cow trails, yak trails, you know, whatever, like person trails from cultures where people are still walking a lot. And so like bike packing just kind of came up for me when I was living in Guatemala back in 2015. And yeah, I love it. It's amazing.

Jerry Kopack [00:07:42]:
Yeah, you speak, you talk about like not having those established infrastructure trails, places like India and Nepal and Pakistan. I mean that just. Yeah, those routes must be amazing through there because it's all a lot of just foot travel. And you said like yak tracks, goat tracks, hike a bikes. I mean, I'm assuming you don't shy away from a good hike a bike, right?

Eliza Sampey [00:08:03]:
No, not at all. You kind of have to if you're a bike packer that rides trail.

Jerry Kopack [00:08:09]:
Yeah, that's, that's kind of my background as well. Was there, was there a first big adventure that just kind of solidified it for you that said like, yeah, this is, this is for me.

Eliza Sampey [00:08:20]:
Yeah. So when I was living In Guatemala in 2015, I, I was there actually to train for bike racing and to, to race the Central and South American season. I was racing professionally at that time. More multi day stage racing. I did get into bike pack racing later on, but more multi day stage racing at that point. And I met a man who also lived there. He was from the States, but he'd been living in Guatemala for a long time. He started a business there and he was a photographer and videographer.

Eliza Sampey [00:08:49]:
And we thought it would be fun to combine forces and do a project where we were going to bike pack mountaineer several volcanoes in Guatemala. And we wrote a feature article for Mountain Flyer magazine. For that project. He actually got the COVID shot which was me like standing on a volcano on my bike with another volcano in the background. And my first time bikepacking was like kind of in preparation for that trip. And you can't just buy like bikepacking gear in Guatemala. And so when I first started, I just like tied a bunch of stuff to my bike with like bailing twine. And then whatever I couldn't tie to my bike, I just threw in a big backpack and off we went.

Eliza Sampey [00:09:27]:
And so, you know, it was a pretty like, it was just, it was a very, very authentic and like easy start to bikepacking. It wasn't like, oh, what gear do I need? Do I need this special bike? I was like, no, I just have the bike that I have and I just am going to tie my gear to it and use a backpack, you know. So it was like a really simple way that I got into it. But that Trip, it was three weeks, and we were basically bike packing to the volcanoes and then up them as far as we could and then pushing our bikes the rest of the way up and then riding down. And it was. There were a lot of misadventures in there, but we did actually, for that trip, we ended up getting bags, frame bags and handlebar bags sewn by local Sasteria in Guatemala. And so we did have bags for that trip. But, yeah, that's.

Eliza Sampey [00:10:18]:
That's how it all started.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:19]:
Because think about all the people who have probably reached out to you over the years and said, hey, I want to get into bike packing, but I don't know where to start. I don't have the right bike. I don't have the right bags. I think that's just a great example, like what you said. Like, this is the bike I have, and I just use. You say bailing twine.

Eliza Sampey [00:10:35]:
Bailing twine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:10:38]:
So, I mean, talk about that. For people who are maybe a little bit cautious or hesitant to get into bike packing, like, what would you say?

Eliza Sampey [00:10:44]:
Yeah, I mean, just go. Like, you don't need any special stuff. You know, like, even if you just have a backpack, you can tie stuff to your bike with a wire like I did, or you can borrow some things from people. You know, I would say the best way to start is just a simple overnighter because you can literally just throw stuff into a backpack. Like, don't overthink it. You know, like, what do you need for one night? You know, ride your bike, stuff on your back, go camping, ride home, you know, like, that's the simplest way to get into it, I think. And, like, you know, obviously, eventually, especially if you want ride trail, you want to be able to spread out the weight onto your bike. And so, you know, bags are something that obviously I would recommend eventually.

Eliza Sampey [00:11:22]:
But you don't need all that stuff to start. Like, just throw stuff in a backpack and get on your bike and go pedal. And then camp.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:29]:
And then camp.

Eliza Sampey [00:11:30]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:30]:
Sleep, wake up and maybe do it again.

Eliza Sampey [00:11:33]:
Yeah, totally.

Jerry Kopack [00:11:34]:
Yeah. So you may remember this. I was planning a trip to Pakistan back in, I think, 2024, and I discovered a blog or something else that you had written about your travel. So I reached out to you, and you're super helpful. What drew you to Pakistan? You were really helpful. What drew you to Pakistan? And how was your experience?

Eliza Sampey [00:11:55]:
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. You know, I don't know what drew me there. It was super random. I feel like when I go places, it's not like, really for a reason. Usually. Sometimes it is, but usually it's just like this random, like, intuitive hit where I'm like, I'm going to go to Pakistan. What's that like, you know, like, that's a big trip.

Eliza Sampey [00:12:17]:
It was a huge trip. It was really logistically complex, as you know.

Jerry Kopack [00:12:20]:
Yeah.

Eliza Sampey [00:12:21]:
And I did it. I had a teammate who I was spending a lot of time with pack rafting at the time, or, you know, he's a kayaker, and we were doing a lot of river stuff and I had done already quite a few bike rafting, which is bike packing, pack rafting, combination trips.

Jerry Kopack [00:12:37]:
Yeah.

Eliza Sampey [00:12:38]:
And so this friend and I decided we wanted to do a trip together. And Pakistan just kind of was like, I don't even remember who thought if it was him or me, but it's just kind of this intuitive, like, oh, yeah, what about Pakistan? Like, how about that? We've never. Neither of us has been there. And so that's kind of how that came up. And yeah, that was. That was probably the most logistically complex trip because it was not just Pakistan, it was Pakistan, India and Nepal. And it was bike packing and pack rafting. And it was going to be three months.

Eliza Sampey [00:13:05]:
And so, you know, lots of visas, lots of route planning. I think we planned the route and I think we did everything in like, three months between deciding that's where we were going to actually getting on a plane. I want to say it was like three months.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:16]:
Okay.

Eliza Sampey [00:13:17]:
Yeah, I spent a lot of time with maps over that over those three months planning the route.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:22]:
Did you travel over land border crossings between those three countries?

Eliza Sampey [00:13:25]:
Yeah, yep. On bike did.

Jerry Kopack [00:13:27]:
Okay. How was that? Was that easy to. Easy to navigate?

Eliza Sampey [00:13:32]:
Yeah, it was fine. It was easy. It was really funny in Pakistan. Like, they were sad that we were leaving. Like, the people there, I'm sure, you know, they're like, so wonderful. They're so wonderful. Incredible hospitality. So kind.

Eliza Sampey [00:13:45]:
And we had been there for a little over a month, and we were originally planning to cross the border at Leh up in Kashmir. And the route that. That we drew initially, a lot of it kind of had to go out the window when we got on the ground because there was a lot of fighting on the Pakistan India border up in Kashmir at the time. And so we had to reroute and we couldn't cross the border up in the north at Leh. We needed to cross in the south in Lahore. And so, you know, we made our way down there after making our big loop in the north and paddling part of The Indus. And then, you know, we were crossing in Lahore. The people.

Eliza Sampey [00:14:25]:
The people at the Pakistani border, you know, the customs people, they were like, why are you moving? Did you like our country? You should come back. So friendly. It was so friendly. And then, you know, it was really a pretty wild cultural shift going into India because, you know, Pakistan is. Have you been to India?

Jerry Kopack [00:14:44]:
I have, yeah. I was up. I was in la and I went to Cargill and then into Spiti and Manali. So, yeah, really amazing, but different experience.

Eliza Sampey [00:14:54]:
Very different, yeah. And I think. I mean, maybe crossing in the mountains, it was different, but, like, crossing from Lahore to Amritsar, which is the city. Yep. Beautiful city. But, like, you know, Pakistan is just really quiet and, like, there's not a lot of people and it's, like, not a very crowded country. And then. And everybody's like.

Eliza Sampey [00:15:14]:
I feel like people are quieter and just calm and everything's peaceful. And then I get into Amritsar and everything's, you know, it's just nuts.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:22]:
And the horns.

Eliza Sampey [00:15:23]:
The horns. Oh, God, the horns. I'd block that. And it was just chaos. And it was just this, like, massive culture shock. That was pretty wild because I literally walked three steps right, like, across the border, and it was, like, vastly different experience.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:37]:
Yeah.

Eliza Sampey [00:15:38]:
And so that took me a minute to, like, just kind of recalibrate my nervous system for. For something that was a little bit more chaotic.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:47]:
Yeah, yeah.

Eliza Sampey [00:15:47]:
So that was wild. And then India to Nepal, I crossed it. Nepal. Ganj. Who'd been in Nepal? Ganges.

Jerry Kopack [00:15:53]:
I have. And you'll probably feel this, too. When I crossed from India to Nepal, it was the complete reverse. Like, it just went from chaos to, like, shh. There's no horns. It's just quiet, no people. Yeah.

Eliza Sampey [00:16:06]:
Like, I was in. I know. Yeah, exactly. So, like, what a strange experience, right?

Jerry Kopack [00:16:10]:
Yeah.

Eliza Sampey [00:16:12]:
India's chaos. And then Pakistan and Nepal are both very, like, quiet and so.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:16]:
But organized chaos in some way, right?

Eliza Sampey [00:16:18]:
For sure, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. And definitely. And, like, I mean, riding through the cities in India was kind of hilarious because, like, there are, like, people going everywhere and buses and cars and cows and yak carts. And, like, everybody's like, there's no flow to traffic, but yet there's every flow to traffic. It just works, you know? Like, do you. Did you ride through cities? Like, I remember being like, oh, my God, this is going to be terrifying. Like, look at all these.

Eliza Sampey [00:16:44]:
These entities in different vehicle types going every which way, but somehow it just works. You just make your way through and it's fine.

Jerry Kopack [00:16:50]:
It was like a video game and things are just coming you from every direction and every speed and there's sort of that, that understood hierarchy. Like there's the, the giant buses or military vehicles. They're sort of the highest on the pecking order. They just get into like regular trucks and then vehicles and then motorbikes and then, then pedestrians and then somehow down the way there's like cows and there's finally us, the people on the bicycles.

Eliza Sampey [00:17:14]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:15]:
And we're trying to navigate and negotiate around all these moving parts like it is.

Eliza Sampey [00:17:19]:
Oh my gosh. Wild, wild, wild experience.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:21]:
Did you ever do any, you never did any like, any road racing, like criterium racing?

Eliza Sampey [00:17:25]:
I did. Oh yeah, that was how I started actually in my mid-20s.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:28]:
So yeah. As a crit racer, like the close thing, I can sort of parallel to riding my bike in India and riding in a peloton, whipping around corners at 40 miles an hour in a tight pack of. In a criterium.

Eliza Sampey [00:17:41]:
Yeah. At least in a criterion, everyone's going in the same direction.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:44]:
Yeah, fair point, fair point.

Eliza Sampey [00:17:47]:
Yeah, for sure. I definitely feel like my, my criterium, like peloton navigational skills served me well in those situations.

Jerry Kopack [00:17:55]:
Yeah. And so, you know, we're obviously laughing about this because those trips that you did were amazing. But people don't always realize that there's some hard times, there's some dark days. Right. That's. It's not all rainbows and unicorns on these, on these big trips. Was there ever a time when you thought like, crap, how am I going to get through this one?

Eliza Sampey [00:18:14]:
You know, honestly, in India I got pneumonia because of all the smog. Oh, wow, that was really hard. Yeah. So, you know, like I said, we didn't intend to cross down low below the mountains. We intended to cross much further north and higher elevation and what was happening at the time, and I don't know if this was still the case in 2024, but when I went, which was 2019, what some, some Indian locals that we met at a bus station explained to us was that like they. There had been some change in the agricultural system where they were no longer using like people to harvest the fields. They had started using these machines and the machines were leaving all of this residue and then they were burning the residue and then the residue was getting into the air. And then because of the season it was, which it was winter, we were there in the winter.

Eliza Sampey [00:19:06]:
The winds were not coming down from the mountains to blow out all of this residue from the Fields. And so the. The air quality was absolutely horrible. And that was the first time in my life that I've actually ever had to deal with really bad air quality. I've had to with forest fires in the US since, but that was the first time that I was like, oh, my God, I can't breathe. And we actually ended up getting on a bus for part of. To get us out of the, kind of the main, like, corridor in India, in the. In the lowlands, because I got sick.

Eliza Sampey [00:19:38]:
I got pneumonia. And so we bussed up to the mountains, got back on the bikes, and then we rode up to Rishikesh, which is like, the yoga center of the world. And we kind of reasoned like, okay, we can get a hotel here. I can recover. My teammate was, like, a little sick as well. He didn't get as sick as I did, but I'm really sensitive to smoke. And so we were there for a full week, and I still was not recovering because there was even smog up in Rishikesh, which is up in the mountains. And so that was really challenging.

Eliza Sampey [00:20:09]:
And it was like. It was challenging for me personally, but it was also challenging because I kept thinking about the people who live there, and they deal with that every day and how do they even exist? And, like, I can just, like, snap my privileged fingers and fly away, right, if I wanted to. And we eventually ended up just saying, okay, let's. We need to get out of here and get over to Nepal and get back up in the mountains. We were planning on paddling the Sharda river, which is on the border of India and Nepal, and we weren't able to do that because I was so sick. And so we rode out of Rishikesh. We rode into Nepal, rode into Nepal. Ganj and I stayed in a hotel for another probably five days trying to get better.

Eliza Sampey [00:20:52]:
And that was really tough. That was the only time I may have gotten sick on tour before, for sure. Like, I've, like, been so sick, I've been, like, shitting my pants and didn't realize it, right? Like, poop running down my legs. And, you know, like, that's. That's something that I am no stranger to. And I did get. I got sick in Pakistan. I got sick, like, normal, right? But, like, this pneumonia thing from the smog, like, that was just really challenging and was definitely a tough thing to deal with.

Jerry Kopack [00:21:17]:
Did you go to see a. A provider while you were in India to get some antibiotics?

Eliza Sampey [00:21:24]:
No, I did. What did I do? I think I waited until I was in Nepal and Then I went to a pharmacy, because you can just do that like anywhere else in the world but here, right? And I think I just told the pharmacist what was going on. You know, I was like coughing and I don't remember if they spoke English. I kind of don't think. I think they did, but they looked at me and I looked like death and I was like coughing and, and everything. And so I did get something when I was there. I don't know what it is. I mean, seriously, Jerry, like, maybe you're the same, but the amount of like unknown drugs I have taken in other countries for medical situations is pretty wild.

Eliza Sampey [00:22:01]:
And so that was one of those situations where I took some weird drugs from a pharmacist that I don't really know what they were.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:07]:
So funny you bring that up, because I was in Madagascar and, and got giardia. And fortunately it was kind of at the tail end of my trip. So I was on my way back to the States and I went to my provider in the US and between my office visit, the lab work, the antibiotics, it was somewhere in the range of like 500 bucks. And I was like, well, I guess that's just what it costs. And then I. That crew, my system. And later on I made a trip to India and unfortunately it came back and my, my friend started calling it Gerry Ardia, which I think is kind of funny and clever. Yeah, I'm glad you like it too.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:44]:
But anyways, so I went to a provider in Manali, and between the office visits and the lab work and the antibiotics, it cost me less than $5.

Eliza Sampey [00:22:56]:
Oh, my word. Wow.

Jerry Kopack [00:22:57]:
Yeah. And so to your point, like, I went to another, another pharmacist along the way, and it's like, well, hey, if this comes back, I'm just gonna go buy a few more of these pills just to have my pockets. And that prescription was like 70 cents. It's. It's insane. So, yeah, I've taken some, which maybe is the reason why there's so many drug resistant things going around.

Eliza Sampey [00:23:20]:
Maybe it's the bike packers, right?

Jerry Kopack [00:23:24]:
So you keep, you keep talking about pack rafting. And for people who don't know what pack crafting is, let's, let's dig a little bit into that. What is pack rafting?

Eliza Sampey [00:23:32]:
Okay, what is pack rafting? So pack crafting can be a lot of things, but basically a pack raft is an inflatable kayak, but not, as you would think of an IK or a ducky. Those are pretty heavy. And you certainly cannot roll that up and put it in a backpack. And so pack rafts are ultra light even. So my whitewater boat, I think, is eight pounds and. Yeah. And so you can roll them up, you can put them in a backpack, you can put them on. So I, I replace the handlebar roll of my bike with my pack raft.

Eliza Sampey [00:24:04]:
And you can packraft in all types of ways. Right. So you can just use it for like river crossings to get from one side to the other, and that's a certain type of pac. And then you can use it for like, mountain lakes or like flat water rivers. That's another type of packraft. There are some packrafts that can carry heavier loads. And then there are whitewater pack rafts where you can actually run hard white water like people do in hardshell kayaks. And they're, they're very capable of running harder whitewater.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:30]:
So. So you said eight pounds.

Eliza Sampey [00:24:32]:
The whole world. Eight pounds is my whitewater boat.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:34]:
Yeah, I feel like people carry more than that. Say, biking through what, Tucson or in the desert there with just water.

Eliza Sampey [00:24:43]:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Last time I attempted the Arizona trail race, I had nine liters of water. A liter of water is like, what, two pounds? Basically. So yeah, for sure. Yeah. The packrafts are light.

Jerry Kopack [00:24:52]:
That's crazy. Today's episode is brought to you by bikeflights.com Bikeflights delivers everything you need to ship your bike, whether you're riding a bucket list tour, selling your bike online, or moving across the country. Bikeflights easy to pack bike boxes, carbon neutral shipping and pickup to delivery monitoring. Make it simple and save you up to 40%. Visit bikeflights.com warmshowerstoday to book a shipment for a limited time. Enter promo code warmshowers for 10% off your first shipment with bikeflights. Now back to the show. So you were in Puerto Rico, which sounds like an incredibly powerful and important trip.

Jerry Kopack [00:25:36]:
What made you decide to go there after the hurricane? Maria?

Eliza Sampey [00:25:39]:
Yeah, so that trip very much did have a purpose. It was not something where I was like, oh, I should go to Puerto Rico. So I had been to Puerto rico. Let's see, 2018, 2017, 16. So two years earlier, in 2016, after a big bike packing expedition in Peru, where I was just, I came out of that trip exhausted. It was basically like pretty gnarly bike packing for about two months. And I came out of that trip exhausted. And I was like, I just want to go somewhere and lay on a beach.

Eliza Sampey [00:26:05]:
And so I went to Puerto Rico and I Happened to meet two really incredible humans who have since become really good friends, both from Puerto Rico and just really loved my time there. I was there maybe a month and so fast forward two years, Hurricane Maria happens and the island is completely destroyed. And you know, I'm hearing these stories from my good friends that live down there. And one of my friends who lived down there, he. He's ex military, US Military. And he was spending a lot of time like really trying to help. Like he's. He was getting into the mountains, helping people, bringing food, and he was just telling me how hard things were down there.

Eliza Sampey [00:26:44]:
And you know, six months later, the people of Puerto Rico were still. A lot of them were without water and without power and without homes and without a place to sleep. And you know, I was hearing all of this from my friend and I just like, I really love Puerto Rico and I love the people. I love the place. Like it's a special place for what it gave to me when I really needed it two years earlier. And so, you know, I kind of decided like, I want to do something. And so what I ended up doing is, you know, at the time as a sponsored athlete and I had a platform for these types of things, these expeditions. And so I decided I would create an expedition style trip that was also like a humanitarian impact trip.

Eliza Sampey [00:27:24]:
And so I got some sponsors, I got a bunch of sponsors and just people to donate money that I literally gave out along the way to people. And then I had some companies donate some products, so I had them donate water filters. So Sawyer donated a bunch of water filters. They had them shipped in pallets to my friend's house in Isabela. This company called High Hopes Hammocks donated hammocks for people who had lost, you know, their home and their bed. And then Lucy donated a bunch of solar lights. And so like literally pallets upon pallets of solar lights and hammocks and water filters got delivered to my friend Nell's house in Isabella, which is in northern Puerto Rico. And so it got delivered there.

Eliza Sampey [00:28:04]:
And then I flew there on my bike or on my bike. I flew there with my bike, with some of these things also like stuffed into my bike box and got to San Juan. And fortunately I had connected with a warmshowers host, this guy named Steven in San Juan. And he picked me up from the airport and I stayed at his house. I put my bike together at his house, left my cardboard bike box at his house, and basically like staged everything there to do the circumnavigation of the island. And so that is. That's kind of why I went there. I'm also, like you said, I'm a physical therapist.

Eliza Sampey [00:28:40]:
And my friend, and now he had been doing some translation work for some American physicians that were coming down to see some people who had been affected by the hurricane. And so I had basically told him, hey, when I get to your house, because I was riding there, I would love to spend some time there with you. And we can deliver all of the supplies that I had sent down, and we can also go around and I can help people that need help with physical therapy. And I also helped with some translation. I ended up helping with some translation for some docs that were down there as well. So that's kind of why that trip came up.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:15]:
Wow, that is incredible. I have. I have goosebumps just sitting here listening to you tell me that story. How long were you there?

Eliza Sampey [00:29:22]:
I was there just over a month.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:24]:
Okay. So I'm just curious. I've spent time in a previous life. I used to work for an insurance company. And I had the opportunity to go down after Hurricane Katrina in 2004, I think, to New Orleans, and just see the absolute devastation that had hit that. That community. But the thing that really I took back from it, took away from it, was just the humanitarian efforts. Just the.

Jerry Kopack [00:29:52]:
The people who help their neighbors, they. They go into people's houses and help tear out drywall and tear out carpeting and just help them rebuild their homes. And it just. It gets. It just made me so happy to think in this place of absolute despair and devastation, this. The community just all pulled together. And I'm guessing Puerto Rico was very similar to that.

Eliza Sampey [00:30:13]:
It really was. And, you know, it's interesting. I've done a lot of trips in a lot of places, and when I went to Puerto Rico, my friends and family from the U.S. like, that was the most afraid they've ever been for me.

Jerry Kopack [00:30:25]:
Really?

Eliza Sampey [00:30:26]:
I think. Yeah, I think partially because I was solo, but also because they had just been through a disaster. And I remember a family member saying, like, they're going to be, like, pillaging and looting and they're going to take advantage of you and, like, they're going to rob you and rape you and all this stuff. And, like, people were really afraid for me going to Puerto Rico, and I was kind of taken aback because I had lived in Guatemala for a year, you know, or longer, actually. And, you know, I've been to Peru. I've been all over. I hadn't been to Pakistan yet. That scared them, too.

Eliza Sampey [00:30:55]:
But Puerto Rico was, like, the most scared that people were for me, I had random people sending me DMs, saying, like, don't go there. It's dangerous. But I went, and it was fine. It was more than fine. It was lovely. People were just incredible. And, you know, they were banding together to help each other, but they were also, like, so welcoming to me. And all, like, all of these people that I met along my travels, like, even the ones who had nothing, who had, you know, like, had parts of their homes destroyed and didn't have water or power, like, they wanted to take me in and feed me and, like, give me what, you know, share with me what little they had.

Eliza Sampey [00:31:32]:
And it was. Was. It was really wonderful to see.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:35]:
Wow. How is. How is everything going since then? Have you maintained contact with some of your contacts down there or some of your friends?

Eliza Sampey [00:31:43]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, things are definitely better. It's been six years now.

Jerry Kopack [00:31:48]:
Yeah.

Eliza Sampey [00:31:49]:
And, you know, in most places, they can drink the water again, but, you know, up in the mountains, like, there are still some areas that are still impacted by that, but they. I mean, they've mostly. They've mostly rebuilt, see, 2019, I want to say. So when I was there six months later, there wasn't really any tourism that was happening there at the time because it was still pretty devastated. But I want to say later that year, if I remember right, like, a lot of. A lot of places started trying to welcome tourists again and say, like, hey, like, we need you to come down and support our economy and support our people. And so, you know, I actually stayed. There was a family who owned a hotel, and I met them.

Eliza Sampey [00:32:33]:
This is a funny story. I met them on a beach because I was trying to launch my packraft with my bike on it in surf, which is very hard to do. And so I was, like. I was trying paddling out. I was trying swimming out, so I had my bike on my pack raft and all my gear in my pack raft. And I'm, like, trying to get all past these breakers, right? And I kept, like, hitting the breakers and then flipping over backwards and then getting washed back to shore, you know, And I'm just like. Like, it's hilarious. I'm wearing a bikini.

Eliza Sampey [00:32:59]:
It's warm. It's fine, you know, but I'm laughing, and, like, these people gather on the beach to, like, try to watch me do this. And one of the. One of the people I met there was this guy. This guy that owned this family that owned a couple of hotels. And so I ended up staying with them for the night and just talking with them about, like, all of the. Just everything, like, losing their livelihood, you know, it was really hard. But they were.

Eliza Sampey [00:33:25]:
They had this one section of hotel that was okay. And so they were really trying to, like, get that ready for people and, you know, try to welcome people back in. So I think they've recovered well, but it was. It was a rough go.

Jerry Kopack [00:33:37]:
Wow. And so back to your capsizing boat. All your stuff is strapped to your boat, your bike, your gear, all those things. Right. So how do you. How do you flip that back over?

Eliza Sampey [00:33:50]:
Well, okay, so with packrafts, there are. There's something called a T zip or a tie zip, and that is a compartment in the back where you unzip it and you actually store your things inside of your. The tubes of your boat. And so usually when I'm pack rafting or bike rafting, all of my gear is inside of the tubes of my boat. And so it stays dry. And you spread it out, like, through you. You load it evenly, obviously. And so when you flip, it's relatively easy.

Eliza Sampey [00:34:19]:
Even with a bike on the front, it's relatively easy to flip the boat back over.

Jerry Kopack [00:34:23]:
Okay.

Eliza Sampey [00:34:23]:
For this trip in Puerto Rico in particular, I had a very tiny pack raft, was maybe three pounds, and it rolled up to about the size of a roll of paper towels. And that one. Yes. Isn't that insane?

Jerry Kopack [00:34:35]:
Yes.

Eliza Sampey [00:34:35]:
It was so tiny. More than £4. It was less than £5. It was really tiny. And so that pack raft did not have the zip with the ability to store the things in the tubes. And so I did have all of my gear, like, tied to my boat, and it got a little wet. Fortunately, like, my sleep kit and everything I keep in dry bags, because I knew that. I knew that this was probably going to happen, that I was going to capsize at some point.

Eliza Sampey [00:34:59]:
And so, you know, it's all tied in. And so, like, rig to flip, Right? That's the whole thing. And so, like, because you're rigged to flip, like, flipping it back over is not that big of a deal, but you definitely have to be mindful of, like, how you're rigging. Especially with a bike, it's tempting to just, like, especially if you're not paddling white water, it's tempting to be like, oh, I'm just gonna set my bike on here and kind of loosely tie it on. But no, that's a terrible idea. Like, you need to really secure it, right? Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:24]:
I mean, it's like strapping the gear on your Bike. When you're bike packing on a really rugged trail, like if it's not really cinched down, things are going to rattle, lose, come, come off, break.

Eliza Sampey [00:35:34]:
Yeah, you're going to lose stuff. Yeah. So.

Jerry Kopack [00:35:38]:
So I want to pivot a little bit and talk about your professional background as it relates to cycling. So as a doctor and an athlete, do you have any tips or strategies for staying physically or mentally strong on these big trips?

Eliza Sampey [00:35:52]:
Yeah, for sure. That's something. You know, with my background as a pt, like I've, I've been able to keep myself really healthy on trips, aside from like getting the shits or getting pneumonia. But, but you know, injuries have been really low and like the biggest thing that I can say to people is like, try to like nip things in the butt before they really start getting bad. I am all about motor control and alignment. So distinction between strength and motor control. Right. So strength is our body's ability to do work or our muscles ability to produce a force and motor control is our brain's ability to tell a muscle when to fire.

Jerry Kopack [00:36:34]:
Got it.

Eliza Sampey [00:36:35]:
Does that make sense?

Jerry Kopack [00:36:35]:
Yeah.

Eliza Sampey [00:36:37]:
Yeah. So with motor control we can use the muscles in the ways that they need to be used and in the ways that they can be used most efficiently and most effectively for what we're doing in order to help prevent injuries and keep ourselves moving in good alignment. And so when you're on a bike, one of the. I'll give you two. So one of the two most important muscle groups in cycling is the glute muscles. Your butt. Right. And so a lot of people, including myself, like when you get tired, your lower, your leg alignment, your knee alignment specifically kind of starts to go out the window.

Eliza Sampey [00:37:12]:
Like if you are riding your bike and you're tired and you look down, you might see your knee kind of winging in a little bit at the top of the pedal stroke or maybe even bowing out. Right. And so over time, when we're riding for a long distance, these little micro misalignments can cause overuse, injuries and pain. And so what I teach people to do and what I do myself is I focus on engaging my glutes when I take a downstroke on the pedal. Because what that does is it, it saves us from overusing our quads. So a pedal stroke on the bike, a downstroke is knee extension and it's hip extension. And so the quads do knee extension. Right.

Eliza Sampey [00:37:52]:
And so all a lot of cyclists have these huge over developed quads, but a lot of times the quads will Take over. And the glutes will not do their job in doing the hip extension. And the glutes are a much bigger, more powerful muscle group. Make sense?

Jerry Kopack [00:38:04]:
It does. So is this a. It's a mental engagement, right?

Eliza Sampey [00:38:10]:
Yes, exactly. So engaging your glutes will help to not overuse your quads and strain your knees, and it'll also try. Help to keep your knee in better alignment. So it is a mental thing. So, like, if you are listening to this and you're sitting or whatever you're doing, try to engage your glutes, both of them. See how that feels. So you're tightening your butt muscles. See how it feels.

Eliza Sampey [00:38:29]:
And now try to engage only one glute at a time. So can you engage just your right glute without your left glute? Can you engage just your left glute without your right glute? Right, the glute. They're two different muscles. We don't have, like one glute. Right. We have two.

Jerry Kopack [00:38:45]:
I'm trying it right now.

Eliza Sampey [00:38:46]:
Yeah, yeah. And so being able to isolate your glute muscles will allow you to then, as you're pedaling, engage your glute as you push your pedal down for the downstroke. And that's going to help keep your knee in better alignment and keep you from overusing your quads. And so, like this, I mean, your glutes are going to work naturally a little bit, but a lot of us overuse our quads. And so if you're out on a bike tour and you're starting to have some knee pain, the best thing to do is really focus on engaging your glutes every time you take a downstroke stroke. So right stroke, right glute, left stroke, left glute, and on and on. Does that make sense?

Jerry Kopack [00:39:18]:
Does completely.

Eliza Sampey [00:39:19]:
Yeah. So that's. That's a big one that I use. I've used personally. It saved me in lots of different. Lots of ultra races, ultra bikepacking races. I am able to do bikepack races with really no pain and no ibuprofen because of usually that tip. And then the.

Eliza Sampey [00:39:33]:
The other thing is your lower abdominals, your lower core, the transversus abdominis muscle. So that muscle is the muscle that prevents a lot of crashes, a lot of downhill crashes. So it's the stabilizer of our entire body. So it's in our midsection. Right. And so if we can mentally, like, consciously engage that muscle while we're riding downhill, especially over technical terrain, that helps us to better move our bike Underneath us. And it allows us to have more mobility in our shoulders and our arms and in our legs. Legs, while keeping more stability in our core.

Eliza Sampey [00:40:10]:
And that can help keep us upright when we're riding on gnarly terrain.

Jerry Kopack [00:40:13]:
Right, like those yak tracks and goat pads and Himalayas.

Eliza Sampey [00:40:18]:
Right, exactly, exactly. Yeah. And so I can't even tell you how many times in my life that I've saved a crash from, like, you know, you're growing fast and you're. You rolling into a corner and you don't realize how tight that corner is. And if I just, like, engage those lower abdominals real tight and then make that move like that is just a very powerful move. And having that stability in the center will. Will save you. Right.

Eliza Sampey [00:40:40]:
It'll pull you right out of that corner. Same thing when going over technical patches. So I really like to use, like, motor control to prevent injuries both traumatic and overuse.

Jerry Kopack [00:40:51]:
Yeah, I love that. This has been a ton of fun. Liz, I am so glad you took time for me today. I gotta ask one last question, maybe two. After all these adventures, all these experiences, what's next? Is there. Is there a project or a destination or a new CH challenge? Outside of, of course, buying, Building a house?

Eliza Sampey [00:41:13]:
Yeah. You know, my partner and I have never done a big trip together. We've been together six years, and for most of our relationship, we have been taking care of geriatric dogs. My dog. My dog, who I had for 15 years, who traveled with me, lived in Guatemala with me. He passed away three years ago. And so for the first three years of our relationship, he was really old and needed a lot of support. And so, you know, it was either pretty much myself or my partner taking care of him when he got too old to be able to go to a dog sitter or anything.

Eliza Sampey [00:41:45]:
And now my partner's dog, who is 16, he is in that stage. And so for the entire six years we've been together. And, you know, it's a privilege, right, to be able to take care of our dogs at the end of their life because they've provided so much for us, you know, and we, like, it's. It's a wonderful and it's a beautiful thing, and we love doing it. And also, like, we've been bike packing once together, and it was two nights. We have done a ski, mountaineering, pack, rafting trip together, and that was, I think, four nights. That's the longest trip we've ever done together. And so we have talked about once, once our current dog passes away and when we're at a good stopping point for our house, whether that's in the middle or at the end.

Eliza Sampey [00:42:23]:
We would like to do a bike packing, pack, rafting trip together that will probably be somewhere in South America, either Chile or Colombia. The rivers are great. Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:33]:
Got it. Yeah. I can say from experience, I did a month in the northern part of India with my partner, and then a couple years later, that trip in Pakistan with my partner. And it's amazing. Traveling solo is one thing. Traveling with somebody is something completely different. Not better or worse, just different. But it's really special to be able to share those experiences with somebody.

Jerry Kopack [00:42:55]:
So I'm excited for your trip.

Eliza Sampey [00:42:59]:
Yeah, thank you. Me too. It'll be a few years in the future, I think, but yeah, we're. We're stoked.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:04]:
Well, cool. Liz, thanks so much for taking time with me.

Eliza Sampey [00:43:08]:
Yeah.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:08]:
How can our listeners find out more about what you're doing, your travels, the how your dog's doing, the state of your. Your house, or just where you're going to be paddling?

Eliza Sampey [00:43:17]:
Yeah. So Instagram is probably the best place, and that's at elizasampi. That's E L, I Z A S A M, P, E Y. That's the best place to follow adventure. I also have a website which is elizasampi.com, spelled the same way, obviously, and that is more focused on my work as a physical therapist, concussion specialist, and performance coach. So if you're interested in that, you can check out that or Adventures on Instagram.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:40]:
Yeah, we will definitely have those links posted in our show notes. People can find you.

Eliza Sampey [00:43:45]:
Awesome. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Thanks for the conversation.

Jerry Kopack [00:43:48]:
All right. Hey, everybody. You've been listening to my conversation today with Dr. Liz Sampson. If you enjoy our show, give us a like a share on our social channels or maybe just tell your friends. These stories hopefully will inspire you to set off on your own bicycle adventure and maybe make the world feel a little bit smaller, one pedal stroke at a time. Until then, keep the wheels rolling and the story's coming. Thanks for joining us on Bike Life.

Jerry Kopack [00:44:11]:
I'm Jerry Kopak, and I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you. Please leave, 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 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.